We compared Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDA) and Qualys VM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Qualys VMDR is commended for its prioritization mechanism, comprehensive monitoring, and vulnerability management, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is valued for its threat detection capabilities and integration with other Microsoft solutions. Both products require improvements in various areas like user experience, integration, reporting, pricing, visibility, and policy management. The pricing for both products is considered fair but expensive. Customer support for both products has received mixed reviews, with room for improvement in response time and consistency.
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The solution is stable."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is to stop shadow IT."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."
"There are a lot of features with benefits, including discovery, investigation, and putting controls around things. You can't say that you like the investigation part but not the discovery. Everything is correlated; that's how the tool works."
"The most valuable feature is the seamless integration across different clouds."
"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Container Security is the detailed information in the reports and the remediation. This is done to make sure there are no vulnerabilities."
"Detects new hosts along with vulnerabilities."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like Qualys because it is a very complete product, more so than Tenable."
"The features that are most valuable are the identification, scan features, and the identification of vulnerabilities."
"The solution shows us classic categories, including high, medium, and low risks. It also shows critical items, and that gives us the advantage of prioritizing things."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to run different capabilities with the same agent. With only one agent, we can have EDR, vulnerability management, compliance and some basic SaaS security capabilities."
"Qualys VM's most valuable feature is automatic detection."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."
"It doesn't actually decrease the time to respond. This has been an issue with Microsoft recently. Sometimes, there is a delay when it comes to getting an alert policy email... Sometimes it takes two or three hours for that email to be sent."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps' initial setup was quite technical but we were prepared. The time of the implementation depends on the job and how many users are being set up."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."
"It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information. After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay. This is something for which we are working with Microsoft."
"I would like for it to be available on Mac and for it to support all of the features of Microsoft financing products. It is really for Windows."
"There are some features, such as user navigation content filtering, that are disabled by default, and it probably makes sense to enable them by default."
"It's not very user-friendly at times and requires in-depth understanding. So, a layman or someone new to Qualys won't be able to easily understand it. You need education to use the solution."
"Certain integration factors between different options could be improved."
"It's too early for me to say if there is any room for improvement since we're in the first couple of months of using this solution."
"Some of the older features could be polished instead of focusing on releasing new features."
"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."
"Its integration with ServiceNow and other similar products is complicated and can be improved. It should also have virtual batching. They should support more standards and compliance requirements and more customizations. For policy compliance, they can add the standards required by the countries in the Middle East. Each country generates its own standards and frameworks, and those frameworks should be there in all products, not only in Qualys. The market here is huge, especially in the cybersecurity field. Qatar has a framework for Qatar 2022, and each and every company in the public or private sector has to follow the Qatar 2022 framework."
"Sometimes the scanning can get overwhelmed and start to drag when a lot of users are trying to scan at once."
"Qualys VM could improve by having more skilled support personnel."
More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 2nd in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 30 reviews while Qualys VMDR is ranked 3rd in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management with 77 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Qualys VMDR is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Qualys VMDR writes "Good visibility but expensive and needs better support". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and FortiSASE , whereas Qualys VMDR is most compared with Tenable Nessus, Tenable Security Center, Rapid7 InsightVM, Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.
We monitor all Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.