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Azure DDoS Protection vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure DDoS Protection offers cost-effective security for public IPs, benefiting users with ROI despite varying enterprise costs.
Sentiment score
5.8
Microsoft Defender is essential and affordable for users, offering cost advantages over AWS, despite unclear individual financial benefits.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Educational institutions commend Azure DDoS Protection's swift support, while others experience slower response times affecting satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's support is reliable yet inconsistent in communication and timeliness, praised for skills but needs improvement.
The response time is very slow, especially when multiple teams are required to collaborate on a case.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
Their response time and skill set are both good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Azure DDoS Protection excels in scalability and reliability, ideal for large enterprises, enhancing security in extensive environments.
Sentiment score
8.5
Microsoft Defender is praised for its scalability and integration, efficiently managing vulnerabilities across various sectors and servers.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure DDoS Protection is highly stable, rated 8/10, with minimal configuration issues and no downtime or false positives reported.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is stable and reliable, though it has minor compatibility issues and can be resource-intensive.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure DDoS Protection requires improved interface consistency, reporting, configuration simplicity, bandwidth optimization, enhanced services, and AI-driven auto-remediation.
Improve efficiency by reducing false positives and enhancing integration, stability, and AI capabilities while considering cost and resource demands.
Integrating more auto-remediation features with an AI engine would enhance its efficiency.
I have noticed some false positives with the Web Application Firewall yet not with DDoS Protection.
I suggest adding more services and additional services, which would be beneficial.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
The automated remediations can be more specific.
 

Setup Cost

Azure DDoS Protection offers expensive but comprehensive protection with trial, special pricing for education, and no extra fees for some uses.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management has competitive pricing, requiring a license upgrade for additional features, often included in packages.
If used with Front Door or Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection is included without additional cost.
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month.
Compared to competitors, it is good.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
 

Valuable Features

Azure DDoS Protection offers seamless integration, robust security, and scalability, despite higher costs, providing significant ROI for vulnerable environments.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management enhances security and efficiency through integration, accurate assessments, risk analysis, and management features.
The security architecture with Azure DDoS Protection is critical for safeguarding our financial organization's infrastructure.
The integration of various tools with Azure Firewall, like DDoS Protection, Web Application Firewall, and Azure Front Door, is quite effective.
We can plug and play components to build applications or conduct research and development easily.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture.
The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure DDoS Protection
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
21st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure DDoS Protection is 2.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Raju Mallipudi - PeerSpot reviewer
Acts as an additional layer of protection, provides endpoint security but not very easy to configure
It's not very easy to configure, in my view. We have to do some work behind the scenes. It's not very simple. We have to do it very carefully, and we need to monitor this enablement as well. But apart from that, I didn't see any kind of challenges. So, in my opinion, configuration is the main trouble for them. It is something that can be done to be better. Not just configuration. You need an expert who knows the ins and outs of these security solutions. In my experience, people struggle with configuration. While configuring, we get this error, we get that error, and then we try to fix those issues. I have seen those. It's not straightforward.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure DDoS Protection?
Azure DDoS Protection offers superior protection against denial-of-service attacks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure DDoS Protection?
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Managing this expense is tough, especially since we haven't received everything we need for our capital expenditure manage...
What needs improvement with Azure DDoS Protection?
The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces. It would be beneficial to have more detailed insights available directly on th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more advanced AI agent, possibly a large language model with better performance than...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure DDoS Protection vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.