Cisco SecureX vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 7, 2023

We performed a comparison between Cisco SecureX 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.

  • Features: Cisco SecureX earns high marks for its automated utilities, comprehensive visibility, and seamless integration with external resources. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highly regarded for its automated processes, advanced threat analysis, and extensive security measures, including protection against ransomware and access controls. Users say Cisco SecureX needs better documentation and integration with on-premises systems. It would also benefit by expanding its compatibility with third-party solutions.  Microsoft Defender for Cloud could use enhancements in automation and ease of use.

  • Service and Support: Some users describe Cisco support as dependable and efficient, while others noted a decline in quality due to personnel changes. Some Defender for Cloud users reported positive experiences with Microsoft, while others complained that the solution's outsourced support lacked technical knowledge.

  • Ease of Deployment: Setting up Cisco SecureX is generally considered to be straightforward in cloud environments, but it requires more effort to integrate the solution with on-premise products. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is described as straightforward, but the deployment time may vary depending on specific requirements.

  • Pricing: A few users said Cisco SecureX’s price could be lower, given that it is included for free with certain Cisco products. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is in the mid-to-high pricing tier. While some users find it expensive, others believe it offers good value.

  • ROI: Cisco SecureX provides a positive ROI by speeding up detection and resolution. It also decreases workloads through automation and proactive information gathering. Microsoft Defender for Cloud streamlines security tasks and saves users money by consolidating various solutions.

Comparison Results: Our users prefer Cisco SecureX over Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Cisco SecureX's centralized platform enables efficient management, and SecureX can aggregate data from multiple sources on one dashboard. Users appreciate the convenience and visibility it offers. Additionally, Cisco SecureX stands out with its valuable automation and orchestration tools, as well as its ability to integrate with third-party systems. Microsoft Defender for Cloud falls short in terms of integration with non-Microsoft solutions and needs improvements in pricing, support, and customization options. 

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco SecureX vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 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
"Using SecureX, a tool provided by Cisco, we can easily integrate it with many of our other Cisco products such as Cisco ISE and many networking devices.""The automation and orchestration tools are the most valuable features.""One of the most valuable features is the simplicity of deploying SecureX. It's very easy to do that and then you gain very detailed visibility into everything that's going on in your network and, obviously, at the device level. There's just a wealth of information that you can pull from all of these products that are part of SecureX. You know exactly if you have an issue or not.""The forensics are amazing because when you have enrichment, and the solutions talk with each other, when you need it, you have the ability to know everything in the organization: when, why, whatever.""The ability to create firewalls online has been most valuable including the ability to create rules.""I like that I don't have to jump around to five different products and log into five different places to view the data that it returns.""The most valuable feature is its ability to manage all the applications and visibility. For example, if there is malware, spam, or another component that wants to attack the company in my servers, network, or applications, then SecureX will react to the problem.""SecureX takes all the separate pieces of security within your company, adds in intelligence from different sites and services on the internet, and makes them work together."

More Cisco SecureX Pros →

"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team.""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.""The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.""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.""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.""It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening.""The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance.""It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pros →

Cons
"One of the improvements the product needs is more integration with collaboration platforms.""I would like it to integrate with another solution, e.g., DNA. I would like it to connect to that solution, but not the security aspect.""They could put in more third-party [integrations]... also more playbooks, out-of-the-box, for automation [would be helpful].""The front-end work controls the new algorithm and the firewall rules. The search feature of these rules could be improved.""The automation and orchestration could be simpler. It could be that all the other parts are that easy to use so that these stick out as a negative, but that's the trickiest part for us. The workflows within the orchestration are just a bit more difficult.""If they could make the Cisco Umbrella piece a little bit more advanced or easier to manage, that would help. We use it for filtering and when you compare it to a normal content filter, it lacks some functionality.""I'm not sure that I would call it a bug, but sometimes the solution is a little slow.""Remediation stuff could be integrated into the product's automation."

More Cisco SecureX Cons →

"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do.""Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research.""The product must improve its UI.""For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful.""From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR.""Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government.""Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time.""From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For the value you get, the pricing of the solution is excellent."
  • "You can spend less money for another solution, but if you really want to have a good solution you have to pay. We are happy that we are getting such a good solution for what we are spending."
  • "The pricing is competitive, especially for education institutions. Licensing can be a little bit difficult to navigate, especially with resellers with Cisco, but for us it has been pretty easy."
  • "The product is absolutely free to any customer. As such, the only thing one must keep in mind is that as long as he already has one Cisco security product, irregardless of what that product is, SecureX is available for free."
  • "It comes free with all Cisco products. So, it is a good price."
  • "It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
  • "The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
  • "It is free. It can't get any better than that."
  • More Cisco SecureX 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 →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Our customers find the product's third-party integrations valuable. Our customers are also impressed with the tool's capability to pick up third-party threat feeds and use that as part of the… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution.
    Top Answer:One of the improvements the product needs is more integration with collaboration platforms. The ability to drive actions and see insights through those collaboration and messaging platforms will be… more »
    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 »
    Ranking
    12th
    Views
    606
    Comparisons
    245
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    663
    Rating
    9.0
    6th
    Views
    3,363
    Comparisons
    2,590
    Reviews
    21
    Average Words per Review
    1,043
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Kenna.AppSec, Kenna.VI
    Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    Cisco
    Demo Not Available
    Overview

    Cisco SecureX is an integrated security platform that connects the breadth of Cisco's integrated security portfolio and the customer's infrastructure to create a consistent experience. The solution unifies visibility, enables automation, and strengthens your security across network, endpoints, cloud, and applications. Cisco SecureX is embedded within every Cisco Security product and supports integrations with SIEM and SOAR, so customers will not need to replace any solution or worry about layering on new technology.

    Cisco SecureX Features

    Cisco SecureX has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Unified overview: Cisco SecureX offers key metrics on transactions and threats for network, endpoints, cloud and applications. In addition, the SecureX interface is integrated into all Cisco Security technologies.
    • Automation and an increase in operational efficiency: With Cisco SecureX, you gain better automation of workflows for products of the Cisco Security portfolio and third parties, allowing you to focus on other more important tasks. By eliminating manual work (through automatic identification of threats using analytical data of Cisco Talos and other sources), the solution helps your organization save a significant amount of time.
    • Security strengthening: Cisco SecureX makes it easy to compare analytical data from a set of various sources with the telemetry received from network, endpoints, e-mail, cloud, and third-party products.

    Cisco SecureX Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Cisco SecureX include:

    • Secure every business endeavor with an open, integrated platform that has out-of-the-box interoperability and scales to meet security needs.
    • Advance your security maturity level using existing resources.
    • Turn security from a blocker into an enabler. Cisco SecureX allows you to add new security capabilities for the threat landscape.
    • Maximize your operational efficiency, helping you get the most from your security investments.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Cisco SecureX users.

    PeerSpot user Wouter H., Technical Team Lead Network & Security at Missing Piece BV, shares several reasons why he thinks the solution is fantastic. In his opinion, “SecureX takes all the separate pieces of security within your company, adds in intelligence from different sites and services on the internet, and makes them work together. If an email is received on a machine and malware is being executed, it can be put into lockdown mode. The fact that you can have a single solution that combines endpoint intelligence with email intelligence, firewalls, and publicly available intelligence is really helpful. Also, SecureX provides us with contextual awareness throughout our security ecosystem. Before SecureX, things that were not possible, or that would take days, now literally take seconds to find out.

    Michal S., Infrastructure Engineer at a media company, says, “SecureX provides many measurements and has a really good dashboard. Working with it you are able to see things very clearly and you have every detail on a single display. That saves us money and time.” He also adds, “It brings all our data into a central point. It also shows us many data connections between many of our environments. SecureX gives you really good information about potential risks. You are able to find the source of a risk, a potential risk from a user or a machine.”

    Blair A., Technology Director at Shawnee Heights USD #450, explains, "One of the most valuable features is the simplicity of deploying SecureX. It's very easy to do that and then you gain very detailed visibility into everything that's going on in your network and, obviously, at the device level. There's just a wealth of information that you can pull from all of these products that are part of SecureX. You know exactly if you have an issue or not."

    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.

    Sample Customers
    NHS, Rackspace, UNC Pembroke, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Missing Piece
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Comms Service Provider20%
    Educational Organization10%
    Consumer Goods Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company33%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Agriculture10%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm10%
    Consumer Goods Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise50%
    Large Enterprise21%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise67%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco SecureX vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco SecureX vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco SecureX is ranked 12th in Vulnerability Management with 12 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 6th in Vulnerability Management with 46 reviews. Cisco SecureX is rated 9.2, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco SecureX writes "Gives our customers visibility and they don't have to go multiple management consoles anymore". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". Cisco SecureX is most compared with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Trend Vision One, Splunk SOAR and Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Microsoft Defender XDR, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Sentinel and Wiz. See our Cisco SecureX vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.

    See our list of best Vulnerability Management 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.