Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vanta comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Vanta compete in cloud security management. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an edge in infrastructure integration, while Vanta is strong in automation and compliance readiness.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers threat detection, incident response, and integration with existing infrastructure. Vanta excels in automation, compliance management, and streamlining standards adherence.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could enhance user interface intuitiveness, subscription management, and third-party integration. Vanta might focus on reducing initial setup costs, expanding integrations, and improving alert specificity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is seamless within Microsoft ecosystems with strong support, benefiting those using Microsoft tools. Vanta emphasizes compliance automation, offering straightforward deployment processes for enhanced long-term satisfaction.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers flexible pricing options, appealing for scalable security without upfront costs. Vanta delivers good ROI through automation, with potentially higher setup costs compared to Defender. Cost and automation balance might lean organizations towards Vanta, while Defender suits those seeking scalable security solutions at minimal initial expense.

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

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta

March 2025

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Helped 845,040 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 Compliance Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

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

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

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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Anupam Dutta

Team Lead- Sr. Linux administrator-Kubernetes-DevOps at ExpressRCM

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.

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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

"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."

"One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."

"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."

"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 dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can find potential phishing links and malicious code in data at rest."

"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"They integrate into New Relic as a performance monitoring tool."

"The most valuable feature of Vanta would be the time savings from the automation and the continuous compliance monitoring once set up."

"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 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."

Cons

"While we are satisfied with Defender for Cloud's features, an AI enhancement could potentially provide better advice and adapt more effectively to our environment."

"The pricing could be improved, as it is somewhat high for smaller companies."

"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."

"Although Microsoft Defender for Cloud is based on security, I wish it went beyond providing assessments, reports, and generic steps. More detailed procedures would be helpful, especially for lower-level support staff."

"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."

"From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it."

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

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Some of the tool's automated tests do not work the way it should."

"There is a delay with customer support and they are unsure of the answers we need."

"Scalability could be improved."

"They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, however, the outline is a little sketchy."

"The main area for improvement in Vanta is the user interface's refresh rate."

"Currently, Vanta's user access review module is still in development, and we've been giving them continuous feedback to help them improve that."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"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 product's pricing policy is generally favorable."

"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."

"I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."

"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Vanta is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

University

Comms Service Provider

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.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

March 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Download Vanta product report

Compliance Management

February 2025

Also Known As

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

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

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

Vanta helps companies scale security practices and automate compliance for the industry’s most sought after standards - SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and CCPA.

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