Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Trivy comparison

Microsoft and Aqua Security are both solutions in the Container Security category. Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Aqua Security is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.6. Microsoft holds a 6.6% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Aqua Security’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Aqua Security users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 79 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

19,685 Views
6,496 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Trivy

Read 12 Trivy reviews

4,773 Views
4,773 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Trivy

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Trivy both operate within the cloud security domain. Microsoft Defender for Cloud seems to have the upper hand in offering a comprehensive security suite and integration across multiple cloud environments while Trivy excels in integration with CI/CD pipelines and open-source functionalities.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers features like regulatory compliance, AI-driven threat detection, and a detailed security posture overview across workloads. Trivy integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines, supports scanning for vulnerabilities in Kubernetes and Docker images, and offers open-source access for flexibility.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud users suggest the inclusion of more detailed procedural guidelines and faster data representation. Additionally, enhanced AI capabilities would be beneficial. Trivy lacks a user interface and real-time runtime scanning. It could improve with better reporting, reducing false positives through contextual analysis, and expanded integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is typically deployed in public and hybrid cloud environments, receiving mixed reviews for customer service with reports of delays. Trivy is straightforward to use in both cloud and on-premises environments, minimizing dependency on customer service due to its open-source nature.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud has complex pricing, often bundled with other services, offering strong ROI through comprehensive coverage, but is seen as pricey. Trivy, being open-source, is cost-effective and preferred for its free access and community support, which appeals to budget-conscious users.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

September 2025

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Helped 873,085 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Container Security

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)

Trivy

Ranking in Container Security

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.6%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trivy is 6.1%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Trivy	6.1%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	6.6%
Other	87.3%

Container Security

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps

Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

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Utsav Sharma

Senior Security Consultant at Ernst & Young

Maintain operational efficiency by detecting misconfigurations and vulnerabilities

The vulnerability scanning feature is excellent as it supports various container capabilities like Docker and Sharma. It also offers repository scanning in the source code domain, allowing pre-push code scans. The misconfiguration detection works well for CloudFormation, Docker files, and Terraform. Its compliance support, like NIST, ensures that configurations align with standards. Trivy helps me significantly detect misconfigurations missed by the ops engineers or in Terraform by the naked eye. It ensures that my deployments are free of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."

"The pricing is good."

"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."

"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."

"The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST. Alert management is another useful feature. Alerts are directly integrated with our email or DevOps board for easy viewing, allowing us to identify problem areas efficiently."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can find potential phishing links and malicious code in data at rest."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"I appreciate Trivy for being open-source and not requiring any payment."

"Trivy is easy to integrate with CI/CD and can be installed on desktops to scan images."

"Overall, I would rate Trivy a ten out of ten."

"Trivy's ability to scan files, images, GitHub repositories, Infrastructure as Code like Terraform, and Kubernetes is valuable."

"Trivy is very reliable and always has an up-to-date database to scan images and identify vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable feature of Trivy is its easy integration with the CI/CD pipeline."

"Trivy is particularly useful for checking if Docker images have critical vulnerabilities before they reach production."

More Trivy pros

Cons

"Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though."

"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."

"The vulnerabilities are duplicated many times."

"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."

"There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place."

"The customer service at Microsoft has room for improvement. The first line of support is not technically adept and often requires engaging higher-level technicians to resolve issues."

"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."

"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"The only problem is that Trivy does not support reporting features such as generating reports in CSV, which is useful for auditing and reporting."

"Trivy is not scalable; however, I have scanned very large projects with it. It is stable but not scalable according to my experience."

"Trivy can improve by providing an output in PDF format. Additionally, it takes longer to scan container images built with many layers."

"Having little experience can hinder the ability to connect it to a user-friendly UI effectively."

"The reporting could be a little better. When integrating Trivy with CI, the interpretation of the reports could be improved."

"Trivy can improve by providing an output in PDF format."

"Trivy generates many false positives, flagging non-existent vulnerabilities."

"A dynamic scanning capability during runtime would be a significant advantage."

More Trivy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."

"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."

"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."

"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."

"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."

"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	45

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?

Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The pricing is pretty standard.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Trivy?

Trivy's marketing and awareness need improvement. Not everyone knows about it, which isn't ideal given its capabilities. There's potential to integrate AI and machine learning for enhanced function...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Trivy?

I use Trivy ( /products/trivy-reviews ) to scan code for vulnerabilities before deployment. Our projects, which are developed by different developers, involve various dependencies and third-party c...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Trivy?

I recommend Trivy to others due to its powerful and useful features. However, I suggest increasing its marketing to raise awareness. I rate Trivy an eight out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 33% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 1% of the time

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Snyk vs Trivy

Compared 19% of the time

JFrog Xray vs Trivy

Compared 18% of the time

Kubescape vs Trivy

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Trivy

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Trivy

Compared 4% of the time

More Trivy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

October 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Trivy

October 2025

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Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

Aqua Security

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft

Trivy offers comprehensive scanning for files, images, repositories, and infrastructure. It's open-source and integrates with CI/CD for vulnerability detection and security enhancement.

Trivy scans vulnerabilities in code, Docker images, containers, and infrastructure. It integrates seamlessly into DevOps pipelines, ensuring security in dependency management and open source vulnerabilities. This tool, lightweight and open-source, provides user-friendly reports and supports continuous vulnerability database updates, fostering ease of use across operating systems. Users benefit from its scanning capabilities, covering Kubernetes, AWS credentials, and GCP service accounts, effectively identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

What are Trivy's key features?

Comprehensive Scanning: Covers files, images, repositories, infrastructure, and sensitive data.
CI/CD Integration: Easily integrates into existing pipelines for seamless security checks.
Open-Source & Lightweight: Quick setup and fast scanning capabilities ensure rapid deployment.
Continuously Updated Database: Keeps vulnerability data current for effective threat detection.
User-Friendly Reports: Generates understandable and actionable security insights.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Enhanced Security: Provides in-depth analysis of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
Ease of Use: Designed for straightforward implementation and user interaction.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting industry security standards and regulations.
Cross-Platform Use: Effective across different operating systems, enabling wide scalability.

In industries like technology and finance, Trivy is used extensively to secure applications, perform compliance checks, and offer security metrics visualization. It addresses microservices, container systems, and Kubernetes clusters security requirements, supporting DevOps teams and enhancing codebase analysis precision.

Aqua Security

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

September 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

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