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Azure Bastion vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Azure Bastion offers significant savings and seamless infrastructure automation, though some users don't see specific cost or time benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security and efficiency, offering significant ROI with up to 60% savings and streamlined operations.
We have noticed savings of approximately twenty percent by using Azure Bastion compared to VM pricing.
Lead Software Engineer at Glastechnische Industrie Peter LISEC GmbH
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
As a small team, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps allowed us to manage systems with just one or two people.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
We have at least saved the costs we had from the Netskope solution this year.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Azure Bastion's customer service is efficient and patient, with positive ratings, though some improvements are needed in data transfer.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support is praised for its responsiveness, though some users experience delays and resource access challenges.
We usually get backup within two hours.
Lead Software Engineer at Glastechnische Industrie Peter LISEC GmbH
Support is satisfactory but with room for improvement, primarily concerning data transfer issues.
IT Manager at NTT DATA
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The support is excellent, and the speed of response is commendable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
There were instances where the engineers were knowledgeable and helpful, but at other times it felt like a ping pong game, with unnecessary transfers until the right person was found.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Azure Bastion offers scalability for extensive use but lacks customization, meeting diverse organizational needs with varying user exploration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable, seamless integration, and reliable management for organizations of all sizes and environments.
It is designed to provide access over a private network without hitting the internet.
IT Manager at NTT DATA
For what I know about the log collector and how much data it can take in, it is super scalable and capable of handling high workloads.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very scalable, provided you have the right subscription.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
In my experience, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is good enough for small to medium businesses.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Azure Bastion is praised for stability and performance, with minimal issues, especially in North America, ensuring long-term reliability.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is highly stable, reliable, and maintains performance with minor, swiftly resolved incidents.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as stable
Network Engineer at Apexon
My impression on the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it is very stable.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Bastion users face data retrieval costs, limited functionality, browser issues, and call for improved protocol speed and AI support.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps seeks enhanced pricing, integration, user interface, automation, and multi-cloud support, while improving insights and management.
I would like to see integrated AI features with Azure Bastion, especially for connectivity issues.
Lead Software Engineer at Glastechnische Industrie Peter LISEC GmbH
A storage solution must be created to transfer data, and this requires additional permissions like ACL or NFS.
IT Manager at NTT DATA
It would be nice to have the capability to cut and paste across desktops, similar to old-fashioned Remote Desktop emulation.
Owner at BNS
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Defender typically connects to Entra ID, but we have local users on the cloud for database access, SSH, or RDS, and there is nothing produced by Defender regarding those local IAM users.
Network Engineer at Apexon
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps would benefit if Microsoft allows users to fine-tune false positives, enabling us to dismiss alerts or make adjustments so that such things don't trigger multiple times in the future.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Azure Bastion's pricing reflects its high-quality security, starting at $150/month, suitable for enterprises despite competitive alternatives.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is seen as cost-effective for enterprises within Microsoft ecosystems, despite standalone pricing concerns.
Microsoft's pricing is on the higher side and could be more competitive.
IT Manager at NTT DATA
The price is not necessarily cheaper, but it is acceptable.
Lead Software Engineer at Glastechnische Industrie Peter LISEC GmbH
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
My organization is currently revisiting pricing, but previously, the cost was a bit expensive, yet comparable to other solutions with similar functionalities and features.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It's not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive, placing it in the mid-level range.
IT Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Azure Bastion offers secure VM access with Azure AD integration, avoiding public IPs, supporting scripting, and infrastructure as code.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps integrates well, offering threat detection, management ease, shadow IT discovery, and robust security enhancements.
The most valuable feature of Azure Bastion is its security, which I find to be the best part.
Lead Software Engineer at Glastechnische Industrie Peter LISEC GmbH
The security is the main reason we use Azure Bastion because it is integrated with Azure Active Directory, ensuring that access is secure.
Owner at BNS
Azure Bastion eliminates the need for a jump server by providing secure access to servers without hitting the public network.
IT Manager at NTT DATA
It provides excellent suggestions and options for configuration; for example, it can track suspicious files getting uploaded to cloud resources on Azure based on their signatures, generating alerts for those files.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The product recommends things that need to be blocked and allows for dynamic configuration, which cuts down on potential issues that might arise from going through lists and understanding what needs to be blocked.
Partner & Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Bastion
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
25th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (44th), Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (10th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Bastion is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps3.1%
Azure Bastion1.5%
Other95.4%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AP
IT Manager at NTT DATA
Access servers securely over private networks but need better data transfer solutions
Azure Bastion is primarily used to access servers securely without exposing them to the public network. It is configured in a private network to allow accessing an environment without public exposure Azure Bastion eliminates the need for a jump server by providing secure access to servers without…
FV
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Deployment has been seamless with insightful data categorization and enhanced control
The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that I have found most valuable include the overall portal view, with bubble graphs which give us insight into what goes where in the categorization, nowadays with Generative AI but all kinds of categorization, collaboration, etc. That central view of the portal is very useful for us. The impact of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps on our organization's ability to assess and manage app related risks has been significant because we have more visibility. Therefore, we can add more control, and we have already done so. This was not possible in the old solution, in the old CASB solution with Netskope. We now can see on the spot, and we do that almost weekly, what the end users are utilizing, which cloud providers or cloud apps they're using. The visibility into OAuth apps provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very good. The visibility into risk and risk management of our organization's Generative AI apps is very nice, as you can choose the category Generative AI and then see exactly what traffic has been going to and from Generative AI in the cloud. This makes us very insightful on what is used within the company. We have some policies on blocking specific Generative AI, and we use within our company one particular AI part, which is CoPilot of Microsoft. In this way, we can see what the end users are using other than CoPilot, and that makes us more in control. The effectiveness of the integration of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender XDR and defending against SaaS attacks is very intuitive. It works immediately if we create a new policy or in Purview or in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, or when we make an app unsanctioned by blocking it, then it is almost immediately, or at least within a couple of hours, effective on all the endpoints where the EDR is running. This gives us much better control over things than before.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Bastion?
Microsoft's pricing is on the higher side and could be more competitive. Startups and small organizations often prefer AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) or GCP due to their lower costs, while la...
What needs improvement with Azure Bastion?
Azure Bastion does its job. However, it would be nice to have the capability to cut and paste across desktops, similar to old-fashioned Remote ( /products/remote-reviews ) Desktop emulation. I am u...
What is your primary use case for Azure Bastion?
We use Azure Bastion ( /products/azure-bastion-reviews ) as an administration tool to access Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) Virtual Servers.
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Bastion vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.