Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

Microsoft and VMware are both solutions in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category. Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.9, while VMware is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 12.8% mindshare in CSPM, compared to VMware’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 74 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

9,153 Views
7,487 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Automation

Read 169 VMware Aria Automation reviews

260 Views
141 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

VMware Aria Automation

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

VMware Aria Automation and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are two leading solutions in their respective domains of automation and security. VMware Aria Automation has the upper hand in pricing and user support, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud stands out in features, especially with its robust security capabilities.

Features: VMware Aria Automation is known for its orchestration capabilities, integration with existing infrastructure, and efficient automation, which allows extensive customization. Microsoft Defender for Cloud impresses with comprehensive security features, real-time threat detection, and seamless integration with Microsoft ecosystems, making it appealing for security-focused use cases.

Room for Improvement: VMware Aria Automation users have highlighted the need for improved scalability, additional functionalities, and enhanced offerings. Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek better integration with third-party tools, more detailed reporting, and improvements in user interface. Both solutions could improve to better meet customer needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Aria Automation has a streamlined deployment process, although some users note a learning curve. Its customer service is generally prompt and reliable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers straightforward deployment and seamless Microsoft integration, although its customer service is slightly less prompt compared to VMware. Both provide competitive deployment experiences.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Aria Automation is favored for its cost-effectiveness, offering substantial value with reasonable setup costs and ROI. Microsoft Defender for Cloud, though pricier, provides significant ROI with its advanced security features. Pricing tends to favor VMware for affordability, but Microsoft Defender balances this with high security returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Aria Automation Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Aria Automation

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (10th), Container Security (5th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)

VMware Aria Automation

Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

169

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (1st), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 12.8%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

Featured Reviews

Javier_Rodriguez

Cloud Consultant at i-Community AG

Unified security management enhances threat detection and streamlines user experience

At the moment, we work with Sophos, SentinelOne, or Microsoft Defender. Most of our customers have Microsoft infrastructure, and they are cloud-only customers with Microsoft business licensing. I primarily recommend Microsoft Defender for customers who already have Microsoft infrastructure The…

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NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

Good stability, supports a hybrid model and easy to use

There is an area of improvement. For example, you are migrating from a customer's existing data center to a new target data center. To facilitate this transition, you'll initially need to evaluate the customer's aging hardware hosting VMware, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The customer expresses the intention to upgrade to a newer version, necessitating an overhaul of everything in the new data center. As a Systems Integrator (SI), consultant, or architect, your recommendation would be to acquire the latest hardware with a specified configuration and then install VMware on top of it. However, there's a crucial aspect related to the infrastructure requirements for VMware to run seamlessly on that hardware. If there's an opportunity to potentially reduce these infrastructure prerequisites, it would be highly beneficial. This is because a higher number of VMware licenses requires more infrastructure capacity from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or Colocation partners. Consequently, when discussing the operation of this virtualized environment from VMware over a contractual period of five years, the overall cost to the customer is influenced by the infrastructure requirements. If there's a feasible way to decrease these prerequisites for the infrastructure supporting the virtualization layer, it would be advantageous in terms of cost for the customer. Any customer in today's world exists or wants to exist in a hybrid model, so in future releases, we would like to see this. So, going forward, if this virtualized environment would exist, it has to be a combination of on-premise plus public cloud Azure/AWS. It should be more seamless when your interface or when you are interacting with workloads running on-premise VMware/AWS VMware. So it is only there in some capacity and space, and I'm aware of it. And Azure and VMware already have a tie-up on the same lines, but at the same time, if it is more seamless, if it is more interchangeable, if you could move your workloads, or if you can access your workloads or your virtual machines irrespective of whatever platform it is running, whether it is on-premises, or cloud or public cloud, it'll be a lot more comfortable for a user than the user to consume that infrastructure. Firstly, it needs to have a combination of deployment and be more seamless for the customers. Secondly, more software-defined features, more in terms of managing the infrastructure pool in a software-defined way. Managing the infrastructure pool in a more optimized fashion is going to be the key in the upcoming times. It's not just on-premise, but at the same time, it should also be the public cloud as well. Probably because when I meet my customers, this is one thing that I always tell them. I have seen people moving from on-premise public cloud only to realize at the end of the month that they end up paying a higher bill compared to what they were paying when they were running their business on-premise. The reason is that they do not understand or do not realize the full potential of the public cloud, and the way it should be consumed, the way it should be used, and the way it should be scheduled to ensure that the billing at the end of the month is very optimal. You pay for what exactly you need, not everything that you have from the cloud. That's not a way to use the cloud, whether it is on-premise or from the cloud. For example, an enterprise has over 100 applications. Out of that 100 applications, only 25 applications are running the production instances, and the remaining 75 are running non-production instances. It can be a development environment, a test environment, a sandbox, etc. In this case, you need to run only the 25 applications on the public cloud 24/7. You do not need to run your remaining 75 applications 24/7. Because, eventually, your developers, testers, quality managers, and whoever will use the non-production environment only when they're in the office and working on those applications. Then why do we need to have those applications, which are non-production in nature, lower environments? So we're running on the public cloud all the time because, for a cloud provider, it is a virtual machine; whether you are consuming it for production work or non-production work, it is going to charge you the same bill. And if you are not optimizing, if you're not scheduling workloads, you are actually wasting money. You're wasting your money, and your bills, which you are going to pay with the public cloud provider provided, are going to be bad. It's going to be crazy. And then customers do not know what to do in this situation. And you cannot fight with the public cloud provider because they would say, "I had given you all the possibilities, all the opportunities to learn about it, the way you should be functioning it, the way you should be utilizing it. If you are not using it the way it should be used, That's not my problem."

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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

"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring of users, endpoint detection and response, and the adaptability of the AI threat intelligence engine, which quickly adapts to customizations."

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

"Technical support is helpful."

"DSPM is the most valuable feature."

"It alerts us to our vulnerabilities and ensures compliance by marking off a compliance tool checklist."

"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."

"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The IT support for developers is nice as well because they are able to manage the environment themselves."

"The solution is user-friendly and intuitive."

"Aria Automation gives you the flexibility to deploy tenants with customized blueprints for permissions and policies. Version 7.8 consisted of multiple products, so you had to deploy a lot of virtual machines on one of the servers. Starting from 8.6, VMware consolidated all the components into one Linux appliance. This allows the option to use vRA or DevOps capabilities."

"We've seen that typically, the people who are provisioning VDIs and server VMs can now utilize most of their time towards other projects and moving the environment forward, instead of just hammering out virtual machines all day."

"It is a highly stable solution."

"quality-of-latest-release; Compared to the earlier versions, from my experience, the upgrade process is easier; for example, the compatibility checks. I also don't need to go and find out the resources that are required. It tells me in one report what the current environment is like and, if I want to go to the next level, what things I need to take care of. Based on that I can make things happen."

"It provides visibility into the VM space."

"The most valuable feature is the way that it plugs into our monitoring systems, and Infoblox and Puppet."

More VMware Aria Automation pros

Cons

"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load."

"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."

"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."

"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."

"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."

"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."

"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Our primary challenge is upgrading the product to the latest version. This process requires careful communication with the vendor to mitigate risks."

"vRO can get out of sync with vRA. We've run into every once in a while."

"The setup is difficult. You need a technical person to help you set it up."

"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."

"It's not a smooth upgrade process. For a DTA environment, which is very simple, it is a smooth process, but for our production environment, which is quite enhanced and has a lot of dependencies, it's not easy at all, and it results in a lot of errors... It takes a lot of retries to upgrade which ends up being costly."

"Its configuration process could be better."

"It does go down from time to time. We have some issues with the appliances sometimes and we have to do reboots in the middle of the day. That affects the ability for them to deploy."

"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."

More VMware Aria Automation cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is pretty expensive."

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

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

"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."

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

"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."

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

"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."

"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."

"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."

"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."

"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."

"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."

"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."

"From a budget point of view, the pricing is a bit on the higher side."

More VMware Aria Automation pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

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?

I don't have visibility into the specific costs, but it seems to be a significant concern for our organization. Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to co...

See all answers

What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?

vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...

See all answers

Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?

When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...

See all answers

Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?

I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 21% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 19% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 10% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 9% of the time

OpenNebula vs VMware Aria Automation

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware Aria Automation Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

December 2024

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Automation

November 2024

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Also Known As

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

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack

Learn More

Microsoft

VMware

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

VMware

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.

VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features.

VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.
Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.
DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.
Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.
Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

VMware Aria Automation Features

VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.
Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.
Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.
Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.
Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.
Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

VMware Aria Automation Benefits

VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.
The solution offers high levels of security and control.
This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.
VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.
The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.
The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

Reviews from Real Users

Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

Sample Customers

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

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Aria Automation

December 2024

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Aria Automation

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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