We compared Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Netskope CASB based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft Defender is the preferred option over Netskope due to its integration with other Microsoft tools, user-friendly interface, and affordability for smaller businesses. Netskope has a large client base and impressive features like cloud app authorization and regulatory classification, but lacks integration and has reporting and support limitations. Microsoft Defender offers superior threat protection and coordination for detecting and responding to threats.
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features is auditing. Some of the other protection services have issues with auditing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an excellent auditing technique that helps us avoid the risk of filtering or information loss. You can use different tools to guarantee these things. It allows you to conduct an in-depth exploration of applications, users, and files that are harmful or suspicious. You can also enhance your security setup by creating personalized rules or policies that help you better control traffic in the cloud."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"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."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"They are very good at CASB as compared to other players."
"The interface is good."
"I have found the most useful features to be the Web Secure Gateway, CASB, infrastructural service scanning, and Zero Trust."
"A very straightforward interface."
"The most valuable feature of Netskope is protection."
"The most valuable features were related to discovery, data protection, and ensuring compliance with regulations."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that the support is very good and the dashboards are easy and intuitive to use."
"Netskope has a diverse portfolio range, which includes cloud access security brokers, content filtering, behavior analytics, and security management."
"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."
"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"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"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."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."
"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 believe it's only set to be integrated with Microsoft Defender for identity and identity protection. I would like to see it available for use with something like Office 365 Defender. I don't think it's integrated with that yet."
"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."
"Defender could integrate better with multi-cloud and hybrid environments. It requires some additional configuration to ingest data from non-Azure environments and integrate it with Sentinel."
"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."
"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."
"Compatibility with other proxy polars would be helpful."
"Support services could definitely be improved. Support is the one area that can always use improvement. It's an evolving thing, so based on demand and based on market requirement and the way market is moving towards."
"Netskope needs to improve its stability."
"There should be some granular custom roles that are not available. However, this is on the road map. There are many devices that do not have the Zero Trust feature and other enhancements available which they should have."
"If we need to allow a process that is blocked by Netskope, we have to manually check the logs to see why it is blocked. This can be time-consuming and inefficient"
"The configuration in the cloud model could be improved upon."
"The configuration and user behaviour analytics can be improved."
"The solution is still pretty new to the CASB environment."
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 Netskope is ranked 4th in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 35 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Netskope is rated 8.4. 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 Netskope writes "Network proxy that provides visibility during deployment and allows you to control PII". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Qualys VMDR and Microsoft Defender for Identity, whereas Netskope is most compared with Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Skyhigh Security and Forcepoint ONE. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Netskope report.
See our list of best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) vendors.
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