Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps delivers 35%-60% cost savings through enhanced security, operational efficiency, and seamless integration with Microsoft products.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Identity offers cost-effective, efficient security breach prevention, reducing management time without additional hardware needs, meeting client expectations.
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support is generally positive, but users experience varying response times and expertise levels.
Sentiment score
9.1
Microsoft Defender for Identity support is effective and praised, but lower-tier users may experience delays and first-level challenges.
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalability and flexibility, easily integrating apps and managing large enterprises' security needs.
Sentiment score
9.2
Microsoft Defender for Identity is praised for scalability, handling varied environments and expanding easily with company growth.
For what I know about the log collector and how much data it can take in, it is super scalable and capable of handling high workloads.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers reliable performance with minimal downtime, overcoming occasional external issues and network-related latency.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Identity is stable and reliable, with positive user ratings despite occasional downtime and minor issues.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
Like any other Microsoft product, the uptime is good.
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest better integration, pricing, and UI for Apple and Microsoft tools, with enhancements in reporting, support, and threat protection.
Microsoft Defender for Identity needs enhanced security, integration, user-friendliness, threat intelligence, and improved documentation to address user challenges.
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing.
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is cost-effective with Microsoft 365 bundles but pricey separately, with varied licensing complexity.
Microsoft Defender for Identity offers cost-effective pricing through E5 licensing, with flexible options for enterprises based on location.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers integrated security, real-time alerts, and strong threat detection for comprehensive enterprise cloud protection.
Microsoft Defender for Identity enhances security with integration, AI analysis, real-time alerts, and a user-friendly dashboard for threat management.
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
We have also locked down our consent apps, so users can no longer consent on their own behalf to create apps in our environment.
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
14th
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
5th
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 7.3%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Jagadeesh Gunasekaran - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily detects advanced attacks based on user behavior
The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud. Identity harvesting is the most common threat. Legacy Microsoft solutions and Amazon face the same issues in the cloud. Users don't implement other security mechanisms in the cloud. In an on-premise environment, we would have multiple security devices like firewalls and several layers of security. Cloud users are less bothered because cloud features are there and only need to be configured. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the best solution because all threats are completely visible, and it has a great dashboard. The dashboard displays each threat and score, so we can identify the threat rating and act efficiently to avoid compromising user identities. We have a single sign-on feature on the cloud. If we lose a single set of identities, it can compromise the entire organization, including cloud and on-premise. The same identities are being used everywhere. The user activity has to be completely visible on the dashboard, and it has to generate a pattern. It will notify us if there is any security breach. It is a complete monitoring set. Minor changes in the user identity can lead to data leakage. If a password is changed in the cloud, it will be reflected automatically in the on-premise. This minor change will trigger an alert in Microsoft Defender for Identity. It ensures that each cloud identity is well protected from spoofing. It has a comprehensive database of well-known spoofing techniques, enabling us to provide cloud identity protection completely. It has a vast scope because it is completely single sign-on. In the emerging industry, we use single sign-on because users need to authenticate, but it's challenging to remember multiple passwords. Once your user signs in, you can access all the data. An identity compromise would lead to various issues and affect the data on-premises. Defender maintains a constantly updated database with the latest signatures, attack models, and threats. If it detects one threat, it will monitor the suspicious event and give us frequent alerts. Identity protection is vital because we use an identity mechanism for everything, including firewall-related activities. The exact identity used in the cloud is used in the most complex firewalls. We require an excellent migration technique to regain this user credential if something gets compromised. Blocking this requires a massive set of procedures. Microsoft Defender comprehensively monitors identity and provides frequent alerts regarding any issue, so we don't need to think of anything else. Defender's bidirectional sync capabilities are helpful because we need to sync data from multiple directions, including tenant-to-tenant, on-premise-to-cloud, and cloud-to-cloud syncing. As a university, we have multiple tenants, so we need to sync or access data across platforms. That way, everything is more secure, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud also provides ample security for cloud transfers. The bidirectional sync capabilities are flawless—10 out of 10. Our on-premise Active Directory is perfectly synced with the Azure AD. Everything is synced with on-premise, and changes are reflected in minutes. If a problem with identity is addressed on the cloud, the fix will be mirrored on-premise and vice versa. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Identity are bundled. If we have these two solutions, we don't need to worry about anything else or third-party antivirus. Microsoft Defender for Identity acts as a link to all the Microsoft security features that require identity-based validation. Microsoft Defender instantly provides identity security for all our applications, and users need not worry about typing their passwords. Even in situations with less complex encryption mechanisms, users don't need to worry about typing in their passwords. Defender will check and monitor if there are any flaws in that, and it will let us know if there are any issues. We're a Microsoft shop, so everything works together. If one feature isn't working, everything will be affected. If Defender isn't working, half of our Microsoft security features will be dead. Without identity security, user data can easily be compromised, and data can fall into the hands of intruders or other hackers. The solutions have to complement each other. If anything got wrong, the entire setup would have flaws. Microsoft security has a legacy security mechanism. A while back, we might have gone with Defender for Endpoint, but Microsoft has also grown into the face of the cloud. The same Defender solution is completely maintaining cloud security. We can imagine Microsoft's vast scale and how Defender can protect the cloud environment from vulnerabilities and attacks. We are definitely delighted with Microsoft products. The dashboard features are fantastic because it provides a comprehensive overview. It has a great alert mechanism and log inspector that tracks when users access various servers. With this kind of identity validation, we can control which servers the users can access. We have total visibility from the dashboard. We can track identity usage even if there are no issues. That is an essential advantage.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I'm familiar with the licensing requirements to get our job done, but not from a pricing standpoint. That is not my job.
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform to promptly alert affected users and their...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
I am actively working with Microsoft Defender for Identity for tasks involving SQL identity endpoint management and have used it since 2019.
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.