Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Trivy comparison

Microsoft and Aqua Security are both solutions in the Container Security category. Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Aqua Security is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.6. Microsoft holds a 6.2% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Aqua Security’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Aqua Security users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 87 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

20,963 Views
6,499 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Trivy

Read 12 Trivy reviews

5,344 Views
5,344 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Trivy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Trivy both compete in the security tools category. Microsoft Defender for Cloud seems to have an advantage in environments using Microsoft products due to its integration with Microsoft services, while Trivy is preferred for its open-source nature and seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers comprehensive security features, enhancing visibility in Microsoft environments, providing alerts, and suggesting best practices. Trivy provides seamless CI/CD integration, scans images and repositories, and detects vulnerabilities across various environments, making it highly adaptable for developers.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could improve false positive reduction, user experience for non-technical users, and pricing transparency. Trivy may expand its static and report output functionalities, especially in runtime scanning and SIEM integration, in addition to reducing false positives.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud supports hybrid deployments but faces challenges with support responsiveness. Trivy is easy to deploy due to its community-driven model, but lacks extensive customer support details.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud's pricing varies and is often high but offers extensive features and positive ROI through time efficiency and reduced risks. Trivy, being open-source, provides high ROI without licensing costs, making it attractive for those prioritizing budget efficiency in security management.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,757 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 Container Security

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (8th), Container Management (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)

Trivy

Ranking in Container Security

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.2%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Trivy is 4.9%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Trivy	4.9%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	6.2%
Other	88.9%

Container Security

Featured Reviews

David Birhange

Director, Cloud and Modern Workplace at Informanix Technology Group

Brings together cloud security insights through a unified view and supports agentless protection for virtual machines

Copilot and similar features are already being used, though not necessarily for Microsoft Defender for Cloud specifically. We are trying to get more experience before rolling out most of Microsoft Defender for Cloud's AI capabilities. This is definitely on our to-do list, and the priority is urgent as we seek to learn more about these capabilities. The GenAI threat protection from Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not been enabled yet. There are many unknowns with AI applications. AI agents will operate while you're not present, whether you are sleeping or awake, and it's unclear whether there would be any exfiltration of data or how data is being managed. Microsoft Purview is being used extensively, and there is significant development going on with DSPM that will be rolled out to address security concerns. Data labeling and proper demarcation for sensitivity of data before it is received are being actively pursued.

Read full review

Utsav Sharma

Senior Security Consultant at Ernst & Young

Maintain operational efficiency by detecting misconfigurations and vulnerabilities

The vulnerability scanning feature is excellent as it supports various container capabilities like Docker and Sharma. It also offers repository scanning in the source code domain, allowing pre-push code scans. The misconfiguration detection works well for CloudFormation, Docker files, and Terraform. Its compliance support, like NIST, ensures that configurations align with standards. Trivy helps me significantly detect misconfigurations missed by the ops engineers or in Terraform by the naked eye. It ensures that my deployments are free of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.

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

"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."

"The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I like the most are the regulatory compliance capabilities; these features have benefited my organization by improving our overall security posture."

"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."

"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."

"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."

"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."

"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I appreciate most is the ability to view logs of applications, as I find it much clearer to understand what is running."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"Trivy is easy to integrate with CI/CD and can be installed on desktops to scan images."

"Trivy is very reliable and always has an up-to-date database to scan images and identify vulnerabilities."

"Trivy is most valuable for its ability to scan all repository files and dependencies."

"I rate Trivy a nine out of ten."

"Trivy's open source nature and wide functionality are incredibly valuable."

"One of the great features of Trivy is that it helps me scan items such as AWS credentials and GCP service accounts."

"It's customizable, allowing me to add any rules and format HTML templates as I wish."

"I appreciate Trivy for being open-source and not requiring any payment."

More Trivy pros

Cons

"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."

"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."

"I rate Microsoft support five out of 10. It gets better once you're escalated past the first and second levels. It's difficult to get the necessary support when tickets are first opened."

"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."

"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a six out of 10 due to its lack of necessary features to operate as a standalone solution."

"The pricing could be better."

"The product must improve its UI."

"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"The main area for improvement is in differentiating between OS and application-based vulnerabilities."

"Having little experience can hinder the ability to connect it to a user-friendly UI effectively."

"A dynamic scanning capability during runtime would be a significant advantage."

"For malware detection, I need to use two tools: Trivy as my anomaly scanner and ClamAV. I am integrating these two tools into the CI pipeline. If both malware and anomaly detection could be managed by one tool, I would not need to depend on two tools. That would be my suggestion."

"Trivy can improve by providing an output in PDF format."

"The reporting could be a little better. When integrating Trivy with CI, the interpretation of the reports could be improved."

"Trivy is not scalable; however, I have scanned very large projects with it. It is stable but not scalable according to my experience."

More Trivy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."

"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."

"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."

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

"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."

"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	49

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud was pretty straightforward. We did have a consultation with a third party to go over different tiers and produ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be improved. An additional feature that should be included in the next release is Zero Trust, similar to ThreatLocker software.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Trivy?

Trivy's marketing and awareness need improvement. Not everyone knows about it, which isn't ideal given its capabilities. There's potential to integrate AI and machine learning for enhanced function...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Trivy?

I use Trivy ( /products/trivy-reviews ) to scan code for vulnerabilities before deployment. Our projects, which are developed by different developers, involve various dependencies and third-party c...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Trivy?

I recommend Trivy to others due to its powerful and useful features. However, I suggest increasing its marketing to raise awareness. I rate Trivy an eight out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 36% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

JFrog Xray vs Trivy

Compared 18% of the time

Snyk vs Trivy

Compared 15% of the time

Kubescape vs Trivy

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Trivy

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Trivy

Compared 4% of the time

More Trivy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

January 2026

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Trivy

January 2026

Download Trivy product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

Aqua Security

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

Trivy offers comprehensive scanning for files, images, repositories, and infrastructure. It's open-source and integrates with CI/CD for vulnerability detection and security enhancement.

Trivy scans vulnerabilities in code, Docker images, containers, and infrastructure. It integrates seamlessly into DevOps pipelines, ensuring security in dependency management and open source vulnerabilities. This tool, lightweight and open-source, provides user-friendly reports and supports continuous vulnerability database updates, fostering ease of use across operating systems. Users benefit from its scanning capabilities, covering Kubernetes, AWS credentials, and GCP service accounts, effectively identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

What are Trivy's key features?

Comprehensive Scanning: Covers files, images, repositories, infrastructure, and sensitive data.
CI/CD Integration: Easily integrates into existing pipelines for seamless security checks.
Open-Source & Lightweight: Quick setup and fast scanning capabilities ensure rapid deployment.
Continuously Updated Database: Keeps vulnerability data current for effective threat detection.
User-Friendly Reports: Generates understandable and actionable security insights.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Enhanced Security: Provides in-depth analysis of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
Ease of Use: Designed for straightforward implementation and user interaction.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting industry security standards and regulations.
Cross-Platform Use: Effective across different operating systems, enabling wide scalability.

In industries like technology and finance, Trivy is used extensively to secure applications, perform compliance checks, and offer security metrics visualization. It addresses microservices, container systems, and Kubernetes clusters security requirements, supporting DevOps teams and enhancing codebase analysis precision.

Aqua Security

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

December 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Trivy

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