Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Sentinel comparison

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1,165 views|867 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
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5,511 views|3,071 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

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

Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Sentinel Report (Updated: March 2024).
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward.""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.""If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done.""On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent.""Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup.""The most valuable feature of this solution is its monitoring.""The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database.""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."

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"Sentinel has features that have helped improve our security poster. It helped us in going ahead and identifying the gaps via analysis and focusing on the key elements.""The most valuable feature is the UEBA. It's very easy for a security operations analyst. It has a one-touch analysis where you can search for a particular entity, and you can get a complete overview of that entity or user.""It is easy to implement (turn on) - does need a skilled analyst to develop queries and playbooks.""Sentinel also enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and not just from the Microsoft ecosystem. It can receive data from third-party vendors' products such firewalls, network devices, and antivirus solutions. It's not only a Microsoft solution, it's for everything.""The product can integrate with any device.""The scalability is great. You can put unlimited logs in, as long as you can pay for it. There are commitment tiers, up to six terabytes per day, which is nowhere close to what any one of our customers is running.""The AI capability is one of the main features of the solution because I believe that in the market, there are few solutions that are providing security solutions based on AI and machine learning.""Sentinel's most important feature is the ability to centralize all the logs in one place. There's no need to search multiple systems for information."

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Cons
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports.""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 would like to see them include more features in the older licenses. There are some features that are not available, such as preventing or analyzing cloud attacks.""Generally, the pricing can always be improved along with the management system.""Sometimes the support is actually lacking.""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’s technical support services needs improvement.""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..."

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"If Sentinel had a graphical user interface, it would be easier to use. I would also like it to be more customizable.""They only classify alerts into three categories: high, medium, and low. So, from the user's point of view, having another critical category would be awesome.""The following would be a challenge for any product in the market, but we have some in-house apps in our environment... our apps were built with different parameters and the APIs for them are not present in Sentinel. We are working with Microsoft to build those custom APIs that we require. That is currently in progress.""The KQL query does not function effectively with Windows 11 machines, and in the majority of machine-based investigations, KQL queries are essential for organizing the data during investigations.""Sentinel can be used in two ways. With other tools like QRadar, I don't need to run queries. Using Sentinel requires users to learn KQL to run technical queries and check things. If they don't know KQL, they can't fully utilize the solution.""Microsoft Sentinel is relatively expensive, and its cost should be improved.""Microsoft Defender has a built-in threat expert option that enables you to contact an expert. That feature isn't available in Sentinel because it's a huge product that integrates all the technologies. I would like Microsoft to add the threat expert option so we can contact them. There are a few other features, like threat assessment that the PG team is working on. I expect them to release this feature in the next quarter.""The built-in SOAR is not really good out-of-the-box. The SOAR relies on logic apps and you almost need to have some kind of developer background to be able to make these logic apps. Most security people cannot develop anything..."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
  • "This product is not expensive."
  • "Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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 price could be better and should be reconsidered."
  • "It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
  • "It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
  • "Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
  • "I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
  • "It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
  • "I am just paying for the log space with Azure Sentinel. It costs us about $2,000 a month. Most of the logs are free. We are only paying money for Azure Firewall logs because email logs or Azure AD logs are free to use for us."
  • "Sentinel is a bit expensive. If you can figure a way of configuring it to meet your needs, then you can find a way around the cost."
  • "Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
  • More Microsoft Sentinel Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized by… more »
    Top Answer:It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log… more »
    Top Answer:We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will… more »
    Ranking
    10th
    Views
    1,165
    Comparisons
    867
    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
    1,031
    Rating
    8.6
    6th
    Views
    5,511
    Comparisons
    3,071
    Reviews
    59
    Average Words per Review
    1,638
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
    Azure Sentinel
    Learn More
    Overview

    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 Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution that lets you see and stop threats before they cause harm. Microsoft Sentinel delivers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing a single solution for alert detection, threat visibility, proactive hunting, and threat response. Eliminate security infrastructure setup and maintenance, and elastically scale to meet your security needs—while reducing IT costs. With Microsoft Sentinel, you can:

    - Collect data at cloud scale—across all users, devices, applications, and infrastructure, both on-premises and in multiple clouds

    - Detect previously uncovered threats and minimize false positives using analytics and unparalleled threat intelligence from Microsoft

    - Investigate threats with AI and hunt suspicious activities at scale, tapping into decades of cybersecurity work at Microsoft

    - Respond to incidents rapidly with built-in orchestration and automation of common tasks

    To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

    Sample Customers
    Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
    Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government9%
    Engineering Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise59%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Sentinel
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 10th in Microsoft Security Suite with 30 reviews while Microsoft Sentinel is ranked 6th in Microsoft Security Suite with 85 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Sentinel is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Sentinel writes "Gives a comprehensive and holistic view of the ecosystem and improves visibility and the ability to respond". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Qualys VMDR, whereas Microsoft Sentinel is most compared with AWS Security Hub, IBM Security QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Elastic Security. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Sentinel report.

    See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.

    We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.