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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 Apr 6, 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
7.8
Number of Reviews
109
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
76
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

"The management console is highly intuitive to comprehend and operate."
"The multi-cloud support is valuable. They are expanding to different clouds. It is not restricted to only AWS. It allows us to have different clouds on one platform."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has significantly improved our risk posture."
"We like PingSafe's vulnerability assessment and management features, and its vulnerability databases."
"The cloud misconfiguration is the most valuable feature."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is excellent, and I highly recommend it."
"Atlas security graph is pretty cool. It maps out relationships between components on AWS, like load balancers and servers. This helps visualize potential attack paths and even suggests attack paths a malicious actor might take."
"The dashboard is intuitive in terms of design and functionality. Additionally, it gives me an email for all the findings that are open."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"Support is very helpful."
"Aqua Security allowed us to gain visibility into the vulnerabilities that were present in the container images, that were being rolled out, the amount of risk that we were introducing to the platform, and provided us a look into the container environment by introducing access control mechanisms. In addition, when it came to runtime-level policies, we could restrict container access to resources in our environment, such as network-level or other application-level access."
"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."
"Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"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."
"The CSPM product is great at securing our cloud accounts and I really like the runtime protection for containers and functions too."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST."
"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."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"Defender for Cloud has improved our security posture."
"One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds."
 

Cons

"We are getting reports only in a predefined form. I would like to have customized reports so that I can see how many issues are open or closed today or in two weeks."
"A beneficial improvement for PingSafe would be integration with Jira, allowing for a more streamlined ticketing system."
"I used to work on AWS. At times, I would generate a normal bug in my system, and then I would check PingSafe. The alert used to come after about three and a half hours. It used to take that long to generate the alert about the vulnerability in my system. If a hacker attacks a system and PingSafe takes three to four hours to generate an alert, it will not be beneficial for the company. It would be helpful if we get the alert in five to ten minutes."
"PingSafe is an excellent CSPM tool, but the CWPP features need to improve, and there is a scope for more application security posture management features. There aren't many ASPM solutions on the market, and existing ones are costly. I would like to see PingSafe develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM, CSPM, and CWPP. Another feature I'd like to see is runtime protection."
"There's room for improvement in the graphic explorer."
"Crafting customized policies can be tricky."
"We don't get any notifications from PingSafe when the clusters are down."
"I believe the UI/UX updates for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security have room for improvement."
"In the next release, Aqua Security should add the ability to automatically send reports to customers."
"They want to release improvements to their product to work with other servers because now there are more focused on the Kubernetes environment. They need to improve the normal servers. I would like to have more options."
"The user interface could be improved, especially in terms of organization and clarity."
"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"Aqua Security could provide more open documentation so that their learning resources can be more easily accessed and searched through online. Right now, a lot of the documentation is closed and not available to the public."
"Aqua Security lacks a lot in reporting."
"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."
"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
"The pricing could be better."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters. It could be cheaper."
"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."
"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."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is based on modules, which was ideal for us."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's licensing and price were cheaper than the other solutions we looked at."
"It is a little expensive. I would rate it a four out of ten for pricing."
"SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven."
"I would rate the cost a seven out of ten with ten being the most costly."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's pricing is good."
"Its pricing is okay. It is in line with what other providers were providing. It is not cheap. It is not expensive."
"PingSafe is fairly priced."
"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."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"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."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"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."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
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?
The documentation could be better. Besides improving the documentation, obtaining a professional or partner specializ...
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.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.