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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Security Center comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (7th), 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) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 3.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 2.9%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Security Center2.9%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud3.9%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other92.1%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
David Birhange - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Cloud and Modern Workplace at Informanix Technology Group
Brings together cloud security insights through a unified view and supports agentless protection for virtual machines
Copilot and similar features are already being used, though not necessarily for Microsoft Defender for Cloud specifically. We are trying to get more experience before rolling out most of Microsoft Defender for Cloud's AI capabilities. This is definitely on our to-do list, and the priority is urgent as we seek to learn more about these capabilities. The GenAI threat protection from Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not been enabled yet. There are many unknowns with AI applications. AI agents will operate while you're not present, whether you are sleeping or awake, and it's unclear whether there would be any exfiltration of data or how data is being managed. Microsoft Purview is being used extensively, and there is significant development going on with DSPM that will be rolled out to address security concerns. Data labeling and proper demarcation for sensitivity of data before it is received are being actively pursued.
OndrejKOVAC - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution engineer at EXPERTience
Empower clients with risk-based vulnerability management through continuous workflow and valuable insights
Tenable Security Center could improve by implementing more dynamic data displays and translating reports into European languages. This is especially relevant in Central Eastern Europe, where clients often require reports in local languages. Additionally, the licensing model could be more flexible for managed security providers, similar to a pay-as-you-go model.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitors our entire cloud environment. It enables conditional access and incorporates features like number matching and single sign-on for all our cloud apps. It is great for protecting against ransomware and various security threats."
"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved our security poster by at least 100 percent."
"Scalability is great, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"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 scans are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"Tenable also helps us to focus resources on the vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited. And since it is continuously updated, it allows us to reevaluate quickly if there are new vulnerabilities found..."
"I find Tenable SC to be a very scalable product."
"Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments, covering the patching process and providing detailed reports that significantly supported our reporting and audits and helped us close audit issues safely and successfully."
"Has a great advanced scanning feature."
"The solution is one of the most, if not the most, stable product available."
"Feature-wise, Tenable Security Center is a very fast tool with many dashboards and reports, and it covers all our systems."
"The solution is very intuitive and the dashboards are simple to use."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"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."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"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."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a six out of 10 due to its lack of necessary features to operate as a standalone solution."
"We experienced some difficulties with the solution’s support."
"The solution is expensive."
"Deploying Tenable.sc is highly complex because it's an on-prem solution, whereas Tenable.io is cloud-based, so you can go live as soon as you log in. Tenable.sc involves significant integration with other on-prem solutions, and the deployment takes about two to three weeks with the help of a system integrator"
"The solution is expensive."
"The web application is not very functional."
"Its reporting can be improved. It is not easy to generate a scan report the way we want. The data is okay, but we can't easily change the template to make it look the way we want."
"I will say it's a lot slower compared to an MS scan. It takes so much longer, so the performance could definitely be worked on."
"Certain aspects require manual effort, such as exporting and analyzing data for our dashboards. The built-in components of the Tenable solution are somewhat clumsy that require external tools. So, this is an area of improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"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."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"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."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"Tenable.sc is more expensive than its competitors."
"The price of Tenable SC is expensive, we pay approximately €70,000 for the license annually. We have to pay for each IP test. The cost of other solutions is far less, such as Nessus Professional, which is €3,000 annually."
"We're able to save because we don't have to employ more staff members to help wit ht he scheduling of the scans, running the reports or sending them out to the systems owners. That alone is a big ROI for us."
"Tenable is open-source."
"The licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100,000 US, and I think that covers everything."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
"Compared to other companies or other products it could maybe be a little bit less, but the price is okay. I would say it's not very expensive."
"We pay around 60,000 on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud was pretty straightforward. We...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be improved. An additional feature that should be included in the next release is Ze...
What do you like most about Tenable SC?
The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
We did conduct a long implementation which relates to what I think can be improved about Tenable Security Center. In ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.