Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Entra Permissions Management comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Entra Permissions Management

Download the complete report

Helped 842,767 peers since 2012

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

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (3rd)

Microsoft Entra Permissions...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

29th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.6%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra Permissions Management is 0.5%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

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.

Read full review

Sameer Bhat

Vice President at Goldman Sachs

Provides resource-based access and security, but time-bound access can be a problem

Entra ID is the core of the identity management that we have. This is the key product that we are using. I am currently also looking into Entra Private Access because we are planning to deploy about 50,000 desktops into Azure and use Azure Virtual Desktop. We would like to give access to the users from the desktop to on-premises applications. I learned that Entra Private Access is a good solution. That is not yet GA, but that is what we are looking for. Entra provides a single pane of glass for managing user access, but because our company also integrates with Nebula API, only administrators use Entra's pane. A normal person who wants to get onboarded can do self-service using Nebula. The features for whitelisting and other things are definitely there. That is what we use specifically. Application IDs, enterprise applications, and all those things are already there, so we have more efficiency. There is also security because we usually do not allow user identities to get direct access to Azure resources. Usually, we use the service principles from Entra ID, so this way, it increases security. Entra has helped to save time for our IT administrators. We tend to automate a lot of things. We can do automation using Graph APIs and save time. It is hard to quantify the time savings, but there has been a medium amount of time savings. Entra has helped to save our organization money. We care about security and risk more than money, but it also saves money. We are premium customers, and because we have a commit-to-consume contract with Microsoft of multi-million dollars, the money does not come into it because we have to consume those resources.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded."

"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."

"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."

"The technical support is very good."

"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST."

"The solution is used for risks, vulnerabilities, and compliance."

"It offers virus management and addresses threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other critical security concerns."

"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The solution integrates well with our infrastructure and other systems without any issues."

"Multifactor authentication is valuable."

Cons

"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."

"The product must improve its UI."

"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."

"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads."

"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."

"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."

"The documentation could be much clearer."

"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"We use a third-party API called Nebula API to integrate the account for authorization. The time-bound access area in Entra can be a problem. It can be improved in terms of the granularity of the permissions."

"The solution's pricing and support services need improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."

"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."

"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."

"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."

"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"The product cost is in the mid to high range."

"We are a Fortune 500 company, so we always negotiate with Microsoft."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...

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?

Initially, the cost was reasonable, but additional services from Microsoft sometimes incur extra expenses that seem higher than expected.

What do you like most about Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?

Multifactor authentication is valuable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?

The product cost is in the mid to high range. You need to have a good budget to implement it, so it is considered fairly expensive for our market. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra Permissions Management?

The solution's pricing and support services need improvement.

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Comparisons

Compared 21% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra Permissions Management

Compared 35% of the time

Saviynt vs Microsoft Entra Permissions Management

Compared 35% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Entra Permissions Management

Compared 14% of the time

More Microsoft Entra Permissions Management Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)

Download Microsoft Entra Permissions Management product report

Microsoft Entra Permissions Management report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

CloudKnox Permissions Management

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft Entra Permissions Management is a cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) solution that provides comprehensive visibility into permissions assigned to all identities – users and workloads – actions, and resources across cloud infrastructures. It detects, right-sizes, and monitors unused and excessive permissions and enables Zero Trust security through least privilege access in Microsoft Azure, AWS, and GCP.

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Entra Permissions Management