We performed a comparison between Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Microsoft Defender for Cloud comes out ahead of Microsoft Sentinel. Both products have good parameters in terms of technical support and initial setup, but our reviewers found that Microsoft Sentinel has a high price.
"Good compliance policies."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"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."
"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."
"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."
"The standout feature of Sentinel is that, because it's cloud-based and because it's from Microsoft, it integrates really well with all the other Microsoft products. It's really simple to set up and get going."
"The most valuable feature is the onboarding of the workloads. You can see all that has been onboarded in your account on the dashboards."
"We’ve got process improvement that's happened across multiple different fronts within the organization, within our IT organization based on this tool being in place."
"Free ingestion for Azure logs (with E5 licence)"
"The SOAR playbooks are Sentinel's most valuable feature. It gives you a unified toolset for detecting, investigating, and responding to incidents. That's what clearly differentiates Sentinels from its competitors. It's cloud-native, offering end-to-end coverage with more than 120 connectors. All types of data logs can be poured into the system so analysis can happen. That end-to-end visibility gives it the advantage."
"The UI of Sentinel is very good and easy to use, even for beginners."
"Microsoft Sentinel enables you to ingest data from the entire ecosystem and that connection of data helps you to monitor critical resources and to know what's happening in the environment."
"The AI capability is one of the main features of the solution because I believe that in the market, there are few solutions that are providing security solutions based on AI and machine learning."
"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 remediation process could be improved."
"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"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."
"After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated."
"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."
"No possibility to write or edit any capability."
"One key area that can be improved is by building a strong integration with our XDR platform."
"The KQL query does not function effectively with Windows 11 machines, and in the majority of machine-based investigations, KQL queries are essential for organizing the data during investigations."
"The solution should allow for a streamlined CI/CD procedure."
"Sentinel provides decent visibility, but it's sometimes a little cumbersome to get to the information I want because there is so much information. I would also like to see more seamless integration between Sentinel and third-party security products."
"The on-prem log sources still require a lot of development."
"I would like to see more AI used in processes."
"There is a wider thing called Jupyter Notebooks, which is around the automation side of things. It would be good if there are playbooks that you can utilize without having to have the developer experience to do it in-house. Microsoft could provide more playbooks or more Jupyter Notebooks around MITRE ATT&CK Framework."
"Sentinel's reporting is complex and can be more user-friendly."
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews while Microsoft Sentinel is ranked 6th in Microsoft Security Suite with 85 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Sentinel 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 Microsoft Sentinel writes "Gives a comprehensive and holistic view of the ecosystem and improves visibility and the ability to respond". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and Azure Firewall, whereas Microsoft Sentinel is most compared with AWS Security Hub, IBM Security QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, Elastic Security and Wazuh. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Sentinel report.
See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.
We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite 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.
