No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Avanan vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (13th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (22nd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (9th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (12th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (9th), ZTNA (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Avanan
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (22nd), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (41st)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (15th), Microsoft Security Suite (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Avanan2.1%
Proofpoint Email Protection6.7%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3656.1%
Other85.1%
Email Security
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps5.5%
Netskope13.2%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks12.7%
Other68.6%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
Robert Melendez - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at Makeready
Enhances email security and has a very simple and easy-to-use UI
Spam protection is the most valuable feature. We have implemented the tool to enhance our email security. It helps prevent phishing attacks. The anomaly detection capabilities are baked into the security platform. The product integrates wonderfully with Microsoft 365. It's built right on a cloud platform and works almost natively. The solution has a very simple and easy-to-use UI. The tool appears extremely powerful and has a good solid feature set. It catches things that are bad for my environment. The user interface is good the way it is. If the solution continues down that path, I see no problems with the way it is going. It feels like a mature product.
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection."
"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"It is a stable solution."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"Overall, this tool's cost is fairly cheap given its features and excellent output."
"If we look at four to five years ago, we had close to six or eight people click a link in an email per month. Now, we are probably down to about five or six clicks a year, if not less."
"The program has reduced the dangers related to phishing, malware, ransomware, and other vulnerabilities."
"Overall, compared to features, the cost is very reasonable and output of this tool is very good."
"Easy to use for non-technical users."
"We have highly benefited from this platform since we deployed it, as it has provided reliable security to our email infrastructure and developed a secure working environment."
"It can detect corrupted files and filters out documents with viruses."
"The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com."
"The solution is helping a lot; we get very detailed reporting on security that really shows what users are doing, including what they've opened, what they're sharing, downloading, viewing, and when they are logging in."
"The benefit you get is that you are able to monitor all your applications and control the data that goes out of those applications."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"The integration within the entire Defender suite is highly valuable because it allows for communication between different components and offers pretty decent correlations."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"The solution is bundled with E3 and E5 licenses; that's the reason it's most commonly deployed, as it's part of the bundle and not a separate cost, and if your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup."
"Shadow IT discovery is the feature I like the most."
 

Cons

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."
"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."
"Since it periodically identifies ordinary emailers as spam or dubious, they may need some AI logic improvement."
"They need a little bit of improvement in AI logic, as sometimes, it quarantines frequent mailers as spam or suspects."
"There are some things that they can't remediate. The honest thing is nobody can right now because of the nature of how some of the secure email platforms work."
"Sometimes it seemed like the allow list wasn't working. I've created many allow list rules however, they still seem to be blocked; the same is true with the blocked list rules."
"It should reduce the amount of time needed for thorough scanning."
"The system response in a slow computing device affects performance when sending and receiving emails."
"It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss."
"The system could be designed to give corporate emails first priority due to demands."
"MCAS doesn't have many reporting capabilities, and it's really an operational nightmare to get all these things done at this point in time by using MCAS."
"The Cloud App Security integration with external DLP solutions is not so seamless."
"This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage."
"Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model."
"We would like to get more information from the endpoint. I don't get enough detailed information right now on why something failed. There is not enough visibility."
"The integration with macOS operating systems needs to be better."
"Defender for Cloud Apps could come with more configured policies out of the box. Also, integration could be easier. Integration is moderately difficult because Microsoft hasn't developed a solution that unifies device onboarding and management. You have to use Intune to manage devices and Defender for Endpoint to enforce policies. They need to fix their integration, but I believe they will straighten it out by the end of the year."
"Since implementing this solution, we have had more support calls regarding false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
"The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
"The product is not the cheapest in the market."
"Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
"Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"We are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."
"Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different programs and license models. Some include this, and some include that. It is all over the place. There can be a little more consistency or simplification in the pricing so that your parts list is not ten pages long, and you are not trying to determine, "If I have an E3, does this cover that?", or "Do I need to pay separately for the license?" Simplification would probably be better."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
903,118 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since a...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been i...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
No data available
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: June 2026.
903,118 professionals have used our research since 2012.