Avanan vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

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12,659 views|10,155 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Avanan Logo
3,154 views|1,950 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Microsoft Logo
9,654 views|7,399 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Avanan and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, TitanHQ and others in Email Security.
To learn more, read our detailed Email Security Report (Updated: April 2024).
770,141 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
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications.""There are several features that I consider valuable.""The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender.""The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple.""It also gives the vulnerability status according to the versions you have selected. Let's say you have Google Chrome. It mentions the versions it has, and it updates. Within two hours of an update, it is reflected in the dashboard. That's really nice to have.""Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization.""Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."

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"If we look at four to five years ago, we had close to six or eight people click a link in an email per month. Now, we are probably down to about five or six clicks a year, if not less.""Avanan is a stable software. My company hasn't faced any issues, bugs, or problems with the performance of Avanan.""This technology is one of Check Point's acquisitions, and it is currently a powerful tool that provides all the protection that is not found in other tools.""The most valuable feature of Avanan is its Anti-Malware solution for Office 365, and box.com.""When we don't understand some functionalities, the customer support staff responds fast to our calls and provides immediate action.""The customizable rules allow you to change aspects.""Easy to use for non-technical users.""The threat detection tools enable us to ascertain malware and phishing messages across the email network infrastructure."

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"The most valuable feature is the alerting system.""In Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, there is an option to enable files. Once you enable that, it will give you all the files in your organization and where they are located in the cloud... That feature is very useful for investigation purposes.""We have become more aware of what services our users are using, how often they are using them, and what data is being sent out of the organization and to which services. So, it is really a lot about visibility and helping us make decisions based on that. It drives some of our policy decisions for adding extra security controls.""The ability to prevent users from using certain applications is one of the most valuable features. It doesn't require any configuration for implementation from the client perspective. It just works right away and gives you the information you need.""The product helps us with privileged identity management to control who has access to what and for how long.""The general usability of the solution is very straightforward.""Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup.""All of the features are valuable because all of the features are related."

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Cons
"Microsoft should provide more documentation for users so they can self-educate. I would like to see more documentation for advanced security features.""We noticed that from time to time, Microsoft's stability does have problems. Sometimes the service goes up and down. Sometimes they change without prior notice.""One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration.""There needs to be an improvement in integrating the product to work across multiple operating systems, and to have better support for non-Microsoft file types.""Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization.""The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year.""Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once.""Microsoft security solutions work as expected. They are constantly updating the solutions to make them better. At the same time, the changes can impact a customer's environment, and we need to adjust settings. Sometimes we aren't aware of the changes, and nothing is pushed from the backend automatically."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"It is complicated for new users unfamiliar with the modern cloud networking infrastructure.""Being cloud first and because we are in the movie business, we use a lot of Macintoshes. So, there is absolutely no reason for us to have Active Directory whatsoever. However, if you are using Office 365, you must have Active Directory in order to reset passwords. Even though we have a single sign-on provider, we must have Azure Active Directory for Office 365, which is really stupid. As a cloud application, you would think that I don't need Active Directory, which I don't need for anything else except Office 365. We have one server inside that space to help us manage Active Directory just for Office 365. This is a very sore point, but it is what it is.""Sometimes it seemed like the allow list wasn't working. I've created many allow list rules however, they still seem to be blocked; the same is true with the blocked list rules.""It is very difficult to find the required documentation.""The user experience must be improved.""It should also offer a quick backup in case any email is wrongly quarantined or deleted to ensure no data loss.""They should come up with a mobile application so that it can be more flexible.""Integration with various SaaS offerings, who are leading in the SaaS market."

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"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product.""This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage.""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 more customization of notifications. Currently, you either get everything or you get limited information. I would like to have something in between where we can customize the data that is included in notifications.""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.""In the future, I would like to see more plug-and-play capabilities that use AI to tell you what needs to be done. It would be helpful if it scanned our devices and made security suggestions, on a configuration basis.""The interface needs to be more user-friendly.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
  • "For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Good pricing arrangement as an SaaS offering."
  • "Having the flexibility and modeling to do the pricing that best fits the needs of the organization is incredibly ideal. That is what Avanan does. They know exactly how many users are using it, etc. We can tune the invoicing associated with how we are using the product so we can charge it back to the shows appropriately."
  • "We have a monthly license that is $4 to $8 per user."
  • "The pricing of Avanan is reasonable."
  • "The product is not the cheapest in the market."
  • "Avanan’s price is comparable to Barracuda."
  • More Avanan Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
  • "This product is not expensive."
  • "Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."
  • "The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
  • "I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
  • "Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
  • "The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
  • "It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Top Answer:Spam protection is the most valuable feature.
    Top Answer:Avanan doesn't cover certain tool segments. Barracuda provides backup and retention of emails and Microsoft 365’s backup… more »
    Top Answer:Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native… more »
    Top Answer:It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications… more »
    Top Answer:Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    Avanan is a comprehensive cloud security platform that protects organizations from advanced email and collaboration threats. With its multi-layered approach, Avanan provides real-time protection against phishing, malware, data leakage, and account takeover attacks. 

    By integrating with popular cloud applications such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Slack, Avanan ensures seamless security without disrupting user experience. Its advanced AI and machine learning algorithms analyze billions of data points to detect and block threats, while its granular policy controls allow organizations to customize their security settings. 

    Avanan also offers robust threat intelligence and incident response capabilities, enabling organizations to proactively identify and mitigate security risks. 

    With Avanan, organizations can confidently embrace the cloud while keeping their sensitive data and communications secure.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:
    • Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
    • Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
    • Easy to use and deploy
    • Provides real-time threat detection and response
    • Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
    • Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:
    • Governance, authentication, security, and compliance. 
    • Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
    • Controls access to applications
    • Provides auditing and filtering setups
    • Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
    • Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
    • Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
    • Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
    • Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

    Reviews from Real Users

    Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

    PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

    Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    Bethel School District, ServiceSource, Capital Caring
    Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Security Firm19%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm19%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization47%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Construction Company4%
    REVIEWERS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government9%
    Engineering Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise57%
    Large Enterprise24%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Email Security
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, TitanHQ and others in Email Security. Updated: April 2024.
    770,141 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Avanan is ranked 6th in Email Security with 21 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 2nd in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 30 reviews. Avanan is rated 9.2, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Avanan writes "We've noticed a significant decline from people accidentally or intentionally clicking on things". On the other hand, 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". Avanan is most compared with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, IRONSCALES, Perception Point Advanced Email Security, Abnormal Security and Mimecast Email Security, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Qualys VMDR.

    We monitor all Email Security 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.