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

Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category. Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Microsoft holds a 10.1% mindshare in CASB, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 18.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks compete in the cloud security category, with each offering distinct advantages. Microsoft Defender excels in integration within the Microsoft ecosystem, while Prisma Access offers advanced zero-trust architecture and comprehensive threat prevention capabilities.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is known for its cloud and identity management capabilities, excelling within Microsoft environments. It offers comprehensive threat detection and security posture management. Prisma Access provides a robust zero-trust architecture, extensive threat prevention, and app traffic protection, integrating effectively with Palo Alto's solutions.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps could enhance integration with non-Windows environments, improve its user experience, and offer better integration with third-party solutions. Prisma Access can improve its user interface usability, offer more flexible configurations, and enhance integration with non-Palo Alto products.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender stands out for its seamless integration within Microsoft ecosystems, simplifying deployment for existing users. Prisma Access may present complexities in deployment for those not using Palo Alto products. Customer service experiences vary for both, with regional differences influencing Microsoft support and response times affecting Prisma Access support.

Pricing and ROI: Both products are premium-priced, but value can justify costs based on needs. Microsoft Defender offers cost efficiencies, especially when bundled within Microsoft E5 licenses, providing significant savings within its ecosystem. Prisma Access, though expensive, gives high returns for organizations requiring rigorous cloud security. Both demonstrate ROI through enhanced security and operational efficiencies.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

April 2025

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Helped 851,604 peers since 2012

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

iboss

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 10.1%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 18.2%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless

One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

Read full review

Jagadeesh Gunasekaran

Cyber security engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Saves us time, has good visibility, and a single dashboard

The solution is user-friendly and provides great visibility into threats. There are easy options available for specific workflow inspections. We can also get support by going through the Microsoft documentation, which is straightforward. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. It covers us from a compliance perspective and protects our organization's data. Data protection is a very important aspect of any new organization, as we need to protect our data from both external attacks and insider threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us monitor for abnormal activity by insiders, which is one of the most important access points for attackers today. Additionally, the different cloud apps that Defender for Cloud Apps supports provide us with much more visibility into potential threats and activities on the internet. We have integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps alerts with Sentinel. The integration is straightforward. We can find the configuration details on Microsoft's official documentation website. If we are familiar with how Microsoft products work, we will be able to follow the instructions clearly. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Sentinel work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. Our integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive threat protection, covering most of the tactics and techniques relevant to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. When implementing an SIEM solution, there are always prerequisites such as Active Directory logs, security logs, firewall logs, and DNS logs. These are important logs that need to be ingested into the environment. Sentinel has many third-party connectors available that make integrations straightforward. Microsoft provides the configuration details in the Sentinel platform. It is important to integrate all relevant log sources into the SIEM solution so that we can detect and be alerted to any type of threat factor, whether it is from an internal or external source. Integrating third-party solutions into the platform requires a separate configuration, but Microsoft provides the necessary information. However, we need to have the appropriate permissions to execute these setups. Sentinel provides a centralized dashboard that covers threat management and configuration. It gives us complete insight into what entities are accessing, as well as full details for investigation. We can see how the alerts and threats are relevant to suspicious activities, whether they are related to malicious IP addresses, suspicious ASHAs, or any other indicators of compromise. All of this relevant data can be seen in a single pane. Recently, Microsoft introduced a new investigation experience in a single pane. This means that we can now get a lot of details in a single pane, without having to go there and execute a query. There are a lot of new insights being developed in the Sentinel platform these days. It has software intelligence. They recently introduced Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which covers almost all IOCs. This protects organizational assets from threats and suspicious traffic associated with IOCs. If a match is found, alerts are generated. This is a very interesting feature. Another great feature is automation and logic apps. We can create a number of operations, such as posting in a team's channel if a severe incident occurs or sending an email notification. There are many operations available, so we can automate a lot of tasks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us stay compliant. It has predefined mechanisms in place to prevent attacks. For example, if an external user tries to access our SharePoint folders or files, an attack will be blocked. This is why it is important to give appropriate access to guest users. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has many features and benefits. It provides a number of policies that can be configured to meet the specific needs of our security team. These policies can be used to customize cloud applications so that only authorized users can access them and perform operations that benefit the organization. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is top-notch. Using the solution's automation features, we can suppress false positive alerts. We can also close alerts, lower their severity from "high" to "low" or "informational," or close them immediately with the appropriate commands. This will depend on the configuration automation rule and the perspective from which we are testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides a single console. We are also provided with Microsoft templates to enable workbooks instantly. Alternatively, we can build our own customized workbooks to provide better insights and improve our SOC efficiency and overall performance. Consolidating all of our security data into one dashboard has saved our security operations team a significant amount of time. From an analyst's perspective, it is now much easier to correlate events, investigate alerts, and visualize specific entities. For example, an analyst can quickly see all of the alerts associated with a particular IP address, or they can view all of the activity for a specific entity over the past 24 hours or 7 days. This level of detail and insight would not be possible if our data were siloed in multiple dashboards. The single dashboard saves our operations approximately 20 hours per week by eliminating the need to access multiple consoles and tabs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps threat intelligence can help us prepare for potential threats before they happen. However, it depends on how we develop the policies for the database to block or ignore things in our environment.

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Partha Dash

Global Network Tech Lead at Thoughtworks

Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work

There are definitely a number of things that could be improved. One of them is geographic coverage. China is still an issue because the solution does not operate there properly due to government regulations. I believe Palo Alto is trying pretty hard to get into partnerships with Alibaba and other cloud providers, but they do not have the same compelling offering in China that they have in the rest of the world. Businesses that are operating within China have to be very sure to evaluate the solution before making a buying decision. It is not an issue with Palo Alto, rather it is predominantly the result of government rules, but it's something that Palo Alto needs to work on. There is also room for improvement when it comes to latency in a couple of regions, including India and South America. They might have to increase their presence in those locations and come up with more modern cloud architectures. The third area is that, while Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."

More iboss pros

"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."

"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."

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

"Better logging allows us to find problems and take appropriate steps to lock them out."

"Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup."

"Shadow IT discovery is the feature I like the most."

"I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps."

"The integration within the entire Defender suite is highly valuable because it allows for communication between different components and offers pretty decent correlations."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

"Its frontend is user-friendly. It is easy to use for us."

"The users can securely access any cloud data centers or cloud platforms. In terms of the features, it has all the features that Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall has. It is also very stable and scalable."

"The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being user-friendly."

"Overall, the cost savings, ease of deployment, and better VPN user experience and performance are valuable."

"The solution also provides traffic analysis, threat prevention, URL filtering, and segmentation. That combination is important because it enhances the protection and makes the traffic more secure. It also keeps things more up-to-date, enabling us to deal with more of the current threats."

"The solution has all its capabilities in a single cloud delivery platform which is great and it provides overall good protection."

"It's great that we can make sure a machine meets the minimum requirements before users are allowed to log in."

"Being able to use the user ID or Active Directory Group is one of the great features for control and providing more flexibility without worrying about IP addresses."

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."

More iboss cons

"I want them to enhance in-session policy."

"There are certain areas where the product could improve, such as some functionalities that did not work as expected."

"I would like to see them include more features in the older licenses. There are some features that are not available, such as preventing or analyzing cloud attacks."

"There are some features, such as user navigation content filtering, that are disabled by default, and it probably makes sense to enable them by default."

"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."

"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."

"Defender could integrate better with multi-cloud and hybrid environments. It requires some additional configuration to ingest data from non-Azure environments and integrate it with Sentinel."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

"It is a managed firewall. When you run into issues and have to troubleshoot, there is a fair amount of restriction. You run into a couple of restrictions where you don't have any visibility on what is happening on the Palo Alto managed infrastructure, and you need to get on a call to get technical assistance from Palo Alto's technical support. You have to get them to work with you to fix the problem. I would definitely like them to work on the visibility into what happens inside Palo Alto's infrastructure. It is not about getting our hands onto their infrastructure to do troubleshooting or fixing problems; it is just about getting more visibility. This will help us in guiding technical support folks to the area where they need to work."

"Pricing for Prisma Access and Prisma SD WAN is high due to the need for different hardware flavors like IONs."

"They could add more flexibility and improve product performance."

"The solution’s stability could be improved."

"The Cloud Management application has room for improvement. There are a lot of things on the roadmap for that application; things are going to happen soon."

"Palo Alto needs to improve the GlobalProtect agent to work as a secure web gateway agent, not only as a VPN agent because some companies would want only a secure gateway. They wouldn't want a full VPN. So, Palo Alto has to make the VPN agent work as a secure web gateway agent for those customers who want only the secure web gateway solution."

"From any improvement perspective, the product's compatibility issues with Linux need to be resolved."

"When it comes to the VPN, it uses the global protect VPN functionality to connect remotely, but it has a feature limitation for assigning multiple IP sub-links to different user groups. It would be much better if we are able to assign the current IP blocks for the sub-links based on the user groups."

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."

"This product is not 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."

"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."

"It has pretty good pricing."

"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."

"The product's pricing seems fair."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

"It is a little expensive. Because it is one of the best in the market, it is a little bit more expensive than other vendors."

"Prisma SaaS is more expensive than similar solutions but I think it's worth it."

"There's no reason not to buy the enterprise version that gives you unlimited PoPs, but you must understand the limitations you impose on yourself if you do that. If you go crazy, that allowlist will be too big for Kubernetes clusters."

"The licensing cost is about 18,000 euros."

"Compared to other products, the price is slightly high."

"We have to pay additional costs for maintenance and support services."

"Prisma Access is one of the best compared to other products on the market. The cost is favorable, and Palo Alto provides a simple architecture, so I recommend the solution to anyone using a different product. There are no hidden costs besides the license; what you see is what you get."

"It is not cheap. It is expensive. The good thing is that you are able to pay for what you need, but overall, it is not cheap. The pricing is not based on packages. You pay based on the features. If you want DLP, you only pay for DLP. They are very flexible. It is not cheap, but the licensing is flexible. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?

Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.

See all answers

What needs improvement with iboss?

I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the featur...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for iboss?

We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.

See all answers

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-nat...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?

It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?

The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable. If a product is of high quality, it justifies the ex...

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What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?

We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...

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What do you like most about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?

The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?

From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.

See all answers

Comparisons

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 19% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 15% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 15% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 21% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 12% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Cisco Umbrella vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 12% of the time

Netskope vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 10% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 7% of the time

Netskope Private Access vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 3% of the time

More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

May 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

May 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Buyer's Guide

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

May 2025

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report

Download Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access

Overview

iboss offers a comprehensive security platform designed for diverse use cases such as web filtering, data loss protection, corporate proxy services, and URL filtering.

iboss integrates advanced features to address dynamic security needs, leveraging its strength in SASE, ZTNA, AI initiatives, and cloud integration, while ensuring seamless operations for remote work. It excels in historical forensics, malware protection, and flexible cloud deployments. Users benefit from comprehensive traffic scanning, robust malware detection, and PaaS capabilities that reduce hardware management. An intuitive admin console ensures efficient management with content filtering and low false positives. SSL decryption enhances security, while DLP protects data in AI conversations. Deployment is rapid and scalable, allowing effortless integration with emerging technologies.

What features does iboss offer?

Granular Web Filtering: Provides precise control over web content access.
Traffic Scanning: Monitors data through multiple ports for security breaches.
Malware Detection: Ensures superior protection against malware threats.
PaaS Capabilities: Eliminates need for hardware management.
SSL Decryption: Enhances data protection by decrypting secure connections.
DLP Capabilities: Safeguards data during AI interactions.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Adapts quickly to growing demands and emerging tech integration.
Rapid Deployment: Reduces time to implement security measures.
User-Friendly Admin Console: Facilitates efficient operations management.
Low False Positives: Increases accuracy of threat detection systems.

iboss finds significant application in sectors such as education, where web filtering for K-12 is crucial, and in corporate environments requiring robust proxy services and URL filtering for network security. Its adaptability is essential in scenarios demanding flexible, decentralized security frameworks, particularly for remote work setups.

iboss

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:

Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
Easy to use and deploy
Provides real-time threat detection and response
Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:

Governance, authentication, security, and compliance.
Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
Controls access to applications
Provides auditing and filtering setups
Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

Reviews from Real Users

Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

Microsoft

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks provides consistent security for all users and applications across your remote networks. Prisma Access grants users safe access to the cloud and data center applications and the internet as well. In addition, the solution combines all of your security and networking capabilities into a single cloud-delivered platform, enabling flexible hybrid workforces.

Prisma Access can be managed two ways:

Cloud Managed
Panorama Managed

Prisma Access delivers both networking and security services, including:

SD-WAN
VPN
Zero Trust network access (ZTNA)
Quality of service (QoS)
Clean Pipe
Firewall as a service (FWaaS)
DNS Security
Threat Prevention
Cloud secure web gateway (SWG)
Data loss prevention (DLP)
Cloud access security broker (CASB)

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Features

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks has many valuable key features including: App-ID, User-ID, Device-ID, SSL Decryption, Dynamic User Group (DUG) Monitoring, AI/ML-Based Detection, IoT Security, Reporting, URL Filtering, Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM)*, Logging, Policy Automation, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and many more.

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks include:

Security: Prisma Access gives you consistent security to protect against cyberattacks, with enforcement of policy at every location. By implementing Prisma Access, you also gain protection that works to prevent known and unknown malware, exploits, credential theft, command and control, and many other attack vectors across all ports and protocols.
Global connectivity: Prisma Access provides global coverage through use of its connectivity layer.
Scalability: With Prisma Access, scaling is automatically managed and is scalable, flexible, and agile.
Instant deployment: Deployment is fast, eliminating wasted time that may otherwise be associated with setting up a solution, operating it, or shipping hardware in order to get started.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Partha D., Global Network Tech Lead at a computer software company, speaks about his experience using the product, saying, "It protects all app traffic so that users can gain access to all apps. Unlike other solutions that only work from ports 80 and 443, which are predominantly for web traffic, Prisma Access covers all protocols and works on all traffic patterns... The most sophisticated attacks can arise from sources that are not behind 80/443."

Tejas J., a Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a computer software company, mentions that "it is geographically dispersed, and it sits on top of Google and AWS platforms. Therefore, you don't face the standard issues, such as latency or bandwidth issues, that you usually face in the case of on-prem data centers.”

Another PeerSpot reviewer, Max I., Associate Director at Cognizant, comments that "Security is absolutely spot-on, really top-notch. It's the result of all the components that come together, such as the HIP [Host Information Profile] and components like Forcepoint, providing end-user content inspection, and antivirus. It incorporates DLP features and that's fantastic because Prisma Access makes sure that all of the essential prerequisites are in place before a user can log in or can be tunneled into."

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

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

Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack

Buyer's Guide

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

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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