Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Cloud Security comparison

Microsoft and Tenable are both solutions in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.1, while Tenable is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.2. Microsoft holds a 11.2% mindshare in CNAP, compared to Tenable’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable Cloud Security are competing in the cloud security management category. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has the upper hand due to its robust integration with Microsoft services.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud integrates deeply with Azure resources, uses AI for threat detection, and automates incident response. It provides extensive recommendations and centralized management. Tenable Cloud Security stands out with its comprehensive vulnerability detection, software composition analysis, and robust asset management. It excels in compliance management and supports DevOps integration.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could improve by providing more granular control over policy enforcement and enhancing support for non-Microsoft platforms. Customization options for reporting might be limited, and integrating with third-party SIEM tools can be complex. Tenable Cloud Security could benefit from a more user-friendly interface and better scalability for large enterprise environments. It may also need to enhance support for real-time threat intelligence and improve its remediation automation capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud benefits from easy deployment within Azure, offering a streamlined setup and familiar interface for Microsoft users. Its centralized management provides ease of use across Microsoft environments. Tenable Cloud Security is flexible in multi-cloud deployments, accommodating diverse cloud environments efficiently. Their customer support is reliable, though Microsoft’s seamless Azure integration often results in faster onboarding and configuration.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is integrated into existing Microsoft service subscriptions, potentially lowering costs for Azure users and promising a competitive ROI through enhanced threat protection. Tenable Cloud Security may have higher initial setup costs due to robust vulnerability assessments, but it translates to substantial ROI by reducing security risks and maintaining compliance. The advanced features of Tenable are seen as valuable investments for comprehensive security management.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

February 2025

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.1%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 11.2%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Cloud Security is 2.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)

Featured Reviews

Andrew W

VP - Information Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues

Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.

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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.

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Ondrej Kováč

Solution Engineer at Exclusive Networks Czechia

Has vulnerability detection, software composition analysis and asset management features

Due to its robust nature, the platform's adoption can be overwhelming initially. However, once organizations start using it, they tend to get used to it. I haven't had much direct interaction with the support team, but some partners have reported a desire for better support for the product. Another area needing improvement is the implementation complexity, especially in multi-cloud environments. Tenable Cloud Security's features mean there's a steep learning curve, which can consume significant time and resources to utilize the platform's potential and fully see immediate benefits. It's similar to AI in that you must spend time fine-tuning and training before it truly helps.

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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

"I recommend SentinelOne due to its high-security capabilities, which are essential to safeguard data and systems from potential threats."

"You not only get to know about vulnerabilities and misconfigurations but also some of the actual"

"The tool identifies issues quickly."

"The offensive security feature is valuable because it publicly detects the offensive and vulnerable things present in our domain or applications. It checks any applications with public access. Some of the applications give public access to certain files or are present over a particular domain. It detects and lets us know with evidence. That is quite good. It is protecting our infrastructure quite well."

"The user-friendliness is the most valuable feature."

"The cloud misconfiguration feature and Offensive Security Engine, as well as their alerting process, are valuable."

"The cloud misconfiguration is the most valuable feature."

"PingSafe stands out for its user-friendly interface and intuitive software, making it easy to navigate and use."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."

"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."

"The most valuable features are the security recommendations provided by Defender for Cloud."

"It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."

"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."

"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."

"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"Ermetic can provide super visibility for our cloud environment (we are using AWS)."

"Tenable Cloud Security excels in vulnerability detection, one of its strongest features. Another valuable feature is software composition analysis, which highlights and automates the detection of security flaws. Additionally, their knowledge base is excellent; if anything goes wrong, they provide clear guidance on what needs to be done to address specific vulnerabilities."

"If you have multi-cloud tenancy using AWS and Azure, you can have a single dashboard where you can onboard all the cloud infrastructure and have visibility into it."

"The product's deployment phase is easy."

"The key benefit lies in having the largest and most up-to-date database. When it comes to using any Tenable product, it excels in finding vulnerabilities and providing analytics."

"Scanning and reporting are the most valuable features of Tenable Cloud Security"

"The product's visibility and remediation work fine for me."

"The tool alerts us on depreciating performance or deficiencies of our web application. It helps us react on time."

More Tenable Cloud Security pros

Cons

"The Singularity Cloud Security console is experiencing delays in clearing resolved issues, which can take over an hour to be removed from the display."

"The area of improvement is the cost, which is high compared to other traditional endpoint protections."

"The cost has the potential for improvement."

"They can work on policies based on different compliance standards."

"I believe the UI/UX updates for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security have room for improvement."

"We don't get any notifications from PingSafe when the clusters are down."

"PingSafe is an excellent CSPM tool, but the CWPP features need to improve, and there is a scope for more application security posture management features. There aren't many ASPM solutions on the market, and existing ones are costly. I would like to see PingSafe develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM, CSPM, and CWPP. Another feature I'd like to see is runtime protection."

"When you find a vulnerability and resolve it, the same issue will not occur again. I want PingSafe to block the same vulnerability from appearing again. I want something like a playbook where the steps that we take to resolve an issue are repeated when that issue happens again."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"Most customer teams need more training on this type of product."

"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."

"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."

"The product must improve its UI."

"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."

"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."

"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."

"For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"I have faced several bug incidents with the solution"

"I didn't find anything that wasn't useful or needed to be added."

"I do think there might be room for more integrations. This could allow for further customization and flexibility, essentially offering different functionality options to accommodate various budgets."

"Tenable needs to offer a patch-based solution since it is an area where the tool lacks a bit."

"The product must provide more features."

"Due to its robust nature, the platform's adoption can be overwhelming initially. However, once organizations start using it, they tend to get used to it. I haven't had much direct interaction with the support team, but some partners have reported a desire for better support for the product."

"If Tenable Cloud Security offers a complete Cnapp solution with CWP, CIEM, and Waap security, it will be able to compete with other competitors."

"There is a need for the support team to improve their response time since it is one of the areas where the product's technical team has certain shortcomings."

More Tenable Cloud Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a fair price for what you get. We are happy with the price as it stands."

"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."

"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."

"Its pricing was a little less than other providers."

"Pricing is based on modules, which was ideal for us."

"I am not involved in the pricing, but it is cost-effective."

"I am personally not taking care of the pricing part, but when we moved from CrowdStrike to PingSafe, there were some savings. The price of CrowdStrike was quite high. Compared to that, the price of PingSafe was low. PingSafe is charging based on the subscription model. If I want to add an AWS subscription, I need to pay more. It should not be based on subscription. It should be based on the number of servers that I am scanning."

"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."

"Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."

"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."

"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."

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

"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"There is a need to opt for a subscription-based pricing model to use Tenable Cloud Security. I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

"The tool's pricing is fair."

"The tool's price is good compared to other brands. The tool's subscription is for a year."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of criti...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

See all answers

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 h...

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What do you like most about Tenable Cloud Security?

The solution’s vulnerability management feature has helped us identify and mitigate risks well.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tenable Cloud Security?

Another team uses the tool. Tenable acquired Ermetic. I think Tenable has features, stays up to date, and upgrades ev...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Tenable Cloud Security?

Right now, I use Tenable as CNAPP, and it is good for the product as it offers enhanced security to users. We did use...

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 24% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 20% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 8% of the time

Orca Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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

Wiz vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 20% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 10% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 10% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

Orca Security vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

More Tenable Cloud Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

March 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

March 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Cloud Security

March 2025

Download Tenable Cloud Security product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

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

Ermetic, Ermetic Identity Governance for AWS

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

SentinelOne

Microsoft

Demo not available

Tenable

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security protects cloud workloads, offering advanced threat detection and automated response. It integrates seamlessly with cloud environments and secures containerized applications and virtual machines against vulnerabilities.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is renowned for its efficiency in mitigating threats in real-time. The platform integrates effortlessly with existing cloud environments, ensuring robust cloud security management with minimal manual intervention. Securing containerized applications and virtual machines, it excels in threat intelligence and endpoint protection. However, improvements are needed in performance during high workload periods, and more integrations with third-party tools and better documentation would be beneficial. Users often find the installation process complex, support response times slow, and the dashboard's navigation unintuitive.

What are the key features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Real-time Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats as they occur.
Automated Response: Automatically responds to threats to minimize impact.
Ease of Deployment: Simple setup process with scalable options.
Machine Learning Insights: AI-driven insights enhance threat prevention.
Seamless Integration: Integrates with cloud environments for unified security management.

What are the primary benefits or ROI to expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Threat Mitigation: Improved security against real-time threats.
Reduced Manual Intervention: Automated processes save time and resources.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing security requirements.
Centralized Management: Manage security across platforms from a single console.
Advanced Threat Intelligence: Provides in-depth analysis and protection.

In specific industries, SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is implemented to safeguard critical data and infrastructure. Organizations in finance, healthcare, and technology depend on its real-time threat detection and automated response to protect sensitive information. Its ability to secure containerized applications and virtual machines is particularly valuable in dynamic environments where rapid scaling is necessary.

SentinelOne

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

Tenable Cloud Security is a comprehensive solution designed to help organizations secure their cloud environments across various platforms, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. It offers continuous visibility, compliance management, and threat detection to ensure that cloud infrastructure and applications are protected from vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

Tenable Cloud Security exemplifies a comprehensive Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) by providing a unified solution that covers the entire cloud security lifecycle, from development to runtime. This platform is designed to address vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, threats, and compliance risks across multi-cloud environments, making it an essential tool for organizations adopting cloud-native architectures. In practice, Tenable Cloud Security integrates security into the development process through its shift-left approach, particularly with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security. This ensures that security measures are embedded early in the development lifecycle, allowing teams to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before they reach production. Once in production, the platform continues to provide real-time visibility into cloud environments, enabling continuous monitoring and proactive threat detection.

The solution's comprehensive protection spans various aspects of cloud security, including the identification and remediation of misconfigurations, automated compliance management, and advanced threat intelligence. By automating these processes, Tenable Cloud Security reduces the manual effort required to manage cloud security, freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives.

What are the key features of Tenable Cloud Security?

Unified Platform: Covers the entire cloud security lifecycle, from development to runtime, providing comprehensive protection.
Shift-Left Approach with IaC Security: Integrates security early in the development process, ensuring that vulnerabilities are caught and remediated before deployment.
Continuous Monitoring: Offers real-time visibility and monitoring of cloud environments, enabling proactive threat detection and response.
Automation: Streamlines security operations, reducing the need for manual intervention and increasing operational efficiency.
Comprehensive Threat and Compliance Management: Identifies and mitigates vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance risks across multi-cloud environments.

What are the benefits of using Tenable Cloud Security?

Improved Security Posture: Early detection and remediation of vulnerabilities lead to a stronger overall security posture.
Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces the workload on security teams, allowing them to focus on higher-priority tasks.
Risk Reduction: Proactively identifies and addresses risks before they impact production environments.
Simplified Compliance: Helps organizations meet and maintain compliance with industry standards, reducing the complexity and cost of audits.

Tenable Cloud Security is particularly valuable in industries with stringent regulatory requirements, such as finance, healthcare, and retail. For example, in the financial sector, it helps organizations ensure compliance with regulations like PCI-DSS while safeguarding sensitive data across cloud environments.

In summary, Tenable Cloud Security is a robust CNAPP solution that integrates security throughout the cloud lifecycle, providing comprehensive protection and operational efficiency for cloud-native environments.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Tyler Technologies, Bilfinger, BarkBox, MongoDB, airSlate, Adama, Latch, Cloudinary, Riskified, AppsFlyer, IntelyCare, Aidoc, 42Dot, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

February 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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