Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender for IoT comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for IoT

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Helped 868,787 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

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (7th), 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), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)

Microsoft Defender for IoT

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

27th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IoT Security (5th), Operational Technology (OT) Security (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.0%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for IoT is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	6.0%
Microsoft Defender for IoT	0.6%
Other	93.4%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps

Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

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William Tuleja

Senior Endpoint Engineer at a university with 501-1,000 employees

Integration with existing tools boosts management efficiency

The only improvement I see is that some detection explanations are vaguely provided by Microsoft, resulting in generic IoT detections that alert me to an issue yet don't specify what's wrong. Often, it just links back to a generic KB article without additional information. When it happens, it requires extra detective work. This issue doesn't occur often but can be annoying.

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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

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has definitely helped us manage and secure our multi-cloud environment by providing ease of use."

"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."

"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."

"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."

"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 most valuable features are the security recommendations provided by Defender for Cloud."

"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."

"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"Some advantages of Microsoft Defender for IoT are that it's easy to install on any OS, and you can create any custom use cases easily."

"The graphics and analysis in Microsoft Defender for IoT are very representative."

"I find Microsoft Defender very effective in vulnerability management and it provides good attack reduction, making it a next-generation protection solution."

"As a cybersecurity consultant, the best part of Microsoft Defender for IoT is the capability to integrate with other tools such as Microsoft Sentinel and receive real-time alerts from the product."

"I believe it is best suited for cloud services and is unmatched by other cloud security solutions."

"Mainly, it is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."

"It is manageable and integrates with other Microsoft products, which is crucial for me."

Cons

"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."

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"Defender could provide more in-depth visibility into vulnerabilities and services. For instance, we wanted to scan Azure NetApp for sensitive data, but they didn't have that feature. It was only for storage accounts. I want Azure Defender features to cover all Azure resources rather than a few."

"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."

"There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place."

"We would like to have better transparency as to how the security score is calculated because as it is now, it is difficult to understand."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Customer service and support from Microsoft are costly. The execution by engineers is expensive, and the service is neither free nor toll-free, making it less accessible for customers."

"The only improvement I see is that some detection explanations are vaguely provided by Microsoft, resulting in generic IoT detections that alert me to an issue yet don't specify what's wrong."

"The documentation for Microsoft Defender for IoT is lacking. There are no clear steps or guidance, and updates are frequent, which adds to the confusion."

"Microsoft Defender for IoT is not scalable. If you want to monitor another industrial network, you need an additional server, making it less scalable."

"The only improvement I see is that some detection explanations are vaguely provided by Microsoft, resulting in generic IoT detections that alert me to an issue yet don't specify what's wrong."

"There are a few limitations with Microsoft Defender for IoT. We raised concerns with the product team because they don't capture all the information regarding command execution or processes executed on certain endpoints."

"The primary area that needs improvement is compatibility with the latest IoT technologies."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."

"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with 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."

"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."

"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."

"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 product's pricing policy is generally favorable."

"Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	45

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

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

The pricing is pretty standard.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for IoT?

I find that Microsoft Defender for IoT itself is affordable.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for IoT?

I don't think I have any recommendation on improvements for Microsoft Defender for IoT because we don't use it too extensively. There are a few limitations with Microsoft Defender for IoT. We raise...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for IoT?

Clients mainly use Microsoft Defender for IoT for unfamiliar sign-in attempts and Microsoft Defender EDRs. We are using use cases for unfamiliar sign-in and malicious activity, such as user sign-in...

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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

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Nozomi Networks vs Microsoft Defender for IoT

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Compared 22% of the time

Azure Sphere vs Microsoft Defender for IoT

Compared 15% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for IoT

Compared 12% of the time

Tenable OT Security vs Microsoft Defender for IoT

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Microsoft Defender for IoT

Download Microsoft Defender for IoT product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

Azure Defender for IoT

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft Defender for IoT offers advanced security designed to protect IoT environments from sophisticated threats. Its deep integration with Azure reinforces security across devices and networks.

Microsoft Defender for IoT provides scalable threat detection and security intelligence tailored for IoT devices. Leveraging cloud-powered analytics, it ensures protection against emerging threats while supporting diverse device landscapes. The platform's compatibility with Azure Sentinel offers robust security operations and management capabilities.

What are the core features of Microsoft Defender for IoT?

Threat Intelligence: Provides real-time insights and threat detection using cloud-powered analytics.
Device Management: Simplifies the monitoring and management of IoT devices across networks.
Integrated Security: Seamlessly integrates with Azure Sentinel for comprehensive security operations.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Improved Security Posture: Strengthens the protection of IoT ecosystems against cyber threats.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces the complexities and costs associated with managing IoT security.
Scalability: Supports growth and adaptation to expanding IoT networks.

In manufacturing, Microsoft Defender for IoT aids in maintaining operational efficiency by preventing unauthorized access to industrial control systems. Healthcare providers utilize it to protect sensitive patient data transmitted through connected devices. Retailers benefit from secure management of inventory systems and customer data across smart devices.

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for IoT