Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Zscaler Cloud Protection aren't direct alternatives, but rather complementary solutions that work together to enhance cloud security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud, is a cloud protection platform, that focuses on securing cloud applications and workloads. Zscaler Cloud Protection encompasses several Zscaler security solutions, including Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler data protection solutions that inspects and filters all cloud traffic.
The summary above is based on 46 interviews we conducted recently with Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Zscaler Cloud Protection users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The automation roles are essential because we ultimately want to do less work and automate more. The dashboards are easy to read and visually pleasing. You can understand things quickly, which makes it easy for our other teams. The network and infrastructure teams don't know as much about security as we do, so it helps to have a tool that's accessible and nice to look at."
"Our most important features are those around entitlement, external exposure, vulnerabilities, and container security."
"I like Wiz's reporting, and it's easy to do queries. For example, it's pretty simple to find out how many servers we have and the applications installed on each. I like Wiz's security graph because you can use it to see the whole organization even if you have multiple accounts."
"The CSPM module has been the most effective. It was easy to deploy and covered all our accounts through APIs, requiring no agents. Wiz provides instant visibility into high-level risks that we need to address."
"The vulnerability management modules and the discovery and inventory are the most valuable features. Before using Wiz, it was a very manual process for both. After implementing it, we're able to get all of the analytics into a single platform that gives us visibility across all the systems in our cloud. We're able to correspond and understand what the vulnerability landscape looks like a lot faster."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The product supports out-of-the-box reporting with context about the asset and allows us to perform complex custom queries on UI."
"The security baseline and vulnerability assessments is the valuable feature."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"The most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."
"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."
"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."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"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 agent's versatility is notable, used for digital experience monitoring to collect valuable endpoint metrics for troubleshooting."
"This secure connection allows users to connect to the Zscaler VPN and access the resources on the office network, making it a highly valuable component of our system."
"The most valuable feature is its seamless integration capabilities, streamlining the process by eliminating the need for extensive installations."
"The product provides a seamless user experience."
"We would like to see improvements to executive-level reporting and data reporting in general, which we understand is being rolled out to the platform."
"The only thing that needs to be improved is the number of scans per day."
"The only small pain point has been around some of the logging integrations. Some of the complexities of the script integrations aren't supported with some of the more automated infrastructure components. So, it's not as universal. For example, they have great support for cloud formation and other services, but if you're using another type of management utility or governance language for your infrastructure-as-code automation components, it becomes a little bit trickier to navigate that."
"We're looking at some of the data compliance stuff that they've got Jon offer. I know they're looking at container security, which we gonna be looking at next."
"Wiz's reporting capabilities could be refined a bit. They are making headway on that, but more executive-style dashboards would be nice. They just implemented a community aspect where you can share documents and feedback. This was something users had been requesting for a while. They are listening to customer feedback and making changes."
"Given the level of visibility into all the cloud environments Wiz provides, it would be nice if they could integrate some kind of mechanism to better manage tenants on multiple platforms. For example, let's say that some servers don't have an application they need, such as an antivirus. Wiz could include an API or something to push those applications out to the servers. It would be great if you could remedy these issues directly from the Wiz platform."
"The reporting isn't that great. They have executive summaries, but it's only a compliance report that maps all current issues to specific controls. Whether you look at one subscription or project, regardless of the size, you will get a multipage report on how the issues in that account map to that control. Our CSO isn't going to read through that. He won't filter that out or show that to his leadership and say, "Here's what we're doing." It isn't a helpful report. They're working on it, but it's a poor executive summary."
"We wish there were a way, beyond providing visibility and automated remediation, to wait on a given remediation, due to a critical aspect, such as the cost associated with a particular upgrade... We would like to see preventive controls that can be applied through Wiz to protect against vulnerabilities that we're not going to be able to remediate immediately."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"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 solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client. If you need to have something open for a client application to work, then you get dinged for having a port open or having an older version of TLS available."
"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."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"Occasionally, issues arise in the LogStack by a third party, particularly for government websites accessed by numerous users."
"Having a Zscaler-specific device could streamline this process and provide a more consistent user experience across diverse branches."
"Occasionally, there are certain delays in report generation."
"The product is not reliable."
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with 46 reviews while Zscaler CSPM is ranked 22nd in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with 4 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Zscaler CSPM 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 Zscaler CSPM writes "Secure and scalable internet access, maintaining stability, providing robust technical support and ensuring consistent policy enforcement across various user locations". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Sentinel, whereas Zscaler CSPM is most compared with Orca Security, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and AWS Security Hub. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Zscaler CSPM report.
See our list of best Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) vendors.
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