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: July 2025).

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Vanta

July 2025

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Helped 865,384 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 (8th), 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)

Vanta

Ranking in Compliance Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Compliance Consulting (1st), Data Governance (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Compliance Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 17.6%, up from 14.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Vanta is 11.3%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."

"The most valuable feature is the comprehensive overview across different workloads. It allows us to see protection not just across one workload, such as virtual machines, containers, infrastructure, or data, but across all our workloads. This overall visibility is really helpful."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring of users, endpoint detection and response, and the adaptability of the AI threat intelligence engine, which quickly adapts to customizations."

"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."

"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 first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites."

"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

Cons

"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."

"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."

"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."

"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."

"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."

"Although Microsoft Defender for Cloud is based on security, I wish it went beyond providing assessments, reports, and generic steps. More detailed procedures would be helpful, especially for lower-level support staff."

"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

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

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

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

"Scalability could be improved."

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."

"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."

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

"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."

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

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"Vanta is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

University

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

August 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Download Vanta product report

Compliance Management

July 2025

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