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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
14th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
16th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Software Supply Chain Security (9th), DevSecOps (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
7th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
2nd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.7%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 13.4%, down from 16.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew W - PeerSpot reviewer
Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues
Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.
Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The cloud misconfiguration feature and Offensive Security Engine, as well as their alerting process, are valuable."
"It gives me the information I need."
"Cloud Native Security offers attack path analysis."
"The user-friendly dashboard offers both convenience and security by providing quick access to solutions and keeping us informed of potential threats."
"The compliance monitoring feature of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security gives us a report with a compliance score to ensure we meet certain regulatory standards."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its storyline, which helps trace an event back to its source, like an email or someone clicking on a link."
"The real-time detection and response capabilities overall are great."
"The solution's most valuable features are its ability to detect vulnerabilities inside AWS resources and its ability to rescan after a specific duration set by the administrator."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"The most valuable features are that it's easy to use and manage."
"Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment."
"The most helpful feature of Aqua Security is Drift Prevention, which is a feature that allows images to be immutable. In addition, one of the main reasons we went with Aqua Security is because it provides strong protection when it comes to runtime security."
"The most valuable feature of Aqua Security is the scanner."
"Support is very helpful."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."
"The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very good."
"The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available."
"The most valuable features offer the latest threat detection and response capabilities."
"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."
"The solution is up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats."
 

Cons

"While SentinelOne offers robust security features, its higher cost may present a challenge for budget-conscious organizations."
"Sometimes the Storyline ID is a bit wacky."
"I want SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security to integrate additional third-party resources. For example, SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is compatible with Azure and AWS, but Azure AD isn't integrated with AWS. If SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security had that ability, it would enrich the data because how users interact with our AWS environment is crucial. All the identity-related features require improvement."
"The dashboard can be more detailed."
"We've found a lot of false positives."
"It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background."
"I would like additional integrations."
"One potential drawback is the cost of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, which may be prohibitive for smaller businesses or startups, particularly those in regions with lower average incomes, such as India."
"Aqua Security could improve the forwarding of logging into Splunk and into other tools, it should be easier."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"There's room for improvement, particularly in management capabilities as it may not be comprehensive enough for all customers, and it has been lacking in the realm of cloud security posture management."
"The integrations on CICD could be improved. If Aqua had more plugins or container images to integrate and automate more easily on CICD, it would be better."
"The pricing could be improved, as it is somewhat high for smaller companies."
"No possibility to write or edit any capability."
"Defender could provide more in-depth visibility into vulnerabilities and services. For instance, we wanted to scan Azure NetApp for sensitive data, but they didn't have that feature. It was only for storage accounts. I want Azure Defender features to cover all Azure resources rather than a few."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."
"With the new Copilot functionality available everywhere, it is challenging to pinpoint areas for improvement. If I put in a lot of thought, I might identify things, but right now, nothing significant pops into my mind, but there is always room for more transparency, especially in pricing."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
"An area where Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved is in getting away from having multiple menus that do the same thing, which seems imposing when looking at it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not that expensive. There are some tools that are double the cost of PingSafe. It is good on the pricing side."
"I am not involved in the pricing, but it is cost-effective."
"SentinelOne provided competitive pricing compared to other vendors, and we are satisfied with the deal."
"PingSafe is cost-effective for the amount of infrastructure we have. It's reasonable for what they offer compared to our previous solution. It's at least 25 percent to 30 percent less."
"The tool is cost-effective."
"It was reasonable pricing for me."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is costly."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
What do you like most about Aqua Security?
Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
It comes at a reasonable cost. When compared to Prisma Cloud, it is more budget-friendly.
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 acros...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.