Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Microsoft and Broadcom are both solutions in the Container Management category. Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while Broadcom is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft holds a 1.4% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 87 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

19,729 Views
395 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 23 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

6,615 Views
4,101 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

VMware Tanzu Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and VMware Tanzu Platform are both competitors in the cloud security and management sector. Each has distinct advantages, with Microsoft Defender for Cloud standing out for cost-effectiveness and VMware Tanzu Platform gaining praise for deep integration capabilities.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud excels in seamless Azure integration, offers proactive alerts, and comprehensive compliance tools, making security management efficient. VMware Tanzu Platform is recognized for strong integration with VMware products, robust CI/CD pipeline support, and flexible Kubernetes management, catering well to modern app designs.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud users point to configuration complexity, integration limits with non-Microsoft products, and pricing model confusion as areas needing enhancement. VMware Tanzu Platform could benefit from a more intuitive dashboard, improved multi-cloud integration, and streamlined network controls in hybrid settings.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is praised for straightforward deployment within hybrid environments, but customer support experiences vary. VMware Tanzu Platform is advantageous in on-premises deployment with robust customer service, although initial deployment complexity can delay rollouts.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers competitive pricing, especially within the Azure ecosystem, with flexible licensing options enhancing value optimization. VMware Tanzu Platform appeals primarily to larger enterprises due to higher costs but provides expected value through integration and features, despite limited pricing flexibility.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

December 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

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Container Management

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (6th), 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)

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Container Management

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (14th), PaaS Clouds (11th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 9.2%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware Tanzu Platform	9.2%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	1.4%
Other	89.4%

Container Management

Featured Reviews

David Birhange

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.

Read full review

ErmiasGirma

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc

Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools

Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is no better tool found to protect workloads in Azure than Microsoft Defender for Cloud."

"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."

"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."

"It's got a lot of great features."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."

"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."

"The most valuable feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is the management functionality of the cluster life cycle. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other vendors, such as Velero for backups and Sonobuoy for compliance. Additionally, it works well in multi-cluster environments."

"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."

"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."

"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."

"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."

"There are a lot of services available in VMware Tanzu Application Service, such as databases and application servers. You have everything you need in one application and you do not need to search outside of the solution."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."

"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."

"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."

"The documentation could be much clearer."

"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."

"From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it."

"The remediation process could be improved."

"Azure's system could be more on point like AWS support. For example, if I have an issue with AWS, I create a support ticket, then I get a call or a message. With Azure support, you raise a ticket, and somebody calls back depending on their availability and the priority, which might not align with your business priority."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."

"The price is very high compared to other Kubernetes environments because Kubernetes is open source."

"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."

"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."

"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"

"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."

"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."

"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."

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

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."

"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."

"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."

"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."

"The licensing cost is expensive."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	49

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	10

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...

See all answers

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 did have a consultation with a third party to go over different tiers and produ...

See all answers

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 Zero Trust, similar to ThreatLocker software.

See all answers

Which is better - OpenShift Container Platform or VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

Red Hat Openshift is ideal for organizations using microservices and cloud environments. I like that the platform is auto-scalable, which saves overhead time for developers. I think Openshift can b...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native ap...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 36% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Docker vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

January 2026

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

January 2026

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

Also Known As

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

Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

Broadcom

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

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

December 2025

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