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Immuta vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Security (8th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Immuta
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (25th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (15th), AI Data Analysis (26th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Management (8th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
Dibyajyoti Rath - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has secured sensitive data and supports compliant self-service analytics
Immuta is very helpful, but it can be improved in a few areas. The initial setup and policy design can be complex and require a learning curve. The user interface could be more interactive, especially for non-technical users. Policy troubleshooting and debugging could be easier with better visibility into why access was allowed or denied. Performance optimization and deeper integration with more tools could make it even better. Additional improvements would strengthen Immuta further. The documentation and real-world examples would help teams onboard faster. More out-of-the-box policy templates could reduce setup time. Improved policy simulation and testing would help teams understand the impact of changes before applying them. Stronger alerting and monitoring features would help quickly identify access issues. Finally, more end-user training and simplified workflows would make it easier for business users to adopt.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"My experience with using TruRisk to mitigate noise from raw CVEs has been great."
"My experience with using TruRisk to mitigate noise from raw CVEs has been extremely effective."
"Once it is set up, Qualys has proved to be one of our greatest assets."
"TruRisk Insights is the most important innovation they've released this year."
"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"The ability to identify cloud misconfigurations, prioritize security risks, and monitor cloud resources from a single platform is quite valuable."
"My experience with the technical service from Immuta is that they are super helpful."
"What I appreciate the most is its user-friendliness."
"Instead of manually tagging data, Immuta’s auto-discovery capability identifies sensitive information, such as country labels, gender information, and other personal data."
"Immuta has had a very positive impact on our organization, helping us strengthen data security by ensuring sensitive data is only accessible to the right users, simplifying compliance with clear audit trails and consistent policy enforcement, reducing manual access management to save time for data and security teams, and enabling safe self-service analytics so our team can access data faster while still meeting governance and regulatory requirements."
"All features available are good."
"The tool's most valuable feature is restriction."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats; we're protected from various threats, like viruses, and attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"The solution has improved our organization in terms of benchmarking, our Secure Score has improved a lot, and we're compliant with particular benchmarks."
"The notification process of Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been the most valuable feature. The notification process is effortless, as it can tell me right there and then locate issues pretty fast, saving us a lot of time by not having to dig through all the warnings."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"Scalability is great, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I have found most valuable is the alerts, which are pretty standard for security."
"The dashboard is very good; it gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system, with everything visible in one glance."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"Customer support with Qualys TotalCloud needs a little improvement with the response times."
"The cost of Qualys TotalCloud is high and could be more competitive."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"One thing that could be improved is the user experience and navigation."
"We have had some challenges with their support when we were migrating to the cloud version. We we had some issues, and it took us several attempts to get a proper responses as part of that migration."
"Immuta is behind in updating upgrades and software releases."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing the monitoring capabilities."
"In terms of improvement areas, I would like to see simpler ways to integrate the approval workflow in other systems, such as being able to approve data access directly from Collibra on Immuta."
"Immuta is very helpful, but it can be improved in a few areas."
"The implementation process with Immuta was quite challenging, primarily due to issues related to database handling and the syncing of user groups."
"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"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."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"I don't appreciate Microsoft Defender for Cloud because it seems to interfere with many things. That's the problem I've been experiencing with it."
"Features like code scanning and pipeline scanning are not included in the solution."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"It's very expensive in terms of the need to maintain it actively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Immuta's pricing is expensive."
"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"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."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
We purchased Qualys TotalCloud for GCP and Azure as well. It is comparatively better than others regarding pricing. T...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
I am unsure about how Qualys TotalCloud can be improved. I do not have anything else to add about the needed improvem...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is telemetry, although I am unsure about the specifics. A quick specific examp...
What needs improvement with Immuta?
Even though I have been working with Immuta for just nine months, I have not seen any drawbacks yet. I would not sugg...
What advice do you have for others considering Immuta?
My team is using Immuta on-cloud. I believe it is the native Immuta Cloud. I have not purchased Immuta from there or ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
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
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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 Immuta vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.