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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Secureworks Taegis XDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Container Management (6th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
Secureworks Taegis XDR
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Network Detection and Response (NDR) (8th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud10.7%
Wiz8.6%
AWS GuardDuty8.0%
Other72.7%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Secureworks Taegis XDR1.2%
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint6.4%
Wazuh5.4%
Other87.0%
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Qatar Datamation Systems
Centralized monitoring has strengthened threat hunting and improved ransomware protection
Threat hunting and SOC augmentation represent the most special features about Secureworks Taegis XDR, where some of the best people in cybersecurity proactively search, provide reports, and deliver indicators of compromise for any activity in your network. This monitoring and reporting can be conducted weekly or monthly. Centralized security monitoring and reporting is one of the most valuable aspects, as security fundamentally revolves around compliance. Having a centralized security monitoring platform that detects endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, including servers and switches, is essential. Secureworks Taegis XDR's architecture involves a collector device that collects all your data, even from small laptops, and allows you to monitor everything in one platform. This centralized system provides compliance and security visibility, ensuring evidence and visibility for your security and any compliance requirements you have. Analytics with Secureworks Taegis XDR give you a full preview of everything on your device. It takes all the inputs and outputs of your infrastructure; for example, if it is a firewall, it scans all of the traffic. While it is not a SIEM, it is an open XDR, which excels at conducting analytics. This represents one of its best features because Secureworks has implemented a machine learning model that can detect and analyze everything independently, providing AI-driven features. Integration with third-party tools is quite seamless. Secureworks Taegis XDR can integrate with virtually anything. One of the best features of this product is its integration capabilities with multiple sources of EDRs and any operating system, whether protecting Linux or Windows servers. It boasts very good integration, and if a specific integration is not available, you can raise a ticket to Secureworks, and they will work on your integration, whatever it is, even if it is custom-built software. Secureworks Taegis XDR absolutely aids in efficiency. SOC augmentation extends an organization's existing SOC, which helps reduce alert fatigue significantly. It provides additional threat intelligence and expert investigation, making it very useful for organizations that have a security team but lack twenty-four seven coverage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If someone were to ask me to review Qualys TotalCloud, I would summarize it as an end-to-end solution for cloud security with visibility and governance-grade controls without needing to manage multiple disconnected tools."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"Generally, Qualys is very good at detections, whether on cloud or on-prem, and the agent allows deployment on both infrastructures, providing continuous monitoring of your assets, which is a key selling point for us."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."
"Qualys TotalCloud is an excellent platform, and the beauty of the platform is that we can get all the vulnerabilities, see all the reports in a single dashboard, view them segregated, and easily learn about critical, high, and medium findings with appropriately provided remediation steps."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"We are a financial company, so Defender for Cloud helps us create multiple layers to protect assets and ensure a more secure environment."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"If you're in the world of cloud and your company is using Azure as their primary cloud, I think Azure Security Center is a must-have feature, because it provides a bird's eye view of the entire security position of the organization."
"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."
"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST, and alert management is another useful feature with alerts directly integrated with our email or DevOps board for easy viewing, allowing us to identify problem areas efficiently."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats; we're protected from various threats, like viruses, and attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."
"The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Secureworks Taegis XDR has positively impacted our organization by improving detection rates and reducing our time; as I mentioned, it saves us from manually going through all the logs, which is not practical."
"Definitely, Secureworks Taegis XDR is cost effective for the long run since the product is at a lower cost rather than other brands."
"Sophos is a good XDR, and I recommend it for large companies since they have approximately 2,000 or 3,000 devices and can implement it as it is the best XDR."
"Threat hunting and SOC augmentation represent the most special features about Secureworks Taegis XDR, where some of the best people in cybersecurity proactively search, provide reports, and deliver indicators of compromise for any activity in your network."
"Using Secureworks Taegis XDR has positively impacted our organization overall."
"The price for Secureworks Taegis XDR is very competitive."
"The features I find most valuable are the fact that Secureworks Taegis XDR runs itself without any form of intervention."
 

Cons

"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."
"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."
"Regarding improvements to Qualys TotalCloud, I suggest that user navigation can be enhanced because initially, many users found it complicated and had trouble understanding the platform due to information being spread across multiple tabs."
"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."
"The remediation process could be improved."
"It's really hard to get ahold of Microsoft support. When you buy a product, with the M365 portal, you're given the option to chat with somebody, and normally you don't hear back immediately."
"One of the issues with the product is that it's not possible to write or edit any capability."
"Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft."
"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."
"Defender could provide more in-depth visibility into vulnerabilities and services. For instance, we wanted to scan Azure NetApp for sensitive data, but they didn't have that feature. It was only for storage accounts. I want Azure Defender features to cover all Azure resources rather than a few."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"Secureworks Taegis XDR is a good product, but it should include AI technology."
"Customer support for Secureworks Taegis XDR is not that bad; they are reachable but not super efficient."
"One negative aspect I always hear from customers is about the cost."
"The efficiency or the smooth navigation of the website or the application can be improved in Secureworks Taegis XDR."
"To improve Secureworks Taegis XDR, we need to enhance the support part."
"We found limitations in the XDR's detections, lacking the ability to create customized detection and log parsing rules."
"I do not see any other problems with Secureworks Taegis XDR besides pricing."
"Hardware compatibility could be an area for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
"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."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"The pricing is six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
What needs improvement with Secureworks Taegis XDR?
If there were a next release of the product, I would like to see an increase in playbooks, specifically for augmentat...
What is your primary use case for Secureworks Taegis XDR?
Clients are primarily using Secureworks Taegis XDR for securing endpoints, networks, and extending to cloud, identity...
What advice do you have for others considering Secureworks Taegis XDR?
One of the best features of this product is its integration capabilities with multiple sources of EDRs and any operat...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Secureworks Taegis NDR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Wiz, SentinelOne and others in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP). Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.