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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
19th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
16th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Software Supply Chain Security (10th), DevSecOps (9th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
4th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
2nd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th), Compliance Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 2.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 3.1%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 13.9%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew W - PeerSpot reviewer
Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues
Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.
Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's helped free up staff time so that they can work on other projects."
"Singularity Cloud Security's most valuable features are its ease of scalability and comprehensive security measures."
"My favorite feature is Storyline."
"Cloud Security has provided a single view to observe all workloads, prioritization for handling cloud assets, and reduced noise by distinguishing false positives effectively."
"The most valuable features are automated threat response, AI detection, and static and dynamic detection."
"We're monitoring several cloud accounts with Singularity. It is convenient to identify issues or security failures in any account. It's nice to have all the details we need to solve these issues."
"It is pretty easy to integrate with this platform. When properly integrated, it monitors end-to-end."
"The features that stand out are threat detection using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, helping to identify and respond to threats in real-time."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"The CSPM product is great at securing our cloud accounts and I really like the runtime protection for containers and functions too."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"Valuable features include the ability to connect it to our Docker Hub where our images are stored, good integration with Slack, and the connection to the CV, to easily see which CVs are on each image."
"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."
"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"The most helpful feature of Aqua Security is Drift Prevention, which is a feature that allows images to be immutable. In addition, one of the main reasons we went with Aqua Security is because it provides strong protection when it comes to runtime security."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and manage."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"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."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can find potential phishing links and malicious code in data at rest."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."
"It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has made our environment more secure."
 

Cons

"Scanning capabilities should be added for the dark web."
"It does not bring much threat intel from the outside world. All it does is scan. If it can also correlate things, it will be better."
"There should be more documentation about the product."
"The Infrastructure as Code service available in PingSafe and the services available in AWS cloud security can be merged so that we can get the security data directly from AWS cloud in PingSafe. This way, all the data related to security will be in one single place. Currently, we have to check a couple of things on PingSafe, and we have to validate that same data on the AWS Cloud to be sure. If they can collaborate like that, it will be great."
"The application module focuses on the different codes and libraries that can be run on the machines. It is very important for Singularity EDR to detect what type of codes and what type of libraries can run in the machine. If they can implement a white list or a black list of codes or libraries that can be used in the machine, it would be very helpful. They can focus more on the application module."
"The resolution suggestions could be better, and the compliance features could be more customizable for Indian regulations. Overall, the compliance aspects are good. It gives us a comprehensive list, and its feedback is enough to bring us into compliance with regulations, but it doesn't give us the specific objects."
"After closing an alert in Cloud Native Security, it still shows as unresolved."
"I request that SentinelOne investigate this false positive, as SentinelOne has a higher false positive rate than other XDR solutions."
"There's room for improvement, particularly in management capabilities as it may not be comprehensive enough for all customers, and it has been lacking in the realm of cloud security posture management."
"The user interface could be improved, especially in terms of organization and clarity."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"The integrations on CICD could be improved. If Aqua had more plugins or container images to integrate and automate more easily on CICD, it would be better."
"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"We would like to have better transparency as to how the security score is calculated because as it is now, it is difficult to understand."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"Most customer teams need more training on this type of product."
"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a partner, we receive a discount on the licenses."
"PingSafe is affordable."
"I wasn't sure what to expect from the pricing, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little less than I thought."
"The pricing is somewhat high compared to other market tools."
"It is not that expensive. There are some tools that are double the cost of PingSafe. It is good on the pricing side."
"It's a fair price for what you get. We are happy with the price as it stands."
"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."
"I am personally not taking care of the pricing part, but when we moved from CrowdStrike to PingSafe, there were some savings. The price of CrowdStrike was quite high. Compared to that, the price of PingSafe was low. PingSafe is charging based on the subscription model. If I want to add an AWS subscription, I need to pay more. It should not be based on subscription. It should be based on the number of servers that I am scanning."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of criti...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
What do you like most about Aqua Security?
Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
It comes at a reasonable cost. When compared to Prisma Cloud, it is more budget-friendly.
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 your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
Initially, the cost was reasonable, but additional services from Microsoft sometimes incur extra expenses that seem h...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
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
HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
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 Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.