Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Morphisec comparison

Microsoft Defender for Clou...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Morphisec compete in cloud security and endpoint protection. Defender for Cloud Apps holds an advantage in seamless Microsoft integration and comprehensive app visibility, while Morphisec excels in unique attack prevention without performance degradation.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers extensive threat detection, application visibility, and integration with Azure, ideal for organizations invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. Morphisec provides deterministic attack prevention with in-memory protection and a signatureless design, effectively minimizing endpoint performance impact.

Room for Improvement: Defender for Cloud Apps can improve integration with non-Microsoft platforms and enhance macOS compatibility, along with reducing false positives. Morphisec requires better integration with third-party antivirus solutions and improvements in customer support and dashboard usability to enrich user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Defender for Cloud Apps is optimized for cloud deployments within the Microsoft ecosystem, while Morphisec supports public, private, and on-premises deployments. Microsoft’s support varies by tier and region, often requiring third-party assistance. Morphisec is consistently praised for responsive and knowledgeable support across deployment environments.

Pricing and ROI: Defender for Cloud Apps is often part of broader Microsoft licenses, offering significant value for Microsoft-committed users but expensive standalone. Morphisec is competitively priced compared to advanced solutions like CrowdStrike, offering substantial ROI through reduced downtime and enhanced security posture.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Morphisec Report (Updated: April 2026).

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Morphisec

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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

Microsoft Defender for Clou...

Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

13th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)

Morphisec

Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

31st

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (59th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (48th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (59th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (36th), Threat Deception Platforms (16th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Morphisec is 2.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps	2.0%
Morphisec	2.1%
Other	95.9%

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

Featured Reviews

Frank Van Der Spek

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.

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Rick Schibler

VP of Information Technology at Kentucky Trailer

Offers in-memory protection at a lower price than competitors

Morphisec's in-memory protection is probably the most valuable feature because it stops malicious activity from occurring. If something tries to install or act as a sleeper agent, Morphisec will detect and stop it. Morphisec's Moving Target Defense is critical to hardening our attack surface. If it detects something, it indicates whether it's valid. That means you've got a breach requiring investigation. It detects anomalies but doesn't necessarily point to what caused them. You still need to do that work. The solution is reasonably easy to administer. They made some changes last year, adding a cloud-based monitoring solution that makes deploying and monitoring our endpoints easy.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The major benefit is that it is a Microsoft tool, so if you're in a Microsoft ecosystem, this is the best tool that you can get in the market."

"The solution does not affect a user's workflow."

"It has helped identify areas where we should improve, make changes to improve, the reason why we should make a change, and the impact of making the change."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is to stop shadow IT."

"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."

"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward."

"The compliance capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are quite extensive."

"The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

"The ability to stop attacks without having to detect or have a signature for the attack is the most valuable feature."

"Morphisec has given our security team's operations peace of mind and more time for patching."

"If you have the ability to get Morphisec into their environment, it's going to be a hundred percent return on investment."

"Morphisec is a straightforward solution that is efficient and very stable."

"I really like the integration with Microsoft Defender. In addition to having third-party endpoint protection, we're also enabling Defender... I like the reporting that we get from Defender, when it comes in. I like that it's one console showing both Morphisec and Defender where it provides me with full visibility into security events from Defender and Morphisec."

"Morphisec as the last line of defense is as good as you can get."

"We don't have to do anything as a user or as an admin. It does everything by default with its coding and inbuilt AI-based intelligence. We don't have to instruct it about what to do. It automatically takes corrective actions and quarantines or deletes a virus, malware, etc. That is the best part that I like about it."

"We haven't had any cybersecurity incidents on machines running Morphisec."

More Morphisec pros

Cons

"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting. While it is possible for me to see the usage from different cloud apps, determining if critical data has been uploaded or if it is just normal transport data is difficult."

"The areas of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that need improvement are related to IAM, as they do not provide much support for local users."

"This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage."

"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."

"Sometimes, there is a delay when it comes to getting an alert policy email; sometimes it takes two or three hours for that email to be sent."

"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."

"Since implementing this solution, we have had more support calls regarding false positives."

"Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

"Automating reports needs improvement. I would like to have better reporting capabilities within it or automated reporting to be a little bit more dynamic. That's something I know they're working on. We literally are in the process. We started the process a week and a half ago of going to their latest version, so I've not seen their latest one up and running yet."

"It would be useful for them if they had some kind of network discovery. That kind of functionality I think would give IT administrators a little bit more confidence that they have 100 percent coverage, and it gives them something to audit against. Network discovery would be one area I would definitely suggest that they put some effort into."

"We sometimes have to depend on the support team to know what action we should take. If the solution for an alert can be built into the report that we are getting, it will save time, and the interaction with support would be less. At times, corrective action is required, but at times, we don't need to take any action. It would be good if we get to know in the report that a particular infection doesn't require any action. It will save us time and effort."

"We wanted to have multi-tenants in their cloud platform, so every entity can look into their own systems and not see other systems in other entities. I have a beta version on that now. I would like them to incorporate that in the cloud solution."

"The only area that really needs improvement is the reporting functionality."

"At this time, it is able to recognize vulnerabilities and reporting them to us, but it's not actually resolving them."

"We started in the Linux platform and we deployed to Linux. The licensing of that has been kind of confusing between Linux licensing and Windows licensing. The overall simplicity of licensing or offering an enterprise license to just cover everything and then we don't have to count needs improvement."

"Some of the filters for the console need improvement. There are alerts that show up and just being able to acknowledge that we've seen those and not turn them off, but dismiss them, would be a huge benefit."

More Morphisec cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."

"Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."

"It has pretty good pricing."

"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."

"We utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."

"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."

"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."

"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

"It is priced correctly for what it does. They end up doing a good deal of discounting, but I think it is priced appropriately."

"We are still using a separate tool. I know for our 600 or I think we're actually licensed for up to 700 users, it runs me 23 or $24,000 a year. When you're talking to that many users plus servers being protected, that's well worth the investment for that dollar amount."

"It is a little bit more expensive than other security products that we use, but it does provide us good protection. So, it is a trade-off."

"It does not have multi-tenants. If South Africa wants to show only the machines that they have, they need their own cloud incidence. It is not possible to have that in a single cloud incidence with multiple tenants in it, instead you need to have multiple cloud incidences. Then, if you have that, it will be more expensive. However, they are going to change that, which is good."

"Licenses are per endpoint, and that's true for the cloud version as well. The only difference is that there is a little extra charge for the cloud version."

"The pricing is definitely fair for what it does."

"Price-wise, it's on the higher side. A traditional antivirus solution is cheaper, but in terms of security and manageability, its ROI is better than a traditional antivirus. I would recommend it to anybody evaluating or considering an antivirus solution. If your system gets compromised, the cost of ransom would be a lot more. This way, it saves a lot of cost."

"Morphisec is reasonably priced because our parent company's other subsidiaries use different products like CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is four or five times more expensive than Morphisec. The competitive pricing saves us money in our overall security stack."

More Morphisec pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Outsourcing Company

16%

Construction Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	8

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 9% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 8% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 5% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Halcyon vs Morphisec

Compared 5% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Morphisec

Compared 5% of the time

FortiCNAPP vs Morphisec

Compared 5% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Morphisec

Compared 4% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint vs Morphisec

Compared 4% of the time

More Morphisec Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Download Morphisec product report

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Morphisec, Morphisec Moving Target Defense

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a robust tool for shadow IT detection, cloud integration, and threat detection, enhancing security management with capabilities in auditing and data protection.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps strengthens cloud security by providing comprehensive insights into user activities, seamlessly integrating with Microsoft security products and platforms like SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. Its investigative capabilities enhance threat detection, while real-time alerts and policy applications improve security posture. Organizations benefit from its monitoring, auditing, and privileged identity management features that contribute to enhanced security management and data protection.

What are the key features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps?

Shadow IT Discovery: Identifies and manages unsanctioned applications across cloud environments.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly connects with Microsoft security products and platforms.
Threat Detection: Offers powerful tools for identifying and mitigating threats in real-time.
Policy Application: Facilitates enforcement of policies across SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive.
User Activity Visibility: Provides detailed insights into user behavior and actions.

What benefits and ROI should organizations consider?

Enhanced Security Posture: Increases the effectiveness of overall security management.
Real-Time Alerts: Offers immediate notifications to improve response times to threats.
Compliance Support: Aids in maintaining compliance through integrated monitoring and governance.
Data Protection: Protects sensitive corporate data through detailed auditing and monitoring.
Integration with Azure: Enhances threat detection through cohesive integration with Azure services.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps implementation varies across industries, crucial for sectors needing stringent data protection and compliance, like finance and healthcare. Firms use it to monitor user activity, enforce data loss prevention policies, and ensure security across multi-cloud environments while integrating with Azure services for comprehensive threat management. These implementations are particularly beneficial in improving compliance efforts and protecting sensitive data.

Microsoft

Morphisec enhances security with its signatureless attack prevention, integrating smoothly with Microsoft Defender. Users benefit from real-time threat detection and seamless system integration, protecting against zero-day threats and ransomware across networks.

Morphisec's security solution focuses on preventing cyber threats without requiring threat signatures or user action. Its integration with Microsoft Defender offers simplified visibility and management while delivering quick responses. Lightweight in nature, Morphisec ensures zero performance degradation and employs in-memory protection along with Moving Target Defense. This approach effectively counters zero-day threats and ransomware, maintaining a user-centric dashboard that eases administrative workloads. Morphisec's easy deployment also enables small teams to manage risks and uphold robust security measures efficiently.

What are Morphisec's key features?

Signatureless Threat Prevention: Stops attacks without threat signatures or user interaction.
Microsoft Defender Integration: Provides unified management and quick response capabilities.
In-Memory Protection: Shields against zero-day and ransomware threats efficiently.
Moving Target Defense: Minimizes exposure to in-memory attacks.
User-Friendly Dashboard: Simplifies administration by reducing burdens.
Easy Deployment: Facilitates straightforward setup for small teams.

What benefits and ROI should be considered in user reviews?

Real-Time Detection: Immediate identification of threats enhances proactive threat management.
Seamless Integration: Compatible with existing systems, reducing delay risks.
Cloud-Based Updates: Ensures current protection with minimal manual input.
Multi-Layered Security: Adds a solid last defense layer, supplementing other antivirus solutions.

Morphisec is widely used across industries like financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing to bolster defenses against malware and ransomware. Its deployment spans workstations and servers, integrating efficiently into existing infrastructures. Industries value real-time threat detection, ease of deployment, and cloud-based updates, noting its ability to identify threats missed by other antivirus solutions.

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.

Lenovo/Motorola, TruGreen, Covenant Health, Citizens Medical Center

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Morphisec