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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vicarius vRx comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (7th), Container Security (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)
Vicarius vRx
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Patch Management (5th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 3.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vicarius vRx is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud3.9%
Vicarius vRx0.9%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other94.1%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
David Birhange - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2514510 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Has a lot of backend issues and doesn't work the way we thought it would
We did some automation. We kicked off scheduled updates to update our systems, but it did not work. When we attempted to scale the product and update multiple systems, we ran into a lot of issues. We also ran into the issue of it creating double assets. I am not sure how that happened, but it was a mess and still is a mess. That is where we are. They should probably go back to the drawing board and make sure that they can patch Linux. In our environment, we are 99% Linux. They may need to build their own lab and have a lot of Linux devices. They can have old different Linux systems and 50 or 60 of them and attempt to do an update in their own lab and see what happens. I am still not sure if that would give them a true test because we have systems here with Docker containerization and all kinds of things on it. They will have to mimic what some of these environments will look like. I am pretty sure that the tool works great when it comes to Windows, but when you are in an environment that has different flavors of Linux at different version levels, that may pose an issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
"The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I like the most are the regulatory compliance capabilities; these features have benefited my organization by improving our overall security posture."
"It alerts us to our vulnerabilities and ensures compliance by marking off a compliance tool checklist."
"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."
"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"There is no better tool found to protect workloads in Azure than Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"I liked the initial dashboard."
"Vicarius vRx offers several advantages, especially for organizations with diverse operating systems and applications requiring frequent patching."
"Vicarius vRx has reduced 70% of the time we spend on patching."
"The strongest advantage of Vicarius vRx is its intuitive interface, which requires minimal explanation or support, even for first-time users."
"The system prioritizes vulnerabilities, identifying high, medium, and low risks, allowing us to focus on high-risk applications. It allows us to focus on high-risk applications and do the updates."
"Vicarius vRx has reduced meantime to remediate by 90 percent."
"Vicarius vRx consolidates vulnerability discovery, prioritization, and remediation in a single platform."
"vRx seemed to be user-friendly and very easy to use."
 

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"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."
"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"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."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"We had an outage due to a change Vicarius performed in their system."
"The network device vulnerability scans can be improved. It would be helpful to be able to mitigate those vulnerabilities using SSH or SNMP to get those those updates out to those devices. I don't know if that is possible because it doesn't run an agent. But at the very least, having that CPE information relative to network devices would be incredibly helpful."
"It would be beneficial if Vicarius vRx could implement smart tagging or suggest tags to create a group for these development tools, signifying that they should not be regularly updated."
"Unlike previous vulnerability management systems that relied on network scanning appliances to discover and assess endpoints, Vicarius' agent-based approach is less effective for devices like switches, routers, and printers where agent installation is impractical."
"Vicarius vRx's application management capabilities could be improved by allowing users to manage and uninstall applications directly within the GUI, eliminating the need for scripting and streamlining the process."
"They do have a search function for device names. They already have a list of all our devices, however, if I'm looking for something, sometimes the name does not come up at the top of the list."
"I don't like logging in. The portal could be a better process. You could use some third-party push notification rather than sending an email, waiting for the link to generate, and clicking on it. That would be good. It's somewhat frustrating when I need to log in."
"I would like to see more network architecture elements with patches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"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."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."
"Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."
"I am not sure how much it costs, but it would have saved us some costs."
"I know we got it for a very cheap price, and I now see why. It was very cheap. It was maybe 12,000 or 14,000 dollars."
"The pricing is fair."
"Vicarius vRx offers a competitive price point for the features it provides."
"In the past, Vicarius vRx was cheap, but now they have adjusted their pricing policy, resulting in higher renewal costs. We have had some conversations with them regarding a smaller jump in the renewal cost."
"Vicarius' pricing was reasonable compared to the other systems we evaluated."
"The pricing is great because we are a reseller of the product. It is really up to us and Vicarius, and they are very easy to work with."
"I do not use other solutions, so I cannot compare its pricing to others, but its price seems okay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Media Company
9%
Non Profit
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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 acros...
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...
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 Ze...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vicarius vRx?
I do not use other solutions, so I cannot compare its pricing to others, but its price seems okay.
What needs improvement with Vicarius vRx?
I would be happy if the patch update could be downloaded to the Vicarius server and then implemented on the client. C...
What is your primary use case for Vicarius vRx?
We use Vicarius vRx to manage all third-party software updates. Previously, we could manage Windows updates, but thir...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vicarius vRx and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.