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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vicarius vRx comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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) (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
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), Compliance Management (5th)
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 (7th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.8%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.7%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vicarius vRx is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
OrenBen Shalom - PeerSpot reviewer
Consolidates vulnerability discovery, prioritization, and remediation in a single platform
Vicarius vRx offers several advantages, especially for organizations with diverse operating systems and applications requiring frequent patching. The platform helps prioritize patch installation by identifying high-risk vulnerabilities, allowing IT teams to focus on critical threats first. This prioritization is crucial because it prevents IT teams from being overwhelmed by the constant influx of patches, enabling them to create a manageable plan and allocate resources effectively. By distinguishing between critical, high-risk, and medium-risk vulnerabilities, Vicarius vRx empowers IT teams to address the most urgent threats promptly and schedule less critical patches for later. Both native operating system updates and Vicarius vRx offer vulnerability remediation. Native OS updates allow for the patching of system vulnerabilities on Windows, macOS, and Linux. However, Vicarius vRx provides a single solution for installing both operating system and application updates by also discovering application vulnerabilities. Another valuable feature is virtual patching, which allows us to protect an asset from a specific vulnerability without installing a patch. Sometimes, installing a patch alone is insufficient and requires restarting the asset. However, production servers often cannot be restarted during the day, restricting restarts to specific timeslots. Virtual patching creates a network-based protection layer that prevents exploitation of a vulnerability, offering a temporary safeguard. While not a foolproof solution for long-term use, it's a valuable tool that reduces tension between IT and security teams by providing time to properly install patches.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"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 are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"The first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites."
"The solution is up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved our security poster by at least 100 percent."
"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has made our environment more secure."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"Defender for Cloud has improved our security posture."
"Vicarius vRx's automation feature is its most valuable, allowing us to automate manual tasks, receive automated reports, and easily check device update status."
"Vicarius vRx has reduced 70% of the time we spend on patching."
"While other vulnerability scanners overwhelm us with a huge list of problems after a scan, Vicarius vRx goes beyond that."
"I liked the initial dashboard."
"The prioritization of the vulnerabilities and patches that we must apply immediately is valuable. The automation of the tasks allows us to spend less time in that area."
"The strongest advantage of Vicarius vRx is its intuitive interface, which requires minimal explanation or support, even for first-time users."
"Vicarius vRx consolidates vulnerability discovery, prioritization, and remediation in a single platform."
"We can easily deploy patches for third-party applications. It automatically downloads the patches for you. You do not have to download them, upload them to the solution, and configure your own scripts or anything like that. It is all automatic."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"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."
"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."
"An area where Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved is in getting away from having multiple menus that do the same thing, which seems imposing when looking at it."
"You cannot create custom use cases."
"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."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"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."
"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"The cost is always a concern, but overall, it's not too bad because it is easy to use and pretty friendly."
"The user interface for deploying patches can be improved, as it appears complicated when launching patches."
"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."
"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."
"Another complaint we've gotten is that the portal doesn't remember your username and password. You tell them your email, and it sends an invitation. You need to click that, and it takes you to a new portal, where you can finally log in. Maybe it's a security precaution, but it seems like a lot of extra steps to log in."
"While I appreciate the automation of vulnerability management, Vicarius vRx's current manual patchless application is a point for improvement."
"We had an outage due to a change Vicarius performed in their system."
"We are now in the process of trying to get our money back because the tool does not work."
"I would like to see a way to build a virtual environment where we can test patches in real-time before we deploy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"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."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"The pricing was very reasonable and fair compared to other products. I liked that there was no tiered system. One price gave access to everything, which is nice. It is not something you get too often with enterprise IT."
"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 vRx is reasonably priced."
"From a pricing perspective, Vicarius was cheaper compared to other competitors."
"The pricing is fair."
"It is in the middle. It is not the cheapest solution, but it is also not terribly expensive. We found it to be a good fit. It is fairly priced."
"Vicarius vRx's per-asset pricing makes it easy for me to market to clients as it scales with their needs."
"I am not sure how much it costs, but it would have saved us some costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Media Company
10%
Non Profit
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
The current pricing of Zafran Security is fair overall. They were good to work with to accommodate our organization w...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvement...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
Zafran Security is helping reduce the amount of critical vulnerabilities in our environments that require prompt reme...
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 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 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: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.