When comparing Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks in the context of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), it's important to consider the strengths and focus areas of each vendor's offerings. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Palo Alto's Prisma Cloud designed for managing cloud security risks, ensuring compliance, and automating governance across cloud environments.
Defender provides a unified security management system that strengthens the security posture of your data centers, and it is particularly well-integrated with Azure services, although it also supports multi-cloud environments to an extent. Defender receives positive feedback for its threat protection, seamless integration with Microsoft tools, and reasonable pricing options. Prisma Cloud is a comprehensive cloud-native security platform that integrates security across the full development lifecycle and cloud environments, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. The solution is commended for its robust security features, and comprehensive compliance capabilities.
The summary above is based on 134 interviews we conducted recently with Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft Defender users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The security baseline and vulnerability assessments is the valuable feature."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The vulnerability management modules and the discovery and inventory are the most valuable features. Before using Wiz, it was a very manual process for both. After implementing it, we're able to get all of the analytics into a single platform that gives us visibility across all the systems in our cloud. We're able to correspond and understand what the vulnerability landscape looks like a lot faster."
"Our most important features are those around entitlement, external exposure, vulnerabilities, and container security."
"With Wiz, we get timely alerts for leaked data or any vulnerabilities already existing in our environment."
"Out of all the features, the one item that has been most valuable is the fact that Wiz puts into context all the pieces that create an issue, and applies a particular risk evaluation that helps us prioritize when we need to address a misconfiguration, vulnerability, or any issue that would put our environment into risk."
"The first thing that stood out was the ease of installation and the quick value we got out of the solution."
"The CSPM module has been the most effective. It was easy to deploy and covered all our accounts through APIs, requiring no agents. Wiz provides instant visibility into high-level risks that we need to address."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the insights, meaning the remediation suggestions, as well as the incident alerts."
"The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature."
"The technical support is very good."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"The most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"The dynamic workload identity creation, attestation, and assignment is the best feature. In addition, the application dependency map across heterogeneous environments for compliance is a striking feature."
"The product is quite good for providing multi-clouds or cross-cloud security from a single-pane -of-glass."
"I would say Twistlock is a fairly sophisticated tool."
"It has helped us understand the dynamic topology of our containers, and manage security through the application of policies that our pipelines apply straight from Git."
"What I like most about Prisma Cloud is its zero-day signatures, maximum security, minimal downtime, cloud visibility, control, and ease of deployment."
"It supports the multi-cloud environment beautifully."
"Visibility is a key feature. Integration with other technologies across the board, whether they are Palo Alto technologies, Windows technologies, or cloud technologies, is probably the biggest thing."
"The container and serverless security is most valuable. It is quite a new technology for this region. Even though containers have been there for a long time, the adoption of containers is very minimal in this region. When it comes to using Kubernetes containers in a complex architecture, there is a lack of security in the market. People aren't aware of the security controls or the process for governance. Container security provided by Prisma Cloud is quite good at filling that gap."
"Given the level of visibility into all the cloud environments Wiz provides, it would be nice if they could integrate some kind of mechanism to better manage tenants on multiple platforms. For example, let's say that some servers don't have an application they need, such as an antivirus. Wiz could include an API or something to push those applications out to the servers. It would be great if you could remedy these issues directly from the Wiz platform."
"We would like to see improvements to executive-level reporting and data reporting in general, which we understand is being rolled out to the platform."
"The solution's container security could be improved."
"One significant issue is that the searches are case-sensitive, so finding a misconfigured resource can become very challenging."
"The reporting isn't that great. They have executive summaries, but it's only a compliance report that maps all current issues to specific controls. Whether you look at one subscription or project, regardless of the size, you will get a multipage report on how the issues in that account map to that control. Our CSO isn't going to read through that. He won't filter that out or show that to his leadership and say, "Here's what we're doing." It isn't a helpful report. They're working on it, but it's a poor executive summary."
"We wish there were a way, beyond providing visibility and automated remediation, to wait on a given remediation, due to a critical aspect, such as the cost associated with a particular upgrade... We would like to see preventive controls that can be applied through Wiz to protect against vulnerabilities that we're not going to be able to remediate immediately."
"We're looking at some of the data compliance stuff that they've got Jon offer. I know they're looking at container security, which we gonna be looking at next."
"The remediation workflow within the Wiz could be improved."
"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
"The solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client. If you need to have something open for a client application to work, then you get dinged for having a port open or having an older version of TLS available."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"It would be ideal if they could somehow reduce the deployment time."
"The deployment and onboarding are plug-and-play, but somewhat hard to handle in terms of integration with external operations tools. The product design isn't up to the current standard. I would recommend having higher standards in terms of integration with other tools, especially operationalized tools."
"The visibility on the SIEM needs to be streamlined so we can get the data without any issues."
"The automation must continue to become much smoother."
"The information presented in the UI sometimes doesn't look intuitive enough."
"The feedback that we have given to the Palo Alto team is that the UI can be improved. When you press the "back" button on your browser from the Investigate tab, the query that you're working on just disappears. It won't keep the query on the "back" button."
"It's not really on par with, or catering to, what other products are looking at in terms of SAST and DAST capabilities. For those, you'd probably go to the market and look at something like Veracode or WhiteHat."
"The Palo Alto support needs to improve."
More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with 46 reviews while Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with 82 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks writes "The dashboard is very user-friendly and can be used to generate custom RQL based on user requirements". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Sentinel and Azure Firewall, whereas Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Aqua Cloud Security Platform, AWS Security Hub, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, AWS GuardDuty and Snyk. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report.
See our list of best Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) vendors, best Container Security vendors, and best Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) vendors.
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