Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
14th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
16th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Software Supply Chain Security (9th), DevSecOps (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
7th
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
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.7%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 13.4%, down from 16.7% 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

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security stands out for its user-friendly interface and intuitive software, making it easy to navigate and use."
"The tool identifies issues quickly."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is on top of protecting ephemeral workloads."
"It saves us time based on savings on manual activities."
"The remediation process is good."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers comprehensive security posture management."
"Cloud Native Security offers a valuable tool called an offensive search engine."
"It saves time, makes your environment more secure, and improves compliance. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security helps with audits, ensuring that you are following best practices for cloud security. You don't need to be an expert to use it and improve your security."
"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."
"Their sandboxing service is also really good."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"The most valuable feature of Aqua Security is the scanner."
"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"The container security element of this product has been very valuable to our organization."
"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST. Alert management is another useful feature. Alerts are directly integrated with our email or DevOps board for easy viewing, allowing us to identify problem areas efficiently."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"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 most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has made our environment more secure."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps in improving our overall security posture. We have a nice overview of what is missing where and what can be improved."
 

Cons

"The reporting works well, but sometimes the severity classifications are inaccurate. Sometimes, it flags an issue as high-impact, but it should be a lower severity."
"To enhance the notification system's efficiency, resolved issues should be promptly removed from the portal."
"When we request any changes, they must be reflected in the next update."
"We wanted it to provide us with something like Claroty Hub in AWS for lateral movement. For example, if an EC2 instance or a virtual machine is compromised in a public subnet based on a particular vulnerability, such as Log4j, we want it to not be able to reach some of our databases. This kind of feature is not supported in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."
"The categorization of the results from the vulnerability assessment could be improved."
"Customized queries should be made easier to improve SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."
"The cloud-based operations might pose challenges in areas with limited or unavailable internet connectivity. Desktop features might be useful for smaller organizations with less complex security needs."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security 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 SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM, CSPM, and CWPP. Another feature I'd like to see is runtime protection."
"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."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"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."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"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."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."
"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."
"The user interface of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, like many Microsoft portals, undergoes frequent changes and feature relocation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I'm slightly out of touch with pricing, I know SentinelOne is much cheaper than other products."
"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."
"The licensing is easy to understand and implement, with some flexibility to accommodate dynamic environments."
"It is cheap."
"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."
"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."
"The tool is cost-effective."
"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"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."
"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."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"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."
"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."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) solutions are best for your needs.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
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?
I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...
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.
 

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: May 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.