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Fortra's Alert Logic MDR 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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Fortra's Alert Logic MDR
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
SOC as a Service (4th), Managed Detection and Response (MDR) (19th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
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), Compliance Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.6%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Alert Logic MDR is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.6%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
reviewer2191746 - PeerSpot reviewer
It's a highly mature, competitively priced solution that provides total visibility into your ecosystem. FORTRA's Alert Logic has the only Cybersecurity Platform that integrates XDR+WAF+VM+DLP in one.
Alert Logic offers total visibility into the client's IT ecosystem. The solution's intrusion detection system inspects 100 percent of the network packets and installs universal agents on all physical and virtual servers for log collection. Alert Logic also aggregates logs of the client's various 3rd Party security tools into a single pane of glass. All of the analytics from those data feeds got to a 24/7 SOC with sophisticated resources. Alert Logic has massive threat intelligence resources to provide additional context to the incident response declarations. They do all the heavy lifting for clients who lack the technology and resources to operate their own SOC. The client is solely responsible for the incident response component. The macro analytics resides on Alert Logic's cloud. You have the ECM response and business application team on the client side. Everything works in tandem, which is the only way you can deal with the advanced threats we face today, especially the ransomware families. If you don't respond in minutes, you're in trouble.
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

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"The solution was consistently available, and I cannot recall any instances where it was down."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The quicker implementation of changes to our infrastructure from Alert Logic tell us if there are any problems."
"It improves our security. Before, we didn't have anything scanning our containers. We had software scanning all the physical servers, but we had nothing to scan our containers. With Alert Logic, we can do that."
"While I still have on-premises appliances, I can remotely monitor everything from the cloud, and Alert Logic's ease-of-access features have helped me streamline my workflow and reduce implementation time."
"Everything is in one dashboard; I'm notified when there's an incident and advised on what steps to take."
"Notifications and the detail of notifications are most valuable. It is a user-friendly solution."
"It has the ability to install agents. It is pretty straightforward. You can automate the process pretty easily."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST. Alert management is another useful feature. Alerts are directly integrated with our email or DevOps board for easy viewing, allowing us to identify problem areas efficiently."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has made our environment more secure."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"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 entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
"The technical support is very good."
"We can create alerts that trigger if there is any malicious activity happening in the workflow and these alerts can be retrieved using the query language."
 

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"As a user involved with the user interface, I believe there is a need to continue improving it based on feedback from our customers."
"I would like more data on the alert payload. It would be good to have the ability to customize the alert payload to add whatever data that we want on there. Right now, it is a bit limited."
"The setup process was complex."
"They have ideas and email you whatever they find, but they don't have a dedicated security team who will work on an attack or a specific security instance."
"Its menu is not very intuitive. I would like to see the user menu expanded a bit. The user menu is very layered, and because of the layers, you have to go down a path that is not very intuitive."
"This product needs to mature more. While it is a good product, there are some areas where it needs work."
"Alert Logic needs to expand its SOCs to serve more markets, such as the Middle East and Asia. There should be infrastructure that covers more time zones. The company should also develop an EDR that is natively integrated into their solution. Currently, a client must buy another EDR solution like CrowdStrike or Sophos. I think Alert Logic is developing this. Built-in email security could also be developed and integrated."
"The product needs to mature. We don't want to be bombarded with unnecessary issues and have the real ones slip through."
"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."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"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."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."
"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."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Price of the solution was very reasonable considering the size of our organization at the time, and so it worked out perfectly."
"Its pricing is very reasonable considering what you get for what you pay. There is quite a good value there. Its licensing is also very logical. They've got the licensing price points at a reasonable level. It is on a monthly license but a yearly contract. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"Almost any product that is on the AWS Marketplace is super easy to subscribe to."
"Our ROI would probably be zero. We don't even use it. It sits in there. We get emails and just delete them. Around the world, we don't even use it."
"Alert Logic has better competitive pricing than some of its competitors."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
Zafran is a new startup. Features are continuously being added or improved. 1) Continued integrations with existing (...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We connect this to our vulnerability scanner as input, our security tools to better determine risk, and our change ma...
What do you like most about Alert Logic?
The most valuable aspect of Alert Logic is its technology platform. They have SOCs in the US and Europe, giving them ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alert Logic?
Alert Logic's license is one of the most competitive. They deliver a high-quality service for a competitive price.
What needs improvement with Alert Logic?
Alert Logic should also develop an EDR that is natively integrated into their solution. Currently, a client must buy ...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal c...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Alert Logic MDR, Alert Logic Managed Detection and ResponseAlert Logic Threat Manager, Alert Logic Cloud Defender, Critical Watch FusionVM
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
Information Not Available
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 Fortra's Alert Logic MDR vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.