Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vanta comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Vanta are focused on cloud security and compliance management. Microsoft Defender for Cloud leads in security features due to its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, whereas Vanta excels in compliance automation and audit readiness reporting capabilities.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers robust threat detection, endpoint protection, and seamless Azure integration. Vanta provides automated compliance evidence collection, intuitive reporting tools, and a tailored approach to streamlining audit processes. While Microsoft makes strides in threat protection, Vanta emphasizes compliance.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could benefit from enhancing its user interface for non-Microsoft environments, improving multi-cloud support, and offering more customizable reporting options. Vanta might improve by expanding its security features, providing deeper insights into security metrics, and enhancing integration with more cloud services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rapidly deployed in Microsoft environments, benefiting enterprises already using Microsoft solutions. Vanta offers straightforward deployment with strong customer support, aiding businesses through compliance with personalized assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is cost-effective when bundled with Microsoft services, offering substantial ROI through its extensive security capabilities. Vanta's pricing corresponds to its specialized compliance solutions, providing efficiency improvements that justify the cost in meeting standards. Microsoft provides better returns on security investments, while Vanta focuses on compliance efficiencies.

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

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta

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Helped 864,155 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 Compliance Management

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

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

Vanta

Ranking in Compliance Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compliance Consulting (1st), Data Governance (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Compliance Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 17.6%, up from 14.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vanta is 11.3%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Compliance Management

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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Anupam Dutta

Team Lead- Sr. Linux administrator-Kubernetes-DevOps at ExpressRCM

Helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, but the customer support needs improvement

It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop. We use JEM Cloud, which is a SaaS solution, and sometimes it experiences access issues. With Vanta, we can work on resolving these issues and ensuring policy compliance. Vanta also helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, which are essential for our documentation and communication requirements, ultimately ensuring enterprise software policy compliance. In my role, which primarily involves IT responsibilities, I often deal with various policies. There are instances where specific policies, especially those related to quality, may not be implemented correctly. This primarily occurs with mainframes and devices owned by particular users. In such cases, Vanta helps us enable these policies on the devices and assign them to the relevant users. It also highlights when certain policies, such as version 86.x, are not assigned through SAP. Vanta provides guidance on configuring and mitigating these issues. Additionally, it helps us with GitHub account provisioning and deprovisioning, as well as managing GitHub and Google Workspace Flex. We also use the 1Password password manager, which Vanta assists in overseeing.

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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

"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."

"The integration with Logic Apps allows for automated responses to incidents."

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

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has definitely helped us manage and secure our multi-cloud environment by providing ease of use."

"Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."

"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."

"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I have found most valuable is the alerts, which are pretty standard for security."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The product has provided automated security controls for our cloud provider. It helps to automate security checks. Vanta offers a list of things that can be done to achieve ISO 27001 compliance."

"It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop."

"They integrate into New Relic as a performance monitoring tool."

"The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks."

"Task management and vendor assurance are the most valuable features. It is also an easy tool to use."

"The most valuable feature of Vanta would be the time savings from the automation and the continuous compliance monitoring once set up."

Cons

"The cost is always a concern, but overall, it's not too bad because it is easy to use and pretty friendly."

"The product must improve its UI."

"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."

"If a customer is already using Okta as an SSO in its entire environment, they will want to continue with it. But Security Center doesn't understand that and keeps making recommendations. It would help if it let us resolve a recommendation, even if it is not implemented."

"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."

"The documentation could be much clearer."

"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"The main area for improvement in Vanta is the user interface's refresh rate."

"Scalability could be improved."

"They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, however, the outline is a little sketchy."

"Some of the tool's automated tests do not work the way it should."

"There is a delay with customer support and they are unsure of the answers we need."

"Currently, Vanta's user access review module is still in development, and we've been giving them continuous feedback to help them improve that."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."

"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."

"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."

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

"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."

"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."

"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Vanta is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

University

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

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

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

The pricing is pretty standard.

What do you like most about Vanta?

The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks.

What needs improvement with Vanta?

Every product has a lot of areas to improve. They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, for example, however, the outline is a little sketchy. The system description has to hav...

What is your primary use case for Vanta?

We're trying to get SOC 2 compliance, and we're trying to get HIPAA compliance.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Compliance Management

Download Vanta 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

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

Vanta helps companies scale security practices and automate compliance for the industry’s most sought after standards - SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and CCPA.

Sample Customers

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

Care Directives, Shortcut , Nayya, Heizenrader, Treasury Prime

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta