Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Vanta comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Vanta are focused on cloud security and compliance management. Microsoft Defender for Cloud leads in security features due to its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, whereas Vanta excels in compliance automation and audit readiness reporting capabilities.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers robust threat detection, endpoint protection, and seamless Azure integration. Vanta provides automated compliance evidence collection, intuitive reporting tools, and a tailored approach to streamlining audit processes. While Microsoft makes strides in threat protection, Vanta emphasizes compliance.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud could benefit from enhancing its user interface for non-Microsoft environments, improving multi-cloud support, and offering more customizable reporting options. Vanta might improve by expanding its security features, providing deeper insights into security metrics, and enhancing integration with more cloud services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rapidly deployed in Microsoft environments, benefiting enterprises already using Microsoft solutions. Vanta offers straightforward deployment with strong customer support, aiding businesses through compliance with personalized assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is cost-effective when bundled with Microsoft services, offering substantial ROI through its extensive security capabilities. Vanta's pricing corresponds to its specialized compliance solutions, providing efficiency improvements that justify the cost in meeting standards. Microsoft provides better returns on security investments, while Vanta focuses on compliance efficiencies.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta Report (Updated: September 2025).

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta

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Helped 869,160 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 Compliance Management

5th

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), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)

Vanta

Ranking in Compliance Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compliance Consulting (3rd), Data Governance (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Compliance Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 17.4%, up from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vanta is 11.1%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Compliance Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Vanta	11.1%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	17.4%
Other	71.5%

Compliance Management

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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Anupam Dutta

Team Lead- Sr. Linux administrator-Kubernetes-DevOps at ExpressRCM

Helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, but the customer support needs improvement

It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop. We use JEM Cloud, which is a SaaS solution, and sometimes it experiences access issues. With Vanta, we can work on resolving these issues and ensuring policy compliance. Vanta also helps us maintain compliance with standards like SOC 2 and various data policies, which are essential for our documentation and communication requirements, ultimately ensuring enterprise software policy compliance. In my role, which primarily involves IT responsibilities, I often deal with various policies. There are instances where specific policies, especially those related to quality, may not be implemented correctly. This primarily occurs with mainframes and devices owned by particular users. In such cases, Vanta helps us enable these policies on the devices and assign them to the relevant users. It also highlights when certain policies, such as version 86.x, are not assigned through SAP. Vanta provides guidance on configuring and mitigating these issues. Additionally, it helps us with GitHub account provisioning and deprovisioning, as well as managing GitHub and Google Workspace Flex. We also use the 1Password password manager, which Vanta assists in overseeing.

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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 made our environment more secure."

"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop."

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

"The pricing is good."

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

"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."

"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."

"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a nine out of 10."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The most valuable feature of Vanta would be the time savings from the automation and the continuous compliance monitoring once set up."

"The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks."

"Task management and vendor assurance are the most valuable features. It is also an easy tool to use."

"The product has provided automated security controls for our cloud provider. It helps to automate security checks. Vanta offers a list of things that can be done to achieve ISO 27001 compliance."

"It helps us track the compliance of the components listed in our partner's directory. We can also check if the password manager, XML, and three log policies have been properly implemented on the desktop."

"They integrate into New Relic as a performance monitoring tool."

Cons

"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."

"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. Covering more would allow us to see and protect more workloads from a single pane of glass. Additional features should include protection for more AI workloads as it currently focuses primarily on OpenAI."

"While we are satisfied with Defender for Cloud's features, an AI enhancement could potentially provide better advice and adapt more effectively to our environment."

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."

"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."

"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."

"The customer service at Microsoft has room for improvement. The first line of support is not technically adept and often requires engaging higher-level technicians to resolve issues."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"There is a delay with customer support and they are unsure of the answers we need."

"They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, however, the outline is a little sketchy."

"Scalability could be improved."

"Currently, Vanta's user access review module is still in development, and we've been giving them continuous feedback to help them improve that."

"Some of the tool's automated tests do not work the way it should."

"The main area for improvement in Vanta is the user interface's refresh rate."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."

"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Vanta is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

University

Comms Service Provider

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 do you like most about Vanta?

The most valuable feature of Vanta is its prebuilt control frameworks.

What needs improvement with Vanta?

Every product has a lot of areas to improve. They have an AI generator for the system description for SOC 2, for example, however, the outline is a little sketchy. The system description has to hav...

What is your primary use case for Vanta?

We're trying to get SOC 2 compliance, and we're trying to get HIPAA compliance.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Compliance Management

Download Vanta product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

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

Vanta helps companies scale security practices and automate compliance for the industry’s most sought after standards - SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and CCPA.

Sample Customers

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

Care Directives, Shortcut , Nayya, Heizenrader, Treasury Prime

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta