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.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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.
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