We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Microsoft Entra ID based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."
"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."
"Threat detection is its key feature, and that's why we use this tool. It gives an alert if a PC is attacked or there is any kind of anomaly, such as there is a spike in sending emails or we see an unauthorized website being accessed. So, it keeps us on our toes. We get to know that there is something wrong, and we can isolate the user and find any issues with it. So, threat detection is very robust in this tool."
"All of the features are valuable because all of the features are related."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"The most valuable feature is the seamless integration across different clouds."
"The benefits of using this solution were realized straightaway."
"A couple of features are valuable, but the one that comes across the most to me is multi-factor authentication."
"The way the laptops are joined is valuable. We can take advantage of that in terms of being able to log in and do things. It is easier to change passwords or set things up."
"The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service."
"User and device management is the most valuable feature."
"It's not intuitive and we use it mainly for our Office 365 files. The integration between the two is interesting. However, the learning curve is high."
"We have not had any formal issues with scalability."
"It offers good Microsoft integration capabilities."
"This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand."
"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."
"They need to improve the attack surface reduction (ASR) rules. In the latest version, you can implement ASR rules, which are quite useful, but you have to enable those because if they're not enabled, they flag false positives. In the Defender portal, it logs a block for WMI processes and PowerShell. Apparently, it's because ASR rules are not configured. So, you generally have to enable them to exclude, for example, WMI queries or PowerShell because they have a habit of blocking your security scanners. It's a bit weird that they have to be enabled to be configured, and it's not the other way around."
"Defender for Cloud Apps could come with more configured policies out of the box. Also, integration could be easier. Integration is moderately difficult because Microsoft hasn't developed a solution that unifies device onboarding and management. You have to use Intune to manage devices and Defender for Endpoint to enforce policies. They need to fix their integration, but I believe they will straighten it out by the end of the year."
"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."
"They can combine conditional access for user actions and application filtering. Currently, they are separated, and we cannot mix the two. I do not know how it would be possible, but it would be interesting."
"I would like to be able to authenticate Wi-Fi users using the Azure ID"
"There are some features, where if you want to access them, then you need to make use of PowerShell. If someone is not really versed in PowerShell scripting, then they would definitely have issues using some of those features in Azure Active Directory."
"The ability to manage and authenticate against on-premises solutions would be beneficial."
"In terms of stability, sometimes the more applications you integrate, the more it becomes a little bit unstable."
"The SSO MyApps interface is very basic and needs better customization capabilities."
"The product takes at least ten minutes to activate privilege identity management roles."
"I would like to see improvements made when it comes to viewing audit logs, sign-in logs, and resource tags."
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 10th in Microsoft Security Suite with 30 reviews while Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 4th in Microsoft Security Suite with 190 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6. 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 Microsoft Entra ID writes "Allows users to authenticate from home and has excellent integrations in a simple, stable solution". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Qualys VMDR, whereas Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Yubico YubiKey and Cisco Duo. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Entra ID report.
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