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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Cloud boosts security and efficiency, integrates with Azure, reduces costs, prevents breaches, and offers proactive defense.
Sentiment score
7.0
Nutanix Cloud Manager enhances efficiency and reliability, saving costs by optimizing workloads and reducing hardware and operational tasks.
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
The biggest return on investment is the rapid improvement of security posture.
Anything that reduces bandwidth and reduces the brain work that our teams have to do to maintain systems across all environments is time-saving and cost-saving.
The biggest return on investment for me when using this product is the fast deployment and the rapid integration and migration without impacting our operations during the migration.
Playbooks and automation definitely freed up engineer time. This allows us to focus on other projects and not have to get hands-on, reducing operational costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support is responsive at higher levels, but experiences vary with mixed satisfaction due to delays.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Manager's support is praised for quick response, knowledgeable staff, proactive solutions, and exceptional customer service worldwide.
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
The support team was very responsive to queries.
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
There is a feature that allows you to escalate the call.
The handoff with support and the knowledge of the support engineer is significantly better than experience with other vendors.
We have easier access to high-level engineers compared to VMware, where you have to navigate multiple channels for support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, integrating across environments effortlessly, suitable for all enterprise sizes with flexible performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers scalable, flexible, and automated management of diverse IT environments, enhancing performance and integration capabilities.
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
It has multiple licenses and features, covering infrastructures from a hundred to five hundred virtual machines, without any issues.
Defender won't replace our endpoint XDR, but it will likely adapt and support any growth in the Microsoft Cloud space.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) scales well.
The key aspects include mix-match hardware and hyper-converged infrastructure, combining compute, storage, and network in a single platform.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has not had any issues scaling with the growing needs of my company.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, with minimal issues mainly during updates, ensuring strong user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.7
Nutanix Cloud Manager is praised for stability with minimal downtime, self-maintenance, and reliability, suitable for critical applications.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
We've never had any downtime related to the Nutanix product itself.
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
The stability and reliability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) have been excellent.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek better automation, clarity, integration, AI features, and comprehensive analytics for improved security management.
Nutanix Cloud Manager needs enhanced cloud platform support, improved efficiency, streamlined management, and better third-party integration and usability.
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
It would be beneficial to streamline recommendations to avoid unnecessary alerts and to refine the severity of alerts based on specific environments or environmental attributes.
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
Our primary reason for choosing Nutanix was for mission-critical applications and Kubernetes.
Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial.
If there are licensing errors, for example, being told I have 96 cores licensed but Nutanix Flow not licensed despite having assigned units, it complicates things unnecessarily.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, offering free and paid versions with costs averaging $15 monthly per server.
Nutanix Cloud Manager provides flexible pricing and cost-effectiveness, appealing to diverse budgets, with discounts often in government sectors.
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters.
It's not cheap, but there are savings and return on investment when coming from a non-Nutanix shop.
In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups.
While VMware costs depend on ESXi hypervisor pricing, the AHV hypervisor for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is free.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI-based threat detection, multi-cloud support, and a unified portal for comprehensive management.
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers a simple interface, robust automation, centralized management, and enhanced data protection for efficient IT operations.
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
It's easy to control resources and govern the resources, and it frees up support to focus on other things without having to help developers.
I would approximate the cost savings to be in the 20% to 25% range since we can optimize our resources and avoid the need to purchase more hardware or reuse resources in the infrastructure from one implementation.
The importance of faster outcomes for their environment is significant; for example, when I delivered the Disaster Recovery solution, we included automation for auto-configuration of VMs and resizing of VMs, which replaced many tasks that were previously done manually.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
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), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd), Cloud Management (1st), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 10.9%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud10.9%
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)0.7%
Other88.4%
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kumargaurav Kadam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers centralized management, cost-effectiveness, and scalability
The licensing is much cheaper than other competitors such as VMware, Cisco UCS, or Microsoft Hyper-V for on-premises data centers. It is very user-friendly and can be managed through Prism Central, a centralized console that allows management of multiple clusters. Due to the recent conversion from VMware to Broadcom, Broadcom has increased their prices five times the existing rates. Most customers are transferring to Nutanix infrastructure because it is scalable, reliable, and performance-focused. The main differentiator from competitors is its cost-effectiveness, and customers have been running and upgrading their technologies for 10 to 15 years. In terms of client satisfaction, performance, upgrades, or protection against ransomware attacks and vulnerabilities, they are regularly releasing patches and upgrading the system. These activities contribute to customer satisfaction and differentiate them from competitors.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
31%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise64
 

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.
Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?
For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...
Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?
When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...
Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?
Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.