Fortinet FortiCASB vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

Fortinet and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category. Fortinet is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.0, while Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5. Fortinet holds a 0.4% mindshare in CASB, compared to Microsoft’s 10.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiCASB and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Zscaler and others in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB).

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

April 2025

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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

iboss

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.8%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiCASB is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 10.2%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless

One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

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Vijayakumar Yohannan

Delivery Head - NOC Operations at UST Global

Seamlessly customize security features but need improved deployment speed

I find Fortinet FortiCASB easily customizable. It allows me to leverage features that cover almost eighty percent of use cases required by my clients. The compliance management feature supports GDPR and HIPAA compliance, effectively meeting those use cases. The hybrid model of Fortinet offers seamless deployment on cloud or hybrid best suited for customers, making it adaptable in various scenarios.

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Jagadeesh Gunasekaran

Cyber security engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Saves us time, has good visibility, and a single dashboard

The solution is user-friendly and provides great visibility into threats. There are easy options available for specific workflow inspections. We can also get support by going through the Microsoft documentation, which is straightforward. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. It covers us from a compliance perspective and protects our organization's data. Data protection is a very important aspect of any new organization, as we need to protect our data from both external attacks and insider threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us monitor for abnormal activity by insiders, which is one of the most important access points for attackers today. Additionally, the different cloud apps that Defender for Cloud Apps supports provide us with much more visibility into potential threats and activities on the internet. We have integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps alerts with Sentinel. The integration is straightforward. We can find the configuration details on Microsoft's official documentation website. If we are familiar with how Microsoft products work, we will be able to follow the instructions clearly. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Sentinel work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. Our integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive threat protection, covering most of the tactics and techniques relevant to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. When implementing an SIEM solution, there are always prerequisites such as Active Directory logs, security logs, firewall logs, and DNS logs. These are important logs that need to be ingested into the environment. Sentinel has many third-party connectors available that make integrations straightforward. Microsoft provides the configuration details in the Sentinel platform. It is important to integrate all relevant log sources into the SIEM solution so that we can detect and be alerted to any type of threat factor, whether it is from an internal or external source. Integrating third-party solutions into the platform requires a separate configuration, but Microsoft provides the necessary information. However, we need to have the appropriate permissions to execute these setups. Sentinel provides a centralized dashboard that covers threat management and configuration. It gives us complete insight into what entities are accessing, as well as full details for investigation. We can see how the alerts and threats are relevant to suspicious activities, whether they are related to malicious IP addresses, suspicious ASHAs, or any other indicators of compromise. All of this relevant data can be seen in a single pane. Recently, Microsoft introduced a new investigation experience in a single pane. This means that we can now get a lot of details in a single pane, without having to go there and execute a query. There are a lot of new insights being developed in the Sentinel platform these days. It has software intelligence. They recently introduced Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which covers almost all IOCs. This protects organizational assets from threats and suspicious traffic associated with IOCs. If a match is found, alerts are generated. This is a very interesting feature. Another great feature is automation and logic apps. We can create a number of operations, such as posting in a team's channel if a severe incident occurs or sending an email notification. There are many operations available, so we can automate a lot of tasks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us stay compliant. It has predefined mechanisms in place to prevent attacks. For example, if an external user tries to access our SharePoint folders or files, an attack will be blocked. This is why it is important to give appropriate access to guest users. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has many features and benefits. It provides a number of policies that can be configured to meet the specific needs of our security team. These policies can be used to customize cloud applications so that only authorized users can access them and perform operations that benefit the organization. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is top-notch. Using the solution's automation features, we can suppress false positive alerts. We can also close alerts, lower their severity from "high" to "low" or "informational," or close them immediately with the appropriate commands. This will depend on the configuration automation rule and the perspective from which we are testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides a single console. We are also provided with Microsoft templates to enable workbooks instantly. Alternatively, we can build our own customized workbooks to provide better insights and improve our SOC efficiency and overall performance. Consolidating all of our security data into one dashboard has saved our security operations team a significant amount of time. From an analyst's perspective, it is now much easier to correlate events, investigate alerts, and visualize specific entities. For example, an analyst can quickly see all of the alerts associated with a particular IP address, or they can view all of the activity for a specific entity over the past 24 hours or 7 days. This level of detail and insight would not be possible if our data were siloed in multiple dashboards. The single dashboard saves our operations approximately 20 hours per week by eliminating the need to access multiple consoles and tabs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps threat intelligence can help us prepare for potential threats before they happen. However, it depends on how we develop the policies for the database to block or ignore things in our environment.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

More iboss pros

"I find Fortinet FortiCASB easily customizable."

"The ability to prevent users from using certain applications is one of the most valuable features. It doesn't require any configuration for implementation from the client perspective. It just works right away and gives you the information you need."

"In Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, there is an option to enable files. Once you enable that, it will give you all the files in your organization and where they are located in the cloud... That feature is very useful for investigation purposes."

"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 most valuable feature is its policy implementation."

"Defender for Cloud Apps has given us good visibility regarding what we've allowed into our environment until now."

"The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial."

"The most effective features for data protection are data loss prevention (DLP) and data classification."

"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."

"Its pricing could be better."

More iboss cons

"The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved. The learning curve for deploying, configuring use cases, and rules can be better."

"The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved."

"There are certain areas where the product could improve, such as some functionalities that did not work as expected."

"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."

"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."

"It doesn't actually decrease the time to respond. This has been an issue with Microsoft recently. Sometimes, there is a delay when it comes to getting an alert policy email... Sometimes it takes two or three hours for that email to be sent."

"I would like more customization of notifications. Currently, you either get everything or you get limited information. I would like to have something in between where we can customize the data that is included in notifications."

"I would prefer to have filtering options incorporated within the policies, enabling the solution to perform tasks beyond mere blocking or allowing."

"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."

"The product is very good so far, however, it would be better if it could include more up-to-date threat protection."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

Information not available

"Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."

"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."

"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."

"It has pretty good pricing."

"This product is not expensive."

"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."

"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?

Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.

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What needs improvement with iboss?

Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctl...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiCASB?

The price point could be better, and improvements are desired in staying on top of evolving threats while keeping cos...

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What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiCASB?

The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved. The learning curve for deploying, configuring use...

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What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiCASB?

My primary use case for Fortinet FortiCASB is threat management and managing external threats. I predominantly use it...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?

It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?

The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable. If a product is of high quality, it justifies the ex...

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Comparisons

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Netskope vs Fortinet FortiCASB

Compared 38% of the time

FortiSASE vs Fortinet FortiCASB

Compared 32% of the time

More Fortinet FortiCASB Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 22% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 13% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

April 2025

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiCASB product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

March 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

FortiCASB

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Overview

iboss offers a comprehensive security platform designed for diverse use cases such as web filtering, data loss protection, corporate proxy services, and URL filtering.

iboss integrates advanced features to address dynamic security needs, leveraging its strength in SASE, ZTNA, AI initiatives, and cloud integration, while ensuring seamless operations for remote work. It excels in historical forensics, malware protection, and flexible cloud deployments. Users benefit from comprehensive traffic scanning, robust malware detection, and PaaS capabilities that reduce hardware management. An intuitive admin console ensures efficient management with content filtering and low false positives. SSL decryption enhances security, while DLP protects data in AI conversations. Deployment is rapid and scalable, allowing effortless integration with emerging technologies.

What features does iboss offer?

Granular Web Filtering: Provides precise control over web content access.
Traffic Scanning: Monitors data through multiple ports for security breaches.
Malware Detection: Ensures superior protection against malware threats.
PaaS Capabilities: Eliminates need for hardware management.
SSL Decryption: Enhances data protection by decrypting secure connections.
DLP Capabilities: Safeguards data during AI interactions.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Adapts quickly to growing demands and emerging tech integration.
Rapid Deployment: Reduces time to implement security measures.
User-Friendly Admin Console: Facilitates efficient operations management.
Low False Positives: Increases accuracy of threat detection systems.

iboss finds significant application in sectors such as education, where web filtering for K-12 is crucial, and in corporate environments requiring robust proxy services and URL filtering for network security. Its adaptability is essential in scenarios demanding flexible, decentralized security frameworks, particularly for remote work setups.

iboss

Fortinet FortiCASB is a comprehensive cloud security solution offered by Fortinet, a leading cybersecurity company. FortiCASB is designed to provide organizations with visibility, control, and security for their cloud-based applications and services. It helps organizations secure their cloud environments, detect threats, enforce policies, and ensure compliance.

Fortinet FortiCASB Features:

Cloud Application Visibility

FortiCASB offers visibility into cloud applications and services being used within an organization's network. It helps identify shadow IT and provides insights into the cloud usage patterns, facilitating effective management and control.

Data Protection and Compliance

FortiCASB enables organizations to protect sensitive data in the cloud by enforcing data loss prevention (DLP) policies and encryption. It helps identify and control data sharing, detect anomalies, and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.

Threat Detection and Response

FortiCASB incorporates advanced threat detection capabilities to identify and mitigate cloud-specific threats. It employs machine learning algorithms and behavioral analytics to detect anomalous activities, account compromises, malware, and other cloud-based threats.

Access Controls and Identity Management

FortiCASB enables organizations to enforce granular access controls for cloud applications, ensuring that users have appropriate permissions and follow secure authentication practices. It integrates with identity management systems and supports features such as single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Compliance Monitoring and Reporting

FortiCASB helps organizations monitor and maintain compliance with industry regulations and standards. It provides pre-defined compliance templates, automated policy enforcement, and detailed reporting capabilities to demonstrate adherence to data privacy and security requirements.

Shadow IT Discovery and Control

FortiCASB helps organizations discover and gain visibility into unauthorized or risky cloud applications used within their network. It enables IT teams to assess risks, enforce policies, and take appropriate actions to manage and control cloud usage effectively.

Cloud Security Assessments

FortiCASB conducts security assessments of cloud applications and services to evaluate their security posture and identify vulnerabilities. It provides insights into potential risks and assists organizations in making informed decisions about the adoption of specific cloud services.

Fortinet

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:

Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
Easy to use and deploy
Provides real-time threat detection and response
Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:

Governance, authentication, security, and compliance.
Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
Controls access to applications
Provides auditing and filtering setups
Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

Reviews from Real Users

Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

Microsoft

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

Rollins

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

April 2025

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