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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vanta comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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 Compliance Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
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), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
Vanta
Ranking in Compliance Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Compliance Consulting (1st), Data Governance (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Compliance Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 17.3%, up from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vanta is 12.6%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compliance 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.
Anupam Dutta - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, but the customer support needs improvement
It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop. We use JEM Cloud, which is a SaaS solution, and sometimes it experiences access issues. With Vanta, we can work on resolving these issues and ensuring policy compliance. Vanta also helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, which are essential for our documentation and communication requirements, ultimately ensuring enterprise software policy compliance. In my role, which primarily involves IT responsibilities, I often deal with various policies. There are instances where specific policies, especially those related to quality, may not be implemented correctly. This primarily occurs with mainframes and devices owned by particular users. In such cases, Vanta helps us enable these policies on the devices and assign them to the relevant users. It also highlights when certain policies, such as version 86.x, are not assigned through SAP. Vanta provides guidance on configuring and mitigating these issues. Additionally, it helps us with GitHub account provisioning and deprovisioning, as well as managing GitHub and Google Workspace Flex. We also use the 1Password password manager, which Vanta assists in overseeing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."
"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."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"The product has provided automated security controls for our cloud provider. It helps to automate security checks. Vanta offers a list of things that can be done to achieve ISO 27001 compliance."
"It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop."
"Task management and vendor assurance are the most valuable features. It is also an easy tool to use."
"The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks."
"The most valuable feature of Vanta would be the time savings from the automation and the continuous compliance monitoring once set up."
"They integrate into New Relic as a performance monitoring tool."
 

Cons

"The remediation process could be improved."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions."
"Azure's system could be more on point like AWS support. For example, if I have an issue with AWS, I create a support ticket, then I get a call or a message. With Azure support, you raise a ticket, and somebody calls back depending on their availability and the priority, which might not align with your business priority."
"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"There is a delay with customer support and they are unsure of the answers we need."
"Currently, Vanta's user access review module is still in development, and we've been giving them continuous feedback to help them improve that."
"The main area for improvement in Vanta is the user interface's refresh rate."
"They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, however, the outline is a little sketchy."
"Some of the tool's automated tests do not work the way it should."
"Scalability could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."
"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 tool is pretty expensive."
"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."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"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."
"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."
"Vanta is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

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 Vanta?
The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks.
What needs improvement with Vanta?
Every product has a lot of areas to improve. They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, for example, however, the outline is a little sketchy. The system description has to hav...
What is your primary use case for Vanta?
We're trying to get SOC 2 compliance, and we're trying to get HIPAA compliance.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
No data available
 

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.
Care Directives, Shortcut , Nayya, Heizenrader, Treasury Prime
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.