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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Xops comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), 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), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
Xops
Ranking in Compliance Management
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Cost Management (25th), AI Security (125th)
 

Featured Reviews

RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.
SS
CEO at Rexha Technologies
User interface needs refinement while providing robust security and cost management
Xops helps me with cloud finance management by allowing me to monitor my spending, and just a couple of months ago, I noticed that my AWS bill, which usually hovers around 50k monthly, spiked unexpectedly. I received an alert on the dashboard and via email about a sudden increase in usage, enabling me to rectify the actual problem and bring things back to normal. The best features of Xops, in my experience, include the FinOps component for checking unnecessary spending trends, the cloud security features, and the cybersecurity and workload security features that allow me to frequently check for vulnerabilities on images and websites. The cloud security feature of Xops stands out to me because it helps maintain compliance status by providing multiple compliance checks, including ISO and CIS benchmarks, and it is not limited to AWS, as it also includes Azure cloud scans and O365 cloud scans, allowing me to monitor security across various platforms. Other useful features of Xops include asset management tools and automation scripts, which help me check what assets I have across all regions, giving me a global view whenever I need it. Xops has positively impacted my organization by enabling me to save money and proactively detect issues, especially related to cloud spending, while also improving my routine security checks for any misconfigurations. While some metrics are difficult to quantify, I regularly run scans to catch security vulnerabilities that may arise due to changing user settings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In summary, if you would like to work with a product that addresses security in the cloud, or in a multi-cloud environment then this is exactly the product."
"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."
"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."
"The dashboard is very good; it gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system, with everything visible in one glance."
"It improves the transparency and visibility of the traffic in and out of the network of each workload on my system."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"Xops helped us mitigate the frequent external attacks that we have been trying to curb for a long time now, and more importantly, it helps with an easy-to-understand dashboard where I can monitor the services in use, optimizations, and ultimately the costs."
"Xops has positively impacted my organization by enabling me to save money and proactively detect issues, especially related to cloud spending, while also improving my routine security checks for any misconfigurations."
"X-Ops has significantly improved our organization by streamlining cloud cost governance and enhancing the security posture across our AWS trading environment."
"The automated compliance monitoring reduced our manual security audits by 60%, allowing our team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than repetitive checks."
"The AWS cost optimization features have been game-changing - particularly the automated detection of idle EC2 instances and unattached EBS volumes that were silently draining our budget."
"X-Ops has significantly improved our organization by streamlining cloud cost governance and enhancing the security posture across our AWS trading environment."
"Xops has positively impacted my organization by enabling me to save money and proactively detect issues, especially related to cloud spending, while also improving my routine security checks for any misconfigurations."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution include the Cloud FinOps Dashboards and the vulnerability scans."
 

Cons

"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than for instance, CrowdStrike, which my current company uses."
"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."
"The amount billed for the amount of terabytes you're scanning is too high and will lead into security risks if somebody is limiting the amount of data to be scanned based on the cost, so this is something I would prefer to be changed."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
"My experience with Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been largely negative due to a poor user experience."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server."
"While Xops delivers on core functionality, the platform could benefit from more mature AI models for anomaly detection."
"I chose four out of five because I believe more UI enhancements and a cleaner UX navigation could elevate it to a perfect five."
"I do not have notes for improvements."
"While Xops delivers on core functionality, the platform could benefit from more mature AI models for anomaly detection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Construction Company
45%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
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 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...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Xops?
I recommend ensuring you fully understand the pricing tiers and the features included at each level. You should evaluate it based on your actual cloud usage and security needs. X-Ops offers strong ...
What needs improvement with Xops?
I would like to see built-in anomaly detection for trading patterns using machine learning. It would also be helpful to have customizable dashboards for each business unit. Native support for cross...
What is your primary use case for Xops?
I use X-Ops to monitor and optimize AWS infrastructure costs for our trading workloads. It helps me ensure continuous security compliance and real-time threat detection. Additionally, I automate de...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Xops and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.