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Google Cloud Security Command Center vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 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 Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (4th), Compliance Management (3rd)
Google Cloud Security Comma...
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
26th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
20th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
3rd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (3rd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (4th), Compliance Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Security Command Center is 1.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 10.8%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

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.
Nishant_Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides visibility, address cloud misconfiguration and prevent threats
In terms of identifying, the solution is pretty good. It takes care of all the layers. We have Cloud, Kubernetes cluster, instances running, and network. We have identities, permissions, and access. It provides pictures of everything in GCP. There's no such integration required. There are Google APIs that you need to enable. The compliance reporting feature helped us maintain a baseline of compliance within the information security policies. It's pretty stable and scalable. However, visibility can be improved along with automation. SCC to provide an option to fix those things, perhaps by clicking a button. For example, if a firewall rule allows an application to accept HTTP traffic, I should be able to address that specific issue directly within the interface. It's just a regular call to action button. There are no prerequisites for the solution. It's a requirement to have good security visibility into your Google Cloud Infrastructure. Cloud Security Command Center could be a good product to consider. There are other open-source solutions available. There are solutions from Aqua that are pretty decent. I would recommend that if somebody is opting for SCC, they should also explore open-source solutions. Open-source solutions can be very beneficial, especially if they are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy. You won't need additional security tools for platforms like AWS or others. Whenever a security issue pops up, a generative AI backend provides a summary of what happened. The information provided is quite detailed. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
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

"We really appreciate the Slack integration. When we have an incident, we get an instant notification. We also use Joe Sandbox, which Singularity can integrate with, so we can verify if a threat is legitimate."
"It saves time, makes your environment more secure, and improves compliance. PingSafe 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."
"The offensive security where they do a fix is valuable. They go to a misconfiguration and provide detailed alerts on what could be there. They also provide a remediation feature where if we give the permission, they can also go and fix the issue."
"The offensive security feature is valuable because it publicly detects the offensive and vulnerable things present in our domain or applications. It checks any applications with public access. Some of the applications give public access to certain files or are present over a particular domain. It detects and lets us know with evidence. That is quite good. It is protecting our infrastructure quite well."
"Overall, I would rate SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security a ten out of ten."
"Cloud Native Security helps us discover vulnerabilities in a cloud environment like open ports that allow people to attack our environment. If someone unintentionally opens a port, we are exposed. Cloud Native Security alerts us so we can remediate the problem. We can also automate it so that Cloud Native Security will fix it."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has improved our security posture."
"The ease of use of the platform is very nice."
"The compliance reporting feature helped us maintain a baseline of compliance within the information security policies."
"It simplifies compliance efforts."
"Most people use the threat detection dashboard."
"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very good."
"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."
"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."
"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop."
"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."
"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."
 

Cons

"PingSafe takes four to five hours to detect and highlight an issue, and that time should be reduced."
"When you find a vulnerability and resolve it, the same issue will not occur again. I want PingSafe to block the same vulnerability from appearing again. I want something like a playbook where the steps that we take to resolve an issue are repeated when that issue happens again."
"I would like to see the map feature improve. It's good, but it isn't fully developed. It lets us use custom resources and policies but does not allow us to perform some actions. I would also like more custom integration and runtime security for Kubernetes."
"A beneficial improvement for PingSafe would be integration with Jira, allowing for a more streamlined ticketing system."
"In terms of ease of use, initially, it is a bit confusing to navigate around, but once you get used to it, it becomes easier."
"The integration with Oracle has room for improvement."
"They need more experienced support personnel."
"The categorization of the results from the vulnerability assessment could be improved."
"The AI capabilities have been heavily promoted, but I haven't seen a significant impact."
"Visibility can be improved along with automation."
"Consistency is the area where the most improvement is needed. For example, there are some areas where the UI is not uniform across the board."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters. It could be cheaper."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved by adding capabilities for NetApp files and more PaaS resources from other vendors, not just Microsoft."
"Most customer teams need more training on this type of product."
"The pricing could be improved, as it is somewhat high for smaller companies."
"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."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is constant. It has been constant over the previous year, so I am happy with it. However, price distribution can be better explained. That is the only area I am worried about. Otherwise, the pricing is very reasonable."
"It is cheap."
"PingSafe is fairly priced."
"It is a little expensive. I would rate it a four out of ten for pricing."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"For pricing, it currently seems to be in line with market rates."
"SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven."
"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."
"Initially, it used to be relatively expensive, starting at around four or five hundred dollars."
"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."
"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to 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."
"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Retailer
7%
Media Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
From my personal experience, the alerting system needs to be faster. If something happens in our infrastructure, the ...
What do you like most about Google Cloud Security Command Center?
The compliance reporting feature helped us maintain a baseline of compliance within the information security policies.
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Security Command Center?
The primary use case is to monitor the Google Cloud infrastructure across all projects for security-related alerts. T...
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?
The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against ...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
No data available
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
Information Not Available
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 Google Cloud Security Command Center vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.