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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Sentinel 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
7.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security and efficiency, offering significant ROI with up to 60% savings and streamlined operations.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Sentinel enhances ROI with automation, boosts productivity, lowers costs, and improves security through efficient integration and faster responses.
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
If a customer is already using Microsoft’s ecosystem, the ROI can be positive due to seamless integration.
senior cyber security at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Our MTTR, mean time to response, improved by forty to fifty percent. Earlier, medium-severity incidents took two to three hours to resolve. Now, after Microsoft Sentinel, it is forty to fifty-five minutes.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
We attribute our growth to Sentinel.
Chief Commercial Officer at defend
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support is praised for its responsiveness, though some users experience delays and resource access challenges.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Sentinel support is praised for quick, knowledgeable responses, with higher satisfaction in premium plans despite some documentation challenges.
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
Their solutions' integration simplifies resolving issues compared to those caused by third-party products.
IT Consultant at MAN Truck & Bus SE
Microsoft invests significantly in support, which is crucial for companies.
Director de Microsoft y Transformación Digital at Compucad
Working with a Sentinel engineer helped us tune settings effectively.
Systems Emgineer at a non-profit with 1-10 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable, seamless integration, and reliable management for organizations of all sizes and environments.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Sentinel offers scalable, cloud-based operations with seamless Azure integration, emphasizing elasticity and cost considerations for effective data management.
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
Office 365 and Exchange are running on it, covering about 35,000 users efficiently.
IT Consultant at MAN Truck & Bus SE
There is no need to add hardware or redesign infrastructure because it is cloud-native.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
As our organization uses Microsoft Azure and Defender, everything grows together, and we can integrate various features seamlessly.
Systems Emgineer at a non-profit with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is highly stable, reliable, and maintains performance with minor, swiftly resolved incidents.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Sentinel is reliable with 99.9% uptime, minor glitches, and minimal maintenance thanks to its managed service aspect.
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
So far, we have not experienced any issues, and it has been stable from the beginning.
IT Consultant at MAN Truck & Bus SE
In the past two years, our team hasn't encountered any issues with the stability of Microsoft Sentinel from an operations perspective.
Project Executive at synergyc
I need to be aware of deprecated connectors as they may disconnect, but the data continues to be sent with a need for quick adaptation.
senior cyber security at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps seeks enhanced pricing, integration, user interface, automation, and multi-cloud support, while improving insights and management.
Users seek better integration, documentation, user-friendliness, AI, automation, and transparency in Microsoft Sentinel for improved threat management.
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
Log ingestion and retention costs can grow quickly, and understanding which data source is driving cost is not always straightforward.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
We have some tools, such as our off-site Meraki firewalls, that have not fully integrated with Sentinel.
Systems Emgineer at a non-profit with 1-10 employees
Currently, we are happy to have a way in the middle with not so much cost, but it would be nice to have the ability to enhance the automation of workflows based on learned incidents.
IT Consultant at MAN Truck & Bus SE
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is seen as cost-effective for enterprises within Microsoft ecosystems, despite standalone pricing concerns.
Microsoft Sentinel's pricing is flexible yet costly, requiring optimization and integration to maximize cost-effectiveness for data management.
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
It has been beneficial that Microsoft Sentinel is included as part of the Microsoft package, making it more cost-effective.
Senior System Administrator at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Microsoft Sentinel is not a low-cost SIEM.
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Microsoft Sentinel offers more capabilities than Bastion, with a more intuitive experience.
Project Executive at synergyc
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps integrates well, offering threat detection, management ease, shadow IT discovery, and robust security enhancements.
Microsoft Sentinel excels in integration, AI, scalability, automation, and user experience, with powerful threat detection and response features.
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
Microsoft Sentinel's ability to correlate data from multiple sources and its detection capabilities are essential.
Cost Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Sentinel has improved cost efficiency, which is one of the key areas we're able to win business against the ability to have threat intelligence.
Chief Commercial Officer at defend
Microsoft Sentinel's ability to correlate data from multiple sources enhances our threat detection capabilities beyond what is a simple data lake solution by filtering out the noise and consolidating the signal down to a meaningful level that is easier to investigate and see.
Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (4th), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 4.7%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Sentinel4.7%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps3.1%
Other92.2%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Kallamuddin Ansari - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize
Centralized monitoring has improved threat response but cost control still needs refinement
Based on real operations used in our corporate IT environment, the key features include log correlation and incident view. Microsoft Sentinel's biggest strength is how it correlates multiple related alerts into a single incident. This significantly reduces alert noise and helps the SOC focus on real threats instead of isolated events. Another valuable feature is KQL-based threat hunting with Kusto Query Language. The flexibility of this language allows us to build custom hunting queries based on our environment's behavior. This is extremely useful for detecting low and slow threats or hidden threats that default rules may miss. Cloud-native scalability and stability is another important feature. Being cloud-native, Microsoft Sentinel scales well for medium to large corporate environments without infrastructure management. Stability has been solid in day-to-day production. SOAR automation using playbooks is a feature we highly recommend. Microsoft Sentinel's SOAR functionality helps automate repetitive SOC tasks like alert enrichment and notification. This saves analyst time and improves response consistency.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
Azure Sentinel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.