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 6.5% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Aqua Security’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 93% 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 87 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

19,404 Views
6,403 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Trivy

Read 12 Trivy reviews

4,954 Views
4,954 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

December 2025

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Helped 879,310 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

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (6th), 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) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), 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 December 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.5%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trivy is 5.9%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Trivy	5.9%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	6.5%
Other	87.6%

Container Security

Featured Reviews

David Birhange

Director, Cloud and Modern Workplace at Informanix Technology Group

Brings together cloud security insights through a unified view and supports agentless protection for virtual machines

Copilot and similar features are already being used, though not necessarily for Microsoft Defender for Cloud specifically. We are trying to get more experience before rolling out most of Microsoft Defender for Cloud's AI capabilities. This is definitely on our to-do list, and the priority is urgent as we seek to learn more about these capabilities. The GenAI threat protection from Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not been enabled yet. There are many unknowns with AI applications. AI agents will operate while you're not present, whether you are sleeping or awake, and it's unclear whether there would be any exfiltration of data or how data is being managed. Microsoft Purview is being used extensively, and there is significant development going on with DSPM that will be rolled out to address security concerns. Data labeling and proper demarcation for sensitivity of data before it is received are being actively pursued.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can create alerts that trigger if there is any malicious activity happening in the workflow and these alerts can be retrieved using the query language."

"I find Microsoft Defender for Cloud's KQL very flexible and powerful. It's really easy to search through with KQL queries to find the security breaches and incidents and to track down the breach itself."

"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I appreciate most is the ability to view logs of applications, as I find it much clearer to understand what is running."

"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."

"I've seen benefits since implementing Microsoft Defender for Cloud. It's easy to manage for our large organization as an endpoint security solution. It integrates well with Office 365 and Windows 11, which is better than before. Patching, updates, and threat protection are all handled together now. Its AI features help predict threats."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitors our entire cloud environment. It enables conditional access and incorporates features like number matching and single sign-on for all our cloud apps. It is great for protecting against ransomware and various security threats."

"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."

"Our main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Cloud involve scanning PCs."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

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

"One of the great features of Trivy is that it helps me scan items such as AWS credentials and GCP service accounts."

"It's customizable, allowing me to add any rules and format HTML templates as I wish."

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

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

"I rate Trivy a nine out of ten."

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

"What I find valuable is the ease of setup with Trivy, including pre-defined operators that require minimal configuration."

More Trivy pros

Cons

"Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time."

"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."

"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."

"The documentation could be much clearer."

"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."

"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."

"Although Microsoft Defender for Cloud is based on security, I wish it went beyond providing assessments, reports, and generic steps. More detailed procedures would be helpful, especially for lower-level support staff."

"The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Currently, the container image scanning is static. A dynamic scanning capability during runtime would be a significant advantage."

"Trivy generates many false positives, flagging non-existent vulnerabilities. Improvements could include better contextual analysis or granular filtering."

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

"In our CI/CD pipelines, Trivy lacks built-in functionality for report analysis."

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

"For malware detection, I need to use two tools: Trivy as my anomaly scanner and ClamAV. I am integrating these two tools into the CI pipeline. If both malware and anomaly detection could be managed by one tool, I would not need to depend on two tools. That would be my suggestion."

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

"The main area for improvement is in differentiating between OS and application-based vulnerabilities."

More Trivy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."

"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."

"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."

"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."

"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."

"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."

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

"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."

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

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	49

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

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud was pretty straightforward. We did have a consultation with a third party to go over different tiers and produ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be improved. An additional feature that should be included in the next release is Zero Trust, similar to ThreatLocker software.

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 37% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

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JFrog Xray vs Trivy

Compared 18% of the time

Snyk vs Trivy

Compared 17% of the time

Kubescape vs Trivy

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Trivy

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Trivy

Compared 3% of the time

More Trivy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

December 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Trivy

December 2025

Download Trivy product report

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

December 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

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