Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Vulnerability Management comparison

Sponsored
 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
16th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
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), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
Tenable Vulnerability Manag...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Patch Management (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.3%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Vulnerability Management is 4.6%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Tenable Vulnerability Management4.6%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud5.3%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other89.0%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
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.
Chethan Gowda - PeerSpot reviewer
Have maintained accurate vulnerability scans and gained actionable remediation insights across thousands of servers
Tenable Vulnerability Management agents are very lightweight, and the results we get are very accurate. The solutions they provide to us, assuming if one vulnerability exists, there will be a solution. The resolution they give us in wording will be the best solution. The exploit rates and the reports we get provide a lot of information, making it very easy for us to verify.The main benefit of integration with Tenable Vulnerability Management is that there will be no lack of missing vulnerabilities when it comes to the patching environment. That is one of the key aspects of why we have integrated Tenable to our patching tools. It has a vast capacity of pushing the data to our tools due to its capability and compatibility. That is also one of the reasons why we are using Tenable Vulnerability Management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Good compliance policies."
"It offers virus management and addresses threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other critical security concerns."
"The technical support is very good."
"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."
"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."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"The solution is up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats."
"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."
"It's a recommended tool for penetration testers because it's effective for that purpose."
"It is easy to manage. Most of the information the tool provided helped to further investigate the vulnerability and its impact."
"The solution can integrate with third parties and meets standard compliance."
"The stability is commendable, and I would rate Tenable ten out of ten."
"The tool has an easy-to-use interface."
"There is no burden of updating or upgrading this solution."
"The vulnerability management itself is the most valuable feature as well as references to the mitigation techniques."
"It is pretty stable. I would rate it nine or maybe ten."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"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."
"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."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters. It could be cheaper."
"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."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load."
"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."
"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."
"An area of improvement for this solution is being able to customize the dashboard. For example, the dashboard does not allow us to view a previous months vulnerability results alongside current results to make comparisons."
"The product is a bit expensive."
"AI integration for reporting in Tenable would be beneficial."
"Tenable Vulnerability Management is not very effective for real-time risk prioritization for our organization's security strategy."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The initial setup is complex and has room for improvement."
"They should include better customization of the dashboard, and integration tools."
"We'd like to see a bit more user-friendliness."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"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."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"Compared to other VM solutions, Tenable.io Vulnerability Management is expensive."
"Tenable.io Vulnerability Management's pricing solution model isn't great."
"The solution is not too expensive."
"The tool is reasonably priced."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten. It is in the middle."
"The total cost we pay for this solution is over 45K. This is for a large education organization."
"Tenable.io is not known for being a cheap product."
"The product costs us around $137,000 annually for 4000 to 5000 assets."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise21
 

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 do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of ...
What needs improvement with Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
I don't think I have any additional features to add for improvement, as Tenable Vulnerability Management does a prett...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Tenable.io
 

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.
Global Payments AU/NZ
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.