Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Cloud Security comparison

Microsoft and Tenable are both solutions in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.1, while Tenable is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.2. Microsoft holds a 11.1% mindshare in CNAP, compared to Tenable’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 71% of Tenable users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable Cloud Security are products competing in cloud security solutions. Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers an advantage in support, while Tenable Cloud Security leads with its diverse features.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides integration with Azure, reliable threat detection, and advanced threat intelligence. Tenable Cloud Security offers comprehensive vulnerability management, multi-cloud support, and strong asset management.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could improve its multi-cloud capabilities, pricing transparency, and dashboard customization. Tenable Cloud Security might enhance its user interface, expand integration options, and improve deployment time.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tenable Cloud Security provides a flexible deployment model and responsive customer service. Microsoft Defender for Cloud excels in Azure integration but faces challenges in multi-cloud settings. Both provide strong support, with Tenable offering more adaptive service.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is cost-effective for Azure-heavy environments, providing good ROI. Tenable Cloud Security may be more expensive but offers higher ROI with its extensive features and diverse environments. Pricing reflects each product's unique approach to cloud security.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

April 2025

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 11.1%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Cloud Security is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)

Featured Reviews

Andrew W

VP - Information Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues

Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.

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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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Ondrej Kováč

Solution Engineer at Exclusive Networks Czechia

Has vulnerability detection, software composition analysis and asset management features

Due to its robust nature, the platform's adoption can be overwhelming initially. However, once organizations start using it, they tend to get used to it. I haven't had much direct interaction with the support team, but some partners have reported a desire for better support for the product. Another area needing improvement is the implementation complexity, especially in multi-cloud environments. Tenable Cloud Security's features mean there's a steep learning curve, which can consume significant time and resources to utilize the platform's potential and fully see immediate benefits. It's similar to AI in that you must spend time fine-tuning and training before it truly helps.

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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

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has improved our security posture."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is excellent, and I highly recommend it."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has saved up to 50 percent in engineering time."

"The remediation process is good."

"I would definitely recommend this product to other members, vendors, or users, as it covers security posture management, auditing, documentation, and compliance management."

"The UI and the widgets are what I personally appreciate. I find it easy to use."

"With SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, I appreciate the monitoring features and the report with the compliance score."

"The most valuable features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security are the asset inventory and issue indexing."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"Defender for Cloud provides a prioritized list of remediations for security issues, reducing risk and improving security operations."

"Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription."

"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."

"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."

"The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available."

"I find Microsoft Defender for Cloud's KQL very flexible and powerful. It's really easy to search through with KQL queries to find the security breaches and incidents and to track down the breach itself."

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

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"If you have multi-cloud tenancy using AWS and Azure, you can have a single dashboard where you can onboard all the cloud infrastructure and have visibility into it."

"The tool alerts us on depreciating performance or deficiencies of our web application. It helps us react on time."

"The solution’s vulnerability management feature has helped us identify and mitigate risks well."

"Scanning and reporting are the most valuable features of Tenable Cloud Security"

"The key benefit lies in having the largest and most up-to-date database. When it comes to using any Tenable product, it excels in finding vulnerabilities and providing analytics."

"Ermetic can provide super visibility for our cloud environment (we are using AWS)."

"Tenable Cloud Security excels in vulnerability detection, one of its strongest features. Another valuable feature is software composition analysis, which highlights and automates the detection of security flaws. Additionally, their knowledge base is excellent; if anything goes wrong, they provide clear guidance on what needs to be done to address specific vulnerabilities."

"The product's deployment phase is easy."

More Tenable Cloud Security pros

Cons

"Once all components, including the cloud piece and container runtime piece, integrate further and incorporate an AI layer for better comprehension, it will greatly enhance the utility of Singularity Cloud Security."

"One potential drawback is the cost of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, which may be prohibitive for smaller businesses or startups, particularly those in regions with lower average incomes, such as India."

"Sometimes the Storyline ID is a bit wacky."

"I have noticed that the dashboard occasionally gets stuck, potentially due to internet issues. It could benefit from enhancements to be more robust and smoother."

"We had a glitch in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security where it fed us false positives in the past."

"We repeatedly get alerts on the tool dashboard that we've already solved on our end, but they still appear. That is somewhat irritating."

"We recently adopted a new ticket management solution, so we've asked them to include a connector to integrate that tool with Cloud Native Security directly. We'd also like to see Cloud Native Security add a scan for personally identifying information. We're looking at other tools for this capability, but having that functionality built into Cloud Native Security would be nice. Monitoring PII data is critical to us as an organization."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSSPM tool, but the CSC CWPP features need improvement."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"I rate Microsoft support five out of 10. It gets better once you're escalated past the first and second levels. It's difficult to get the necessary support when tickets are first opened."

"With the new Copilot functionality available everywhere, it is challenging to pinpoint areas for improvement. If I put in a lot of thought, I might identify things, but right now, nothing significant pops into my mind, but there is always room for more transparency, especially in pricing."

"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."

"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads."

"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."

"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."

"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."

"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"I do think there might be room for more integrations. This could allow for further customization and flexibility, essentially offering different functionality options to accommodate various budgets."

"The product must provide more features."

"I have faced several bug incidents with the solution"

"There is a need for the support team to improve their response time since it is one of the areas where the product's technical team has certain shortcomings."

"Due to its robust nature, the platform's adoption can be overwhelming initially. However, once organizations start using it, they tend to get used to it. I haven't had much direct interaction with the support team, but some partners have reported a desire for better support for the product."

"Tenable needs to offer a patch-based solution since it is an area where the tool lacks a bit."

"I didn't find anything that wasn't useful or needed to be added."

"Ermetic needs to improve its security scanning. I would like to see more dynamic graphical forms."

More Tenable Cloud Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers robust protection, its high cost may be prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses."

"PingSafe is not very expensive compared to Prisma Cloud, but it's also not that cheap. However, because of its features, it makes sense to us as a company. It's fairly priced."

"I wasn't sure what to expect from the pricing, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a little less than I thought."

"SentinelOne provided competitive pricing compared to other vendors, and we are satisfied with the deal."

"PingSafe falls within the typical price range for cloud security platforms."

"Pricing is based on modules, which was ideal for us."

"It is not that expensive. There are some tools that are double the cost of PingSafe. It is good on the pricing side."

"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

"Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."

"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."

"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."

"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."

"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."

"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."

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

"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"The tool's price is good compared to other brands. The tool's subscription is for a year."

"The tool's pricing is fair."

"There is a need to opt for a subscription-based pricing model to use Tenable Cloud Security. I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

The pricing tends to be high.

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What needs improvement with PingSafe?

The price is on the higher side. The dashboard can be more detailed.

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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 acros...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

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

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

The cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal c...

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What do you like most about Tenable Cloud Security?

The solution’s vulnerability management feature has helped us identify and mitigate risks well.

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What needs improvement with Tenable Cloud Security?

Another team uses the tool. Tenable acquired Ermetic. I think Tenable has features, stays up to date, and upgrades ev...

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What is your primary use case for Tenable Cloud Security?

Right now, I use Tenable as CNAPP, and it is good for the product as it offers enhanced security to users. We did use...

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Comparisons

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 22% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 18% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

Orca Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Wiz vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 20% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 10% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 9% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

Orca Security vs Tenable Cloud Security

Compared 6% of the time

More Tenable Cloud Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

April 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

May 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Tenable Cloud Security

March 2025

Download Tenable Cloud Security product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

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

Ermetic, Ermetic Identity Governance for AWS

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

SentinelOne

Microsoft

Demo not available

Tenable

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security protects cloud workloads, offering advanced threat detection and automated response. It integrates seamlessly with cloud environments and secures containerized applications and virtual machines against vulnerabilities.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is renowned for its efficiency in mitigating threats in real-time. The platform integrates effortlessly with existing cloud environments, ensuring robust cloud security management with minimal manual intervention. Securing containerized applications and virtual machines, it excels in threat intelligence and endpoint protection. However, improvements are needed in performance during high workload periods, and more integrations with third-party tools and better documentation would be beneficial. Users often find the installation process complex, support response times slow, and the dashboard's navigation unintuitive.

What are the key features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Real-time Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats as they occur.
Automated Response: Automatically responds to threats to minimize impact.
Ease of Deployment: Simple setup process with scalable options.
Machine Learning Insights: AI-driven insights enhance threat prevention.
Seamless Integration: Integrates with cloud environments for unified security management.

What are the primary benefits or ROI to expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Threat Mitigation: Improved security against real-time threats.
Reduced Manual Intervention: Automated processes save time and resources.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing security requirements.
Centralized Management: Manage security across platforms from a single console.
Advanced Threat Intelligence: Provides in-depth analysis and protection.

In specific industries, SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is implemented to safeguard critical data and infrastructure. Organizations in finance, healthcare, and technology depend on its real-time threat detection and automated response to protect sensitive information. Its ability to secure containerized applications and virtual machines is particularly valuable in dynamic environments where rapid scaling is necessary.

SentinelOne

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

Tenable Cloud Security is a comprehensive solution designed to help organizations secure their cloud environments across various platforms, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. It offers continuous visibility, compliance management, and threat detection to ensure that cloud infrastructure and applications are protected from vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

Tenable Cloud Security exemplifies a comprehensive Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) by providing a unified solution that covers the entire cloud security lifecycle, from development to runtime. This platform is designed to address vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, threats, and compliance risks across multi-cloud environments, making it an essential tool for organizations adopting cloud-native architectures. In practice, Tenable Cloud Security integrates security into the development process through its shift-left approach, particularly with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security. This ensures that security measures are embedded early in the development lifecycle, allowing teams to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before they reach production. Once in production, the platform continues to provide real-time visibility into cloud environments, enabling continuous monitoring and proactive threat detection.

The solution's comprehensive protection spans various aspects of cloud security, including the identification and remediation of misconfigurations, automated compliance management, and advanced threat intelligence. By automating these processes, Tenable Cloud Security reduces the manual effort required to manage cloud security, freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives.

What are the key features of Tenable Cloud Security?

Unified Platform: Covers the entire cloud security lifecycle, from development to runtime, providing comprehensive protection.
Shift-Left Approach with IaC Security: Integrates security early in the development process, ensuring that vulnerabilities are caught and remediated before deployment.
Continuous Monitoring: Offers real-time visibility and monitoring of cloud environments, enabling proactive threat detection and response.
Automation: Streamlines security operations, reducing the need for manual intervention and increasing operational efficiency.
Comprehensive Threat and Compliance Management: Identifies and mitigates vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance risks across multi-cloud environments.

What are the benefits of using Tenable Cloud Security?

Improved Security Posture: Early detection and remediation of vulnerabilities lead to a stronger overall security posture.
Operational Efficiency: Automation reduces the workload on security teams, allowing them to focus on higher-priority tasks.
Risk Reduction: Proactively identifies and addresses risks before they impact production environments.
Simplified Compliance: Helps organizations meet and maintain compliance with industry standards, reducing the complexity and cost of audits.

Tenable Cloud Security is particularly valuable in industries with stringent regulatory requirements, such as finance, healthcare, and retail. For example, in the financial sector, it helps organizations ensure compliance with regulations like PCI-DSS while safeguarding sensitive data across cloud environments.

In summary, Tenable Cloud Security is a robust CNAPP solution that integrates security throughout the cloud lifecycle, providing comprehensive protection and operational efficiency for cloud-native environments.

Tenable

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Tyler Technologies, Bilfinger, BarkBox, MongoDB, airSlate, Adama, Latch, Cloudinary, Riskified, AppsFlyer, IntelyCare, Aidoc, 42Dot, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Cloud Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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