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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
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Immuta
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (25th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (15th), AI Data Analysis (22nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Management (7th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
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

"The most valuable feature of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"The dashboards are particularly valuable as they offer a comprehensive view of the environment, highlighting any misconfigurations."
"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 agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"TruRisk Insights is the most important innovation they've released this year."
"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is restriction."
"Instead of manually tagging data, Immuta’s auto-discovery capability identifies sensitive information, such as country labels, gender information, and other personal data."
"All features available are good."
"What I appreciate the most is its user-friendliness."
"It offers virus management and addresses threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other critical security concerns."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"The solution helped out management a lot, reducing about 50% of the time needed to spend on this after implementation and saving the organization money by consolidating into one solution instead of two or three."
"It is very scalable, the product has been very easy to use and simple to set up, the maintenance and updating are part of the service so that brings great value, it's a stable product, technical support is helpful, and it's got a lot of great features."
"The solution has also simplified management of endpoints and servers and gives us visibility in a single pane of glass."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"Right after I joined the company, that was one of the first things that I advised them to do and a couple of weeks later, we caught at least two big vulnerabilities that could have caused a catastrophic problem for our business."
"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."
 

Cons

"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"Enhancing clarity regarding its compliance capabilities would be beneficial, as the current scope is limited in geographic coverage."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"An area for improvement would be to focus on risks related to AI, such as large language models and potential data leakage."
"There is room for improvement in vulnerability scanning, particularly for PaaS environments. Currently, Qualys does not have full access to these instances, which limits its effectiveness."
"There is room for improvement in enhancing the monitoring capabilities."
"Immuta is behind in updating upgrades and software releases."
"The implementation process with Immuta was quite challenging, primarily due to issues related to database handling and the syncing of user groups."
"Immuta is very helpful, but it can be improved in a few areas."
"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."
"Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though."
"There is a slight gap between the real-time monitoring and real-time alerts."
"My experience with Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been largely negative due to a poor user experience."
"Microsoft does a fairly good job, but many products are developed from an engineer's perspective rather than the end user perspective, making the intuitive flow of the interface sometimes less than optimal."
"Sometimes if you do not have the resources in-house, it can be difficult."
"As a micro-segmentation product, it's not so great, especially if you have a lot of systems."
"If they had an easier way to display all the vulnerabilities of the machines affected and remediation steps on one screen rather than having to dive deep into each of them, that would be a lot easier."
"Although Microsoft Defender for Cloud is based on security, I wish it went beyond providing assessments, reports, and generic steps. More detailed procedures would be helpful, especially for lower-level support staff."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Immuta's pricing is expensive."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"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."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"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."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
What needs improvement with Immuta?
Immuta is very helpful, but it can be improved in a few areas. The initial setup and policy design can be complex and...
What is your primary use case for Immuta?
My main use case for Immuta is data governance. In my project, which is a data governance project, I use Immuta as a ...
What advice do you have for others considering Immuta?
My advice for others considering Immuta would be to plan your policies carefully. Think through roles, data sensitivi...
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
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 Immuta vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.