Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs XM Cyber comparison

Microsoft and XM Cyber are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1, while XM Cyber is ranked #34 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 5.5% mindshare in VM, compared to XM Cyber’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of XM Cyber users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

XM Cyber and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are competing products in the cybersecurity space, offering distinct capabilities in threat detection and vulnerability management. While XM Cyber boasts certain advantages, Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an edge due to its comprehensive feature set and perceived value.

Features: XM Cyber provides advanced breach and attack simulation, proactive identification of vulnerabilities, and efficient prioritization of remediation efforts. Microsoft Defender for Cloud features extensive integration with Microsoft services, seamless threat protection, and broad management capabilities across Azure and hybrid environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: XM Cyber offers a flexible deployment model tailored to organizational needs with direct support for smooth implementation. Microsoft Defender for Cloud leverages existing Microsoft infrastructure, making it ideal for organizations using Microsoft services, supported by a robust deployment support system.

Pricing and ROI: XM Cyber offers competitive pricing with a favorable ROI from its proactive vulnerability management, leading to a lower cost of ownership. Microsoft Defender for Cloud may have higher initial costs, but the long-term ROI is justified by its extensive features and integration benefits, providing value for businesses utilizing Microsoft platforms.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. XM Cyber Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. XM Cyber

July 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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.5%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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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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Chee Young Tan

Director at ST Electronics

Has a valuable feature for attack simulation; it highlights the vulnerability and offers recommendations for improvement

XM Cyber helps identify risk by creating a shadow environment mirroring the production system. While it doesn't directly mitigate risks, it simulates attacks across this replica, uncovering vulnerabilities and weak points within the system. Once a WISC is established, it highlights the vulnerability and offers recommendations for improvement. It provides reporting templates, making the process faster. I rate it an eight out of ten.

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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

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"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."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."

"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."

"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."

"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."

"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."

"This is a platform as a service provided by Azure. We don't need to install or maintain Azure Security Center. It is a ready-made service available in Azure. This is one of the main things that we like. If you look at similar tools, we have to install, maintain, and update services. Whereas, Azure Security Center manages what we are using. This is a good feature that has helped us a lot."

"DSPM is the most valuable feature."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."

"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."

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."

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

"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."

"If a customer is already using Okta as an SSO in its entire environment, they will want to continue with it. But Security Center doesn't understand that and keeps making recommendations. It would help if it let us resolve a recommendation, even if it is not implemented."

"Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something."

"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."

"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."

"The cost is always a concern, but overall, it's not too bad because it is easy to use and pretty friendly."

"I rate Microsoft support five out of 10. It gets better once you're escalated past the first and second levels. It's difficult to get the necessary support when tickets are first opened."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."

"We'd like to see a cheaper price."

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."

"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."

"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."

"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."

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

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

"We have to pay standard licensing fees."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The pricing is pretty standard.

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What do you like most about XM Cyber?

The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?

We have to pay standard licensing fees. There are no additional costs. It is an expensive product. I rate the pricing...

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What needs improvement with XM Cyber?

XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas.

See all answers

Comparisons

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ServiceNow Security Operations vs Zafran Security

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

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AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 25% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

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Pentera vs XM Cyber

Compared 20% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

Wiz vs XM Cyber

Compared 14% of the time

SafeBreach vs XM Cyber

Compared 7% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs XM Cyber

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

July 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

August 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

August 2025

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Also Known As

No data available

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

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Zafran Security

Microsoft

Demo not available

XM Cyber

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

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

XM Cyber is a leading hybrid cloud security company that’s changing the way innovative organizations approach cyber risk. Our attack path management platform continuously uncovers hidden attack paths to your critical assets across cloud and on-prem environments, so you can cut them off at key junctures and eradicate risk with a fraction of the effort. This overcomes the big disconnect that security teams experience when they’re presented with endless alerts, yet can’t see which exposures impact risk the most, how they come together to be exploited by an attacker, or how to efficiently eliminate them. This approach is a complete game-changer, which is why some of the world’s largest, most complex organizations choose XM Cyber to help eradicate risk. Founded by top executives from the Israeli cyber intelligence community, XM Cyber has offices in North America, Europe, and Israel.

XM Cyber

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. XM Cyber

July 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. XM Cyber

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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