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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
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), 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 (6th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (8th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 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 2.5%, 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 Cloud2.5%
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Amazon Inspector1.0%
Other95.3%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
John D'Arcy - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder, Professional AWS Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Automated vulnerability assessments continuously enhance security
The most valuable features probably are the ability to do automated vulnerability assessments, which it does with Amazon Inspector version two. It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities. This allows me to pinpoint potential security vulnerabilities and provide actionable recommendations relatively quickly. Larger enterprises usually use Inspector to gather all the vulnerabilities, the CVEs, across all accounts in an AWS organization. The enterprises I work for typically have many accounts in their organization, such as thousands of accounts where I am at the moment. It is a way to gather the vulnerabilities that are present on EC2 instances, container images, and Lambda functions.
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

"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"Having everything in a single place to look for it and a single integration into ServiceNow has been the big transformation."
"I rate the breadth of FlexScan in providing visibility into on-premises, multicloud, and container environments as fantastic."
"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."
"I would recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users because it is cost-efficient and has a good return on investment."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."
"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is 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 findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."
"It is scanning the whole repository for any sort of vulnerabilities, so it allows us to be more confident in our DevSecOps and not put a lot of folks or attention to it."
"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."
"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."
"The most valuable features are the security recommendations provided by Defender for Cloud."
"The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I appreciate the most are automation and event detection."
"Our main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Cloud involve scanning PCs."
"Technical support is helpful."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."
"There is no better tool found to protect workloads in Azure than Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them, and it produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."
"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement would be to focus on risks related to AI, such as large language models and potential data leakage."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"Customer support with Qualys TotalCloud needs a little improvement with the response times."
"The improvement needed in Qualys TotalCloud is mainly in the artificial intelligence automation agents, where we can customize and create what meets our needs, not necessarily having to use those provided in the tool."
"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."
"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 are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."
"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."
"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."
"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."
"The process of deploying Microsoft Defender for Cloud was not smooth. It was always a challenge migrating, as a lot of it involved application dependencies and what was required before being able to use Azure for those services."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost."
"I don't know what the issue is but when we do the agent deployment, sometimes it works, and sometimes it fails and we need to go inside the virtual machine and manually install the agent."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be improved because many of the functions involve multiple places to accomplish the same task, which can make it convoluted."
"As a micro-segmentation product, it's not so great, especially if you have a lot of systems."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
"I don't appreciate Microsoft Defender for Cloud because it seems to interfere with many things. That's the problem I've been experiencing with it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"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."
"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 isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"The pricing is very transparent and clear."
"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."
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"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."
"I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."
"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."
"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
"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."
"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."
"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise38
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
We purchased Qualys TotalCloud for GCP and Azure as well. It is comparatively better than others regarding pricing. T...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
I am unsure about how Qualys TotalCloud can be improved. I do not have anything else to add about the needed improvem...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is telemetry, although I am unsure about the specifics. A quick specific examp...
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: September 2026.
919,809 professionals have used our research since 2012.