Microsoft Defender for Business vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

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Helped 814,763 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Busi...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

18th

Average Rating

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (41st)

Microsoft Defender for Clou...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 2.8%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Tim_Howard

CEO at CarbonCents

Sep 11, 2024

Provides good protection against viruses but support needs improvement

The product's initial setup phase wasn't too bad. The product's installation phase wasn't terrible, but it could have been good to club the things in the process, especially for the ones who are doing it for the first time, and it would be good if Microsoft offered users, someone, to talk to who knows the product. You will be gambling if you use Google for the tool because who knows if it really knows what Microsoft Defender for Business is all about. On a scale of one to ten, if ten is the easiest, I rate the setup phase as an eight out of ten. The setup phase was straightforward. As the tool was needed in a small shop, the solution's deployment was done in a couple of days. The solution was deployed in my company with the help of a small team of ten people. I had my head of IT help me in rolling it out in our company.

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Anthony Alvarico

Deliver Practice Director at DynTek

Jul 9, 2024

Provides discovery, data exfiltration, and sensitive data exposure at low cost

The deployment process is quick, taking two to three days. The implementation and customization require more time. We need to adjust the setup to fit the client's needs, which involves fine-tuning notifications and alerts to avoid overwhelming them. First, you need the appropriate licensing. Once you have that, go to security.microsoft.com and integrate with Defender for Endpoints to receive information. While you can ingest logs from different firewalls, such as Palo Alto or Cisco, we usually implement them with Defender for Endpoints. Once a laptop or desktop is set up in Defender for Endpoints, integrating Cloud Apps with the endpoints allows us to collect the data easily. I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

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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

"A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is going on. We have a footprint across all of North America, Canada, and Mexico, so we want to make sure that all our endpoints are protected and we are able to look for any anomalous activity."

"I haven't had any problems with the tool's stability."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its central console."

"It is scalable."

"If you're an Intune user, you can bring in certain capabilities like system-hardening policies, which further enhances the security."

"The interface is quite user-friendly."

"The solution provides good scalability."

"Microsoft Defender for Business is good for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers solid security flexibility and integration with tools like Microsoft Lighthouse and some other software. It takes some of the features of Defender for Endpoint EDR and provides those services for small and medium-sized business environments."

"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."

"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."

"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."

"One of the most valuable features is auditing. Some of the other protection services have issues with auditing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an excellent auditing technique that helps us avoid the risk of filtering or information loss. You can use different tools to guarantee these things. It allows you to conduct an in-depth exploration of applications, users, and files that are harmful or suspicious. You can also enhance your security setup by creating personalized rules or policies that help you better control traffic in the cloud."

"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."

"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."

"All of the features are valuable because all of the features are related."

"It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

Cons

"The tool's support is an area of concern where improvements are needed."

"Talking with the tool's technician about any problem is very complicated."

"The solution's AI is notorious for false positives, and the time you have to spend training it is ridiculous."

"The security could always be improved."

"Defender's reporting is rather scattered, and its URL filtering mechanism doesn't really work."

"The biggest one is that Defender needs to be more proactive to the emerging threats. There can be tighter integration with email, especially how it integrates with our email system, which is the Microsoft Outlook suite. There should be the ability to react a lot quicker to emerging threats because sometimes, it takes a few days before some of these new threats are fully identified, and we need that to be a few hours."

"We faced some issues while running some applications on Mac."

"Defender's threat protection should be fine-tuned to reduce false positives. It could be more targeted, reflecting a continuous evolution in detecting. Also, it could be easier to integrate into other environments."

"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."

"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."

"In the future, I would like to see more plug-and-play capabilities that use AI to tell you what needs to be done. It would be helpful if it scanned our devices and made security suggestions, on a configuration basis."

"The technical support team has room for improvement."

"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."

"I believe it's only set to be integrated with Microsoft Defender for identity and identity protection. I would like to see it available for use with something like Office 365 Defender. I don't think it's integrated with that yet."

"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."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps' initial setup was quite technical but we were prepared. The time of the implementation depends on the job and how many users are being set up."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since we're a nonprofit, we get pretty good discounts on the tool."

"The tool is cheap, while some other solutions are more expensive. I remember the tool cost about five euros for a workstation or for a user on a monthly basis."

"The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible."

"Defender for Business is included by default with an Office 365 premium subscription."

"It has to get more competitive because we are starting to see some of the competitors providing better pricing, and some of it, of course, is to gain market share. The Defender product pricing is probably a little higher than the competitors."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It has pretty good pricing."

"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."

"The pricing is in the middle. It isn't too cheap or expensive compared to other antivirus or security products. It is priced according to industry standards."

"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."

"The pricing is fair."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

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814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Business?

A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is goin...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?

The tool's cost has been a little high, but I do not think it was terrible.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?

The tool's support is an area of concern where improvements are needed. I have had issues trying to get support or even trying to get to somebody. I often give up chasing the support and end up goi...

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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...

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 notifications are pretty good.

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

It's relatively low-cost, especially since it's often bundled with Microsoft 365.

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Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

Trend Micro Worry-Free Services Suites vs Microsoft Defender for Business

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Business

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Defender for Business

Compared 5% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 24% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 18% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 12% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Business

Download Microsoft Defender for Business product report

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Learn More

Microsoft

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Business is a new endpoint security solution that was designed especially for the small and medium-sized business (up to 300 employees). With this endpoint security solution, your company's devices are better protected from ransomware, malware, phishing, and other threats.

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".

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps