Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Tenable Security Center comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Microsoft Logo
3,638 views|2,780 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Tenable Logo
13,790 views|10,331 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jun 20, 2023

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud focuses on regulatory compliance, ransomware protection, and access controls, while also providing real-time assessment, incident alerts, and UEBA features. On the other hand, Tenable.sc's strengths lie in accuracy in vulnerability detection, prioritization, automation, and risk-based approach. In terms of room for improvement, some users have cited issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud's reporting capabilities and ease of use. On the other hand, Tenable.sc users have mentioned a need for more user-friendly interfaces and better integration with other security tools.

  • Service and Support: Some Microsoft Defender users faced challenges with slow response times and difficulty reaching the appropriate support level. Tenable.sc's support is generally positive, with some users finding it prompt and helpful, but others reporting delays and a lack of helpful information.

  • Ease of Deployment: The setup process for both Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc is reportedly easy, with Microsoft's requiring less maintenance. However, the on-prem version of Tenable.sc can take longer to deploy and needs integration with other solutions.

  • Pricing: The cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud depends on the license and metrics, but is often seen as reasonable. Tenable.sc's pricing is based on the number of addresses to be scanned and can include extra costs for advanced support, leading to mixed opinions on its affordability.

  • ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc are two different tools that offer unique benefits. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved security measures and saved time, while Tenable.sc is useful for reducing the workload and has impressive reporting features.

Comparison Results: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the preferred option over Tenable.sc due to its comprehensive cloud environment features, including regulatory compliance, ransomware protection, and access controls. Tenable.sc has accurate vulnerability detection and a user-friendly interface, but it lacks some critical cloud environment features and has mixed reviews on customer support and pricing.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The integration with Logic Apps allows for automated responses to incidents.""Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled.""One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds.""The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded.""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.""DSPM is the most valuable feature.""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.""With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pros →

"Feature-wise, Tenable Security Center is a very fast tool with many dashboards and reports, and it covers all our systems.""The feature we've liked most recently was being able to take the YARA rules from FireEye and put them into Tenable's scan for the most recent SolarWinds exploit. That was really useful.""The most valuable features of Tenable SC are scanning, reporting, dashboards, and automation.""I found the dashboard features very useful. It made it easy to track remediation progress. I could publish dashboards to remediation teams and track the progress on the dashboards.""Support is knowledgeable.""We use Tenable to scan all of our environments and plugins for vulnerabilities. Tenable helps us discover network vulnerabilities to threats and piracy.""Initial setup was pretty straightforward.""The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs."

More Tenable Security Center Pros →

Cons
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions.""The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge.""Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though.""The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome.""It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person.""Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender.""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.""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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Cons →

"Tenable SC could improve by making the creation of the initial reports easier that correspond to our network.""Security can always be improved.""The GUI could be improved to have all concerns and priorities use the same GUI, allowing them to see all tickets, assign vulnerabilities, and assign variation failures to each member of their team.""In terms of configuration, there is some level of flexibility that we are not able to achieve.""The web application scanning area can be improved.""The biggest issue I have with the solution is when I'm using the scanning it picks up the original DNS of that device. That means, before we image it and actually change the DNS to something within our company structure, it'll just be random numbers and letters and Tenable will stick to that DNS for a long time.""Tenable.sc's user interface could be improved.""Tenable has some problems with agents going offline during scanning and lag between agents and the security center."

More Tenable Security Center Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
  • "We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
  • "Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
  • "This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
  • "Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
  • "There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
  • "Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
  • "I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is slightly more expensive than other solutions in the same sphere."
  • "We're able to save because we don't have to employ more staff members to help wit ht he scheduling of the scans, running the reports or sending them out to the systems owners. That alone is a big ROI for us."
  • "The licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100,000 US, and I think that covers everything."
  • "The pricing is more than Nexpose."
  • "Costing is pretty reasonable compared to the competition."
  • "We're a Fortune 500 company... our licensing costs [are] in the seven figures."
  • "We pay around 60,000 on a yearly basis."
  • "The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
  • More Tenable Security Center Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Vulnerability Management solutions are best for your needs.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
    Top Answer:Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Microsoft needs to bring the cost down. What we're doing to their detriment is simply lowering the amount of log retention we're… more »
    Top Answer:The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs.
    Top Answer:I rate the solution's price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The tool is quite expensive.
    Top Answer:The tool's initial configuration is not so easy. The hardware requirements related to the tool need to be better because we need a lot of memory to achieve speed in the solution. If our company needs… more »
    Ranking
    7th
    Views
    3,638
    Comparisons
    2,780
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    1,073
    Rating
    8.0
    1st
    Views
    13,790
    Comparisons
    10,331
    Reviews
    24
    Average Words per Review
    443
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
    Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    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.

    Get a risk-based view of your IT, security and compliance posture so you can quickly identify, investigate and prioritize your most critical assets and vulnerabilities.

    Managed on-premises and powered by Nessus technology, the Tenable Security Center (formerly Tenable.sc) suite of products provides the industry’s most comprehensive vulnerability coverage with real-time continuous assessment of your network. It’s your complete end-to-end vulnerability management solution.

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
    IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Consumer Goods Company10%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm10%
    Agriculture10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm31%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Computer Software Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization17%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government12%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 7th in Vulnerability Management with 46 reviews while Tenable Security Center is ranked 1st in Vulnerability Management with 48 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Tenable Security Center is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tenable Security Center writes "A security solution for vulnerability assessment with automated scans". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, whereas Tenable Security Center is most compared with Tenable Vulnerability Management, Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Nessus and Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM). See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center report.

    See our list of best Vulnerability Management vendors and best Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) vendors.

    We monitor all Vulnerability Management 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.