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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs XM Cyber comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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 Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
XM Cyber
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
 

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 Vulnerability Management is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.8%
Zafran Security1.1%
XM Cyber1.2%
Other94.9%
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.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

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 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."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is a good product, and I believe it deserves a positive recommendation."
"One valuable feature is the Microsoft Security Scorecard."
"The product’s most valuable features are compliance, recommendations, and inventories."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."
"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."
"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."
"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."
"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."
 

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."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
"It is expensive."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"The constant changes in the product configuration or the console setup can sometimes be challenging."
"Integration can be improved."
"They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."
"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."
"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."
"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"We have to pay standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typicall...
What do you like most about XM Cyber?
The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.
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...
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.