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Illumio vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (6th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 6.4%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.8%, down from 15.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud14.8%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.7%
Illumio6.4%
Other75.1%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom correlation searches enhance threat detection efficiency
Singularity Cloud Security significantly reduced our organization's threat detection time by providing immediate data visibility. This allows our team to analyze telemetry in real-time, query it, and identify anomalies or potential threats using the Singularity platform. We can create rules that automatically trigger alerts based on this real-time data, enabling immediate response. This instant threat detection and response capability is a major improvement over our previous reliance on multiple tools with delayed data flows. Singularity Cloud Security eliminates those delays, saving valuable time in incident response scenarios. MTTR and MTTD are critical metrics for incident response processes. They measure the time it takes to fully address an incident, from initial detection to complete remediation. Minimizing these times is crucial to limit damage, as attackers can quickly exploit vulnerabilities and compromise additional systems. Rapid detection and response are essential to disrupt attackers and prevent further progression within the attack chain. Singularity Cloud helps reduce false positives by allowing engineers direct access to data. This access enables querying, validation, and the creation of correlation searches for improved data analysis. Instead of a black box approach, Singularity provides full visibility into the code and syntax used, increasing confidence in the results. Ultimately, Singularity offers greater control over correlation searches, detection rules, and response scenarios due to the enhanced engagement and control it provides. Singularity's ability to create custom correlation searches significantly reduces noise by avoiding reliance on generic, pre-built searches that often lead to false positives in diverse organizational environments. This targeted approach results in a high positive rate and efficacy, allowing for focused detection and response. By designing and running custom searches, Singularity minimizes the need to sift through irrelevant alerts, unlike systems using default rules that inundate analysts with noise. This translates to a very low noise-to-efficacy ratio, enabling efficient and accurate incident response. Singularity Cloud offers valuable data and capabilities extending beyond security, benefiting various business units. For example, it helped troubleshoot a newly introduced service with limited telemetry. My team created custom correlation searches to track specific event types, confirming the software's functionality. This success garnered positive feedback throughout the company, reaching even the CIO and CSR, as it enabled the business to showcase the software's effectiveness in a way that was previously impossible. SentinelOne improves our regulatory compliance by fulfilling the endpoint detection and response requirements of various frameworks. Many federal regulations require businesses to meet specific security standards, including those related to endpoint, identity, and cloud security. SentinelOne enables us to meet these requirements and assure potential partners that we have a robust security posture. This strengthens our partnerships and streamlines procurement processes, demonstrating how SentinelOne contributes to our compliance efforts. SentinelOne's evidence-based reporting, particularly the CNS reports, fosters trust due to the transparency of the data source and the ability to understand the underlying mechanisms. Knowing the search criteria, data types, and information gathering process, especially when customized for detection engineering, creates confidence in the product and the relationship with SentinelOne. This transparency and customization allow users to delve into the mechanics of the reporting, understand its functionality, and ultimately trust the evidence provided. AI is a crucial consideration for security strategies. While some view AI as a potential replacement for human analysts, others see it as a powerful tool to enhance their capabilities. The latter approach emphasizes AI's ability to accelerate incident response, improve threat detection, and provide valuable insights to analysts. This perspective suggests that AI should be used to augment human expertise, enabling analysts to make faster and more informed decisions, particularly in prioritizing threats and developing a sixth sense for identifying malicious activity. By integrating AI as an enabler, organizations can empower their security teams to become more efficient and effective, ultimately strengthening their overall security posture.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
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

"It gives me the information I need."
"It integrates very well. We sell different products from different vendors. We know that the SentinelOne Singularity platform can be integrated with several different solutions from different vendors."
"Singularity Cloud Security offers autonomous response capabilities, automatically remediating threats and restoring affected files without manual intervention."
"They're responsive to feature requests. If I suggest a feature for Prisma, I will need to wait until the next release on their roadmap. Cloud Native Security will add it right away."
"The most valuable features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security are cloud misconfiguration, Kubernetes, and IaC scanning."
"Our organization is growing steadily, so our infrastructure is expanding, and we're managing more technical resources. Singularity Cloud Security helps us track our resources so that we don't get lost in the overwhelming volume of things and ensures we follow best practices. The solution gives us better visibility into our resources and enables faster resolution."
"The agentless vulnerability scanning is great."
"The mean time to detect has been reduced."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The dependency map is most valuable feature."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the insights, meaning the remediation suggestions, as well as the incident alerts."
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"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."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I have found most valuable is the alerts, which are pretty standard for security."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."
 

Cons

"In the Analytics section, there is a tab for showing the severity of open issues by day. There are three options: by week, by month, and for more than thirty days. However, despite being aware of many issues open for more than thirty days, it shows no data available."
"They need more experienced support personnel."
"I export CSV. I cannot export graphs. Restricting it to the CSV format has its own disadvantages. These are all machine IP addresses and information. I cannot change it to the JSON format. The export functionality can be improved."
"The areas with room for improvement include the cost, which is higher compared to other security platforms. The dashboard can also be laggy."
"For SentinelOne, improvements could be made in managing Internet dependency as cloud-based operations can pose challenges in environments with limited connectivity."
"They can add more widgets to its dashboard. A centralized dashboard with numerous metrics would improve user understanding."
"We recently adopted a new ticket management solution, so we've asked them to include a connector to integrate that tool with Cloud Native Security directly. We'd also like to see Cloud Native Security add a scan for personally identifying information. We're looking at other tools for this capability, but having that functionality built into Cloud Native Security would be nice. Monitoring PII data is critical to us as an organization."
"I would like to see the map feature improve. It's good, but it isn't fully developed. It lets us use custom resources and policies but does not allow us to perform some actions. I would also like more custom integration and runtime security for Kubernetes."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"I have not had the chance to experiment deeply with it."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."
"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads."
"Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"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."
"The pricing could be better."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."
"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."
"For pricing, it currently seems to be in line with market rates."
"PingSafe falls somewhere in the middle price range, neither particularly cheap nor expensive."
"We have an enterprise license. It is affordable. I'm not sure, but I think we pay 150,000 rupees per month."
"The pricing is fair. It is not inexpensive, and it is also not expensive. When managing a large organization, it is going to be costly, but it meets the business needs. In terms of what is out there on the market, it is fair and comparable to what I have seen, so I do not have any complaints about the cost"
"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."
"PingSafe falls within the typical price range for cloud security platforms."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"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."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"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."
"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
 

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 like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is t...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. Th...
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
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
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
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
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 Illumio vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.