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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs XM Cyber comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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 Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (18th), Microsoft Security Suite (19th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (6th)
XM Cyber
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (22nd), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (4th)
 

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 Vulnerability Management is 2.1%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.1%
Zafran Security1.1%
XM Cyber1.0%
Other95.8%
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.
OB
Microsoft Solutions Manager at Self-Employed
Ensures strong threat and vulnerability management with continuous risk assessment
The major priority is identity, which is crucial; we have lots of companies in manufacturing, energy, or various sectors, and it varies from one to another. I assess Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as very effective in continuously assessing vulnerabilities without requiring scans. We use automatic investigation and remediation features, safe attachments, safe links, and real-time reports, which are also very effective. For Active Directory, Defender has threat intelligence, and we are using that. The risk-based prioritization within Vulnerability Management affects my ability to manage vulnerabilities, particularly in relation to the Zero Trust Model utilized by our customers. The end-users often do as they please in their systems.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CISO at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

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."
"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."
"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."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"One valuable feature is the Microsoft Security Scorecard."
"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."
"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."
"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."
 

Cons

"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."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard."
"It is expensive."
"The constant changes in the product configuration or the console setup can sometimes be challenging."
"There should be risk scoring added to Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management; specifically, they call it quantification of the risk."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard. A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update."
"There is a good solution from Microsoft, however, there is a gap between Windows and Linux management."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."
"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."
"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."
"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"We have to pay standard licensing fees."
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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
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

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...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
The documentation from Microsoft needs significant improvement. The documents are disorganized, with one document lin...
What do you like most about XM Cyber?
The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we have a large, complicated estate, and in the licens...
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IB...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.