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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Vulnerability Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security, reduces costs, and improves efficiency, offering proactive vulnerability identification and significant benefits.
Sentiment score
8.1
Tenable Vulnerability Management offers ROI by reducing vulnerabilities and engineering costs, enhancing oversight, despite varied cost saving reports.
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
The biggest return on investment is the rapid improvement of security posture.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support varies in quality; enterprise users report better experiences, while others face inconsistencies and delays.
Sentiment score
5.9
Tenable Vulnerability Management support receives mixed reviews, with users praising responsiveness but desiring faster responses for complex issues.
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
The support team was very responsive to queries.
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
It needs improvement in response time and addressing feature requests promptly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable and flexible, integrates easily, but may have scalability and cost concerns at large scales.
Sentiment score
7.4
Tenable Vulnerability Management is scalable, adaptable for diverse sectors; licensing and cost impact performance; user ratings range from 7-10.
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
Defender won't replace our endpoint XDR, but it will likely adapt and support any growth in the Microsoft Cloud space.
There might be scalability issues as you scale up to large enterprises.
They can seamlessly scale the number of endpoints from 100 to 1,000,000 in a day.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is reliable with minor downtime and occasional portal or connectivity issues, praised for overall performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Tenable Vulnerability Management is highly reliable and stable, with smooth performance and minimal crashes, earning top ratings.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
I have faced no stability issues with Tenable.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek enhanced customization, better integration, improved dashboards, automation, and clearer pricing and documentation.
Tenable Vulnerability Management needs interface improvements, better integration, enhanced reporting, and clearer documentation, with pricing concerns for SMBs.
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises.
They should also accelerate the process of implementing new features upon request.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides customizable pricing options, with debated cost-effectiveness, especially for extensive or regional deployments.
Tenable's pricing is seen as costly but manageable, with costs varying by asset number and additional features potentially extra.
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters.
Tenable charges around $40 per device, while Rapid7 costs $10 to $15 per device.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides enhanced security, AI-driven insights, multi-cloud support, and integrates with Sentinel for proactive threat management.
Tenable Vulnerability Management offers a user-friendly interface with robust scanning, integration, comprehensive visibility, and efficient risk prioritization features.
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
Tenable enables vulnerability management through potential AI integration that consolidates efforts and resolves multiple vulnerabilities simultaneously.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (8th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Tenable Vulnerability Manag...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.3%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Vulnerability Management is 8.4%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mani Bommisetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines vulnerability management with excellent reporting and potential AI integration
Tenable is user-friendly and excels in reporting. It allows me to easily fetch and schedule reports. The software's discovery feature aids in strengthening our security posture. The single-sensor installation process on various operating systems is smooth, unlike Rapid7, which requires different versions for separate systems. Furthermore, Tenable enables vulnerability management through potential AI integration that consolidates efforts and resolves multiple vulnerabilities simultaneously.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering.
What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...
What needs improvement with Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
It needs additional reporting and intelligence features, as well as enhancements in AI-driven detection, which is still in its early stages.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Tenable.io
 

Learn More

 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Global Payments AU/NZ
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.