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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.0
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security boosts efficiency by improving visibility, reducing costs, and decreasing time for threat detection and resolution.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Cloud boosts security and efficiency, integrates with Azure, reduces costs, prevents breaches, and offers proactive defense.
Sentiment score
7.1
The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform enhances ROI and satisfaction by improving visibility, security, and cost-effectiveness over previous setups.
The detailed information PingSafe gives about how to fix vulnerabilities reduces the time spent on remediation by about 70 to 80 percent.
After implementing SentinelOne, it takes about five to seven minutes.
The solution has provided improvement in productivity and the time spent on issues.
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
The biggest return on investment is the rapid improvement of security posture.
We don't have to purchase many components such as load balancers and proxy servers that were necessary in traditional setups.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's customer support is highly rated for responsiveness and effective issue resolution, ensuring smooth collaboration.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support is responsive at higher levels, but experiences vary with mixed satisfaction due to delays.
Sentiment score
4.8
Zscaler's customer support is generally good but inconsistent, with varied user experiences and ratings from four to ten.
When we send an email, they respond quickly and proactively provide solutions.
They took direct responsibility for the system and could solve queries quickly.
Having a reliable team ready and willing to assist with any issues is essential.
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
The support team was very responsive to queries.
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
Sometimes, support takes time since the solution has some bugs that need fixing.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security excels in scalability, smoothly integrating accounts and auto-scaling, despite separate account management challenges.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, integrating across environments effortlessly, suitable for all enterprise sizes with flexible performance.
Sentiment score
7.7
Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange Platform is highly scalable, integrating seamlessly with systems and accommodating varying user needs effortlessly.
I would rate it a 10 out of 10 for scalability.
Scalability is no longer a concern because Cloud Native Security is a fully cloud-based resource.
I would rate the scalability of PingSafe 10 out of 10.
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
It has multiple licenses and features, covering infrastructures from a hundred to five hundred virtual machines, without any issues.
Defender won't replace our endpoint XDR, but it will likely adapt and support any growth in the Microsoft Cloud space.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is highly stable but experiences minor UI glitches and occasional agent-related issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, with minimal issues mainly during updates, ensuring strong user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.8
Users rate Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange highly for stability, citing minimal downtime and suggesting occasional improvements for certain areas.
Singularity Cloud Workload Security is significantly more stable than our previous solution.
Singularity Cloud Workload Security is more stable than our previous solution.
No lag, no crashing, no downtime.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
 

Room For Improvement

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud needs enhanced features, stability, better reporting, integration, and support for improved user experience and efficiency.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek better automation, clarity, integration, AI features, and comprehensive analytics for improved security management.
Zscaler needs enhancements in speed, multi-tenant capabilities, compatibility, DLP features, cost, stability, support, and connectivity monitoring.
If I had to ask for anything to make it easier, it would be signed images that are GPG signed and a public repository where we can get the bits from.
If they can merge Kubernetes Security with other modules related to Kubernetes, that would help us to get more modules in the current subscription.
As organizations move to the cloud, a cloud posture management tool that offers complete cloud visibility becomes crucial for maintaining compliance.
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
It would be beneficial to streamline recommendations to avoid unnecessary alerts and to refine the severity of alerts based on specific environments or environmental attributes.
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
They might be able to identify if something is missing with Zscaler.
 

Setup Cost

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud offers competitive pricing and value, with flexibility and discounts available, though costly for large deployments.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, offering free and paid versions with costs averaging $15 monthly per server.
Zscaler's pricing varies, becoming more competitive with larger user bases, but additional features can increase overall costs.
Covering our 50,000 endpoints would have nearly bankrupted most security programs, even well-funded ones like ours.
I believe the enterprise version costs around $55 per user per year.
There are some tools that are double the cost of Cloud Native Security.
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters.
 

Valuable Features

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud's ease, AI detection, and seamless integration enhance IT efficiency, risk management, and forensic visibility.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI-based threat detection, multi-cloud support, and a unified portal for comprehensive management.
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange offers easy management, strong security, seamless connectivity, cloud deployment, threat protection, and AI-driven insights.
Our previous product took a lot of man hours to manage. Once we got Singularity Cloud Workload Security, it freed up our time to work on other tasks.
For example, we can set up an automation alert so that if a threat is detected on an endpoint, we can automatically take action on our Okta or AD environment, such as locking the account that was signed in or forcing a password reset.
This helps visualize potential attack paths and even suggests attack paths a malicious actor might take.
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing.
 

Categories and Ranking

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
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Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (4th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
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) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (2nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Application Control (4th), ZTNA as a Service (1st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (1st), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud14.3%
Wiz16.6%
AWS GuardDuty12.8%
Other56.3%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
ZTNA as a Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform17.4%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks14.0%
Cato SASE Cloud Platform12.6%
Other56.0%
ZTNA as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom correlation searches enhance threat detection efficiency
Singularity Cloud Security significantly reduced our organization's threat detection time by providing immediate data visibility. This allows our team to analyze telemetry in real-time, query it, and identify anomalies or potential threats using the Singularity platform. We can create rules that automatically trigger alerts based on this real-time data, enabling immediate response. This instant threat detection and response capability is a major improvement over our previous reliance on multiple tools with delayed data flows. Singularity Cloud Security eliminates those delays, saving valuable time in incident response scenarios. MTTR and MTTD are critical metrics for incident response processes. They measure the time it takes to fully address an incident, from initial detection to complete remediation. Minimizing these times is crucial to limit damage, as attackers can quickly exploit vulnerabilities and compromise additional systems. Rapid detection and response are essential to disrupt attackers and prevent further progression within the attack chain. Singularity Cloud helps reduce false positives by allowing engineers direct access to data. This access enables querying, validation, and the creation of correlation searches for improved data analysis. Instead of a black box approach, Singularity provides full visibility into the code and syntax used, increasing confidence in the results. Ultimately, Singularity offers greater control over correlation searches, detection rules, and response scenarios due to the enhanced engagement and control it provides. Singularity's ability to create custom correlation searches significantly reduces noise by avoiding reliance on generic, pre-built searches that often lead to false positives in diverse organizational environments. This targeted approach results in a high positive rate and efficacy, allowing for focused detection and response. By designing and running custom searches, Singularity minimizes the need to sift through irrelevant alerts, unlike systems using default rules that inundate analysts with noise. This translates to a very low noise-to-efficacy ratio, enabling efficient and accurate incident response. Singularity Cloud offers valuable data and capabilities extending beyond security, benefiting various business units. For example, it helped troubleshoot a newly introduced service with limited telemetry. My team created custom correlation searches to track specific event types, confirming the software's functionality. This success garnered positive feedback throughout the company, reaching even the CIO and CSR, as it enabled the business to showcase the software's effectiveness in a way that was previously impossible. SentinelOne improves our regulatory compliance by fulfilling the endpoint detection and response requirements of various frameworks. Many federal regulations require businesses to meet specific security standards, including those related to endpoint, identity, and cloud security. SentinelOne enables us to meet these requirements and assure potential partners that we have a robust security posture. This strengthens our partnerships and streamlines procurement processes, demonstrating how SentinelOne contributes to our compliance efforts. SentinelOne's evidence-based reporting, particularly the CNS reports, fosters trust due to the transparency of the data source and the ability to understand the underlying mechanisms. Knowing the search criteria, data types, and information gathering process, especially when customized for detection engineering, creates confidence in the product and the relationship with SentinelOne. This transparency and customization allow users to delve into the mechanics of the reporting, understand its functionality, and ultimately trust the evidence provided. AI is a crucial consideration for security strategies. While some view AI as a potential replacement for human analysts, others see it as a powerful tool to enhance their capabilities. The latter approach emphasizes AI's ability to accelerate incident response, improve threat detection, and provide valuable insights to analysts. This perspective suggests that AI should be used to augment human expertise, enabling analysts to make faster and more informed decisions, particularly in prioritizing threats and developing a sixth sense for identifying malicious activity. By integrating AI as an enabler, organizations can empower their security teams to become more efficient and effective, ultimately strengthening their overall security posture.
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.
Sumit Bhanwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud-based platform simplifies device and data center management
I find it to be good. The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing. We are less dependent on data centers and device management, which reduces our efforts significantly. It improves our device management, data center management, and updating devices. We need fewer engineers for this management, and it reduces time and efforts for data center management, device upgrades, and IT support.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise41
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...
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 the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?
The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.
What needs improvement with Zscaler SASE?
The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects.
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control
 

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.
Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.