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Amazon Inspector vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (12th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Amazon Inspector
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (6th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 1.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 2.7%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud2.7%
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Amazon Inspector1.0%
Other95.1%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
Abdalla Kenawy - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS DevOps SRE/Infrastructure Engineer at Capgemini
Automated insights streamline data security assessment
For Amazon Inspector, we have many EC2 or virtual machines deployed inside our AWS environment, and the problem is that the existing package deployed inside this EC2 instance has already outdated packages. As we progress with time, this package needs to be updated for security enhancement, which requires us to uninstall the package, install the new version, and then we should be fine. However, the challenge comes with how to scan all our EC2 instances for security vulnerabilities, which is currently managed by Amazon Inspector. Amazon Inspector can scan EC2 instances or ECR, which is the ECR registry where we can save artifacts Docker images. Amazon Inspector can also scan Docker images uploaded to ECR for Elastic Registry service, and it can scan databases and S3 based on the latest updates. I noticed this from a couple of months ago, and it provides huge benefits for security. Regarding the best features of Amazon Inspector, it gives us a list of all existing outdated packages as part of a deployed package on EC2 instances or specific Python packages that are part of the Docker file and the Docker image itself, which are causing security concerns. Amazon Inspector can list these security concerns and offer guidance on how we can remediate it by updating the package to a specific upper version or something similar.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest strengths of Qualys TotalCloud are that it is pretty good at cloud visibility, has easy integration, and also has multi-cloud compatibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its ability to link clusters of assets, providing a clear model of deployments, vulnerabilities, and statuses."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"It is a cloud-native app that integrates with both IaaS and SaaS. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms."
"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."
"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."
"The assessment reports provided by Amazon Inspector have helped me in identifying security vulnerabilities in my cloud applications by giving us a nicely designed dashboard that provides all the security information we need to work on remediation."
"Amazon Inspector is highly stable, rated ten out of ten, and this stability impacts business security and administration positively."
"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."
"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."
"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."
"Defender for Cloud provides a prioritized list of remediations for security issues, reducing risk and improving security operations."
"The technical support is very good."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has helped us manage and secure our cloud environments, and having observability to vulnerabilities is important for us so that we can take actions against any threats."
"The solution helped out management a lot, reducing about 50% of the time needed to spend on this after implementation and saving the organization money by consolidating into one solution instead of two or three."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitors our entire cloud environment. It enables conditional access and incorporates features like number matching and single sign-on for all our cloud apps. It is great for protecting against ransomware and various security threats."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it, and it also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"The most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."
 

Cons

"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"Regarding improvements to Qualys TotalCloud, I suggest that user navigation can be enhanced because initially, many users found it complicated and had trouble understanding the platform due to information being spread across multiple tabs."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"I would like the ability to disable certain default built-in policies as they can be misleading when creating dashboards. That is the top one."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."
"The most challenging aspect I faced with Amazon Inspector during integration was automating the remediation process."
"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."
"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."
"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."
"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."
"The false positive rate of Amazon Inspector is a little high, and it is not covering all different applications and scanning."
"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."
"Agent features need to be improved. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents."
"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
"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."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"There is a slight gap between the real-time monitoring and real-time alerts."
"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."
"Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."
"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."
"The pricing is very transparent and clear."
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."
"Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"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."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
"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."
"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?
I am not honestly sure about the pricing side of Amazon Inspector, but that is taken care of by a separate team. I be...
What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?
They might launch support for third-party environments in the next version regarding the best features in Amazon Insp...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Inspector?
I mostly use Amazon Inspector for vulnerability scanning on AWS native applications. For hybrid applications, we have...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Inspector vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
910,409 professionals have used our research since 2012.