Same-subcategory comparison

Microsoft Defender for CloudvsWiz Cloud Security Platform

Compare buyer fit, pricing, capability depth, and purchase constraints within one buying category. A higher score is not a universal winner.

Comparison summary

How to choose

These conclusions apply to this subcategory and the buyer conditions shown here. They do not make one product universally better.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Consider when

Azure-centered organizations wanting native policy, management-group, automation, and Microsoft security integration
Teams that want a free multicloud baseline before selectively enabling advanced paid CSPM

Check before choosing

Buyers requiring one flat public paid price across every cloud resource type
Teams expecting Foundational CSPM to include graph, attack paths, security explorer, or advanced governance

Full profile

Wiz Cloud Security Platform

Consider when

Enterprises with complex AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Alibaba, Kubernetes and hybrid estates
Security teams that need graph-based posture prioritization using identity, exposure and data context

Check before choosing

Small organizations seeking an inexpensive standalone CSPM
Buyers that require a full direct price sheet and plan feature matrix before sales engagement

Full profile

Dimension	Microsoft Defender for Cloud	Wiz Cloud Security Platform
Pricing and trial	Foundational CSPM 0 · per cloud scope · Foundational CSPM enabled for Azure subscriptions, connected AWS accounts, or connected GCP projects; new Azure subscriptions must opt in starting October 27, 2026 Defender CSPM Amount unverified — check official pricing The zero-price Foundational CSPM offer is exact and retained. Paid Defender CSPM is withheld from numeric offers: the pricing page lists compute, storage, database, and serverless meters and conversion rules, while the August 7 product overview lists only compute, storage, and databases by cloud; the paid amount is hidden in the captured pricing table. Microsoft directs buyers to the calculator, their Azure agreement, sales, or partners. A separate one-year pre-purchase plan offers commit-unit discounts but is a broader Defender for Cloud purchasing vehicle, not a CSPM-only SKU. Azure pay-as-you-go Defender CSPM: Enable Foundational CSPM or paid Defender CSPM on Azure subscriptions and connected AWS or GCP scopes, with usage billed through the Azure agreement. Microsoft sales or Azure partner: Acquire Defender CSPM through Microsoft sales or an Azure partner when agreement-specific pricing, government eligibility, or multicloud scope needs commercial confirmation. One-year Defender Commit Units: Pre-purchase a noncancelable one-year pool usable across publicly available Defender for Cloud plans, including Defender CSPM. Published pool discounts range from 10% to 22% by commit-unit tier, and unused units expire at term end. Full profile	Wiz Essential Amount unverified — check official pricing Wiz Advanced Amount unverified — check official pricing The public AWS purchase path binds Wiz Essential at USD 24,000 and Wiz Advanced at USD 38,000 to 100 cloud workloads and explicit 12-month contracts. No direct-price equivalence, taxes, renewal price, support level, overage treatment, or complete feature difference is assumed. Sensor, Code, and Defend dimensions are separately priced add-ons and do not affect the core plan schema or starting price. Wiz public AWS Marketplace contract: Route-specific Essential or Advanced 100-workload block purchased through AWS Marketplace under a 12-month contract and the applicable EULA. Wiz AWS private offer: Customized exact-product pricing and terms delivered as a private AWS Marketplace offer. Full profile
Best for	Azure-centered organizations wanting native policy, management-group, automation, and Microsoft security integration Teams that want a free multicloud baseline before selectively enabling advanced paid CSPM Enterprises needing attack paths, CIEM, data-aware posture, critical assets, and custom multicloud recommendations	Enterprises with complex AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Alibaba, Kubernetes and hybrid estates Security teams that need graph-based posture prioritization using identity, exposure and data context Regulated or federated organizations requiring policy governance, audit reporting and multi-tenant oversight
Not for	Buyers requiring one flat public paid price across every cloud resource type Teams expecting Foundational CSPM to include graph, attack paths, security explorer, or advanced governance Organizations seeking a CSPM purchase that automatically includes Sentinel, Purview, runtime Defender plans, Security Copilot, or managed response	Small organizations seeking an inexpensive standalone CSPM Buyers that require a full direct price sheet and plan feature matrix before sales engagement Teams assuming runtime enforcement, CDR, SIEM, code security or managed operations are bundled with CSPM
Source check	99/100	98/100
Key features	Free Foundational CSPM across Azure, AWS, and GCP Multicloud inventory, Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark, Secure Score, recommendations, and workbooks Paid intelligent cloud security graph, security explorer, and contextual attack paths Native CIEM across Azure, AWS, and GCP Agentless VM vulnerability and secrets scanning plus Kubernetes and container posture	Agentless API-based multicloud inventory and Security Graph 2,800+ configuration rules including Kubernetes posture rules AI- and Rego-customizable cloud configuration policies Contextual attack-path prioritization using exposure, identity, workload and data signals 250+ built-in compliance frameworks and auditor reporting
Cons	Current official pages disagree on whether serverless resources appear in the complete Defender CSPM billable scope The captured pricing table suppresses the paid amount and agreement-specific Azure pricing can vary Enabling paid CSPM broadly can meter resources across connected Azure, AWS, and GCP estates after the trial state	The public AWS amount is marketplace-specific and does not establish direct, renewal, tax or private-offer pricing Essential and Advanced feature differences, support and limits are not fully public Sensor, Defend and Code are separately priced and must not be silently bundled into CSPM claims
Category buying score	80	85Higher category-fit score
Rank	#5	#3
Context	Security & Privacy / Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Software	Security & Privacy / Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Software
Cloud coverage and visibility	84Free multicloud inventory, workbooks, and Secure Score establish baseline visibility, and paid agentless scanning plus the security graph and explorer expand asset and relationship views, subject to connector coverage and resource-type support differences.	89Agentless multicloud inventory feeding the Security Graph provides centralized resource and relationship visibility across major clouds and Kubernetes platforms, subject to the API permissions and service coverage the buyer enables.
Detection and policy depth	80MCSB assessments and standard recommendations run on Foundational CSPM, while paid Defender CSPM enables custom KQL recommendations and deeper agentless and container posture checks, so detection depth scales with the chosen plan and enabled scopes.	90The platform pairs 2,800+ configuration rules with AI- and Rego-customizable cloud configuration policies, which gives buyers a substantial detection and policy layer; the score reflects that some edition-specific limits are not publicly detailed.
Risk prioritization and context	86The paid cloud security graph, attack paths, CIEM identity context, data-aware posture, and critical-asset marking supply the primary risk-context layer; without Defender CSPM those contextual signals are not part of the free baseline.	93Attack-path context that fuses exposure, identity, workload, and data relationships helps prioritize cloud risks beyond raw severity scores for complex interconnected estates.
Remediation operations	79Remediation tools, workflow automation, Logic Apps, REST APIs, and DevOps-related integrations support operational follow-through, but buyers still need to configure scopes, roles, and connected services.	80Integrates automated remediation options, but the primary verification and approval Workflows are limited by their public-preview status.
Compliance and governance	82The paid plan adds governance rules, assigning owners, and setting due dates, which are missing from the base benchmark tracking in the free plan.	89The platform includes 250+ compliance frameworks and auditor reporting, which supports governance and audit use cases for regulated buyers; the score is slightly below the top end because the public facts do not fully publish edition-level governance boundaries.
Integrations and reporting	80Export, workbooks, REST APIs, Event Hubs, Log Analytics, Sentinel, ServiceNow, GitHub, and Azure DevOps provide broad reporting and integration options, but several targets are separate services rather than included capabilities.	86The platform has a 310-entry integration directory across cloud, ticketing, CI/CD, SIEM, SOAR, and data systems, which supports operational reporting and workflow connectivity; the count is platform-wide rather than CSPM-only, so the score is not maximal.
Support and total cost	62Foundational CSPM at zero cost lowers the entry barrier, but Defender CSPM pay-as-you-go metering lacks a retained public amount, carries serverless-scope ambiguity, and can accumulate separate charges for Logic Apps, exports, Sentinel, and related services, so total cost depends heavily on estate size and connected-service design.	60The public commercial record gives a route-specific AWS Marketplace price but does not publish direct, renewal, tax, support-level, or complete feature-delta terms, which makes total cost and support planning harder to pin down before sales engagement.
Full profile	Full profile	Full profile

Comparison summary

Most material score differences

These are the stored dimension rationales returned with each score. They explain the buyer conditions behind the gap without speculating about hidden model reasoning.

Detection and policy depth

10 pts

Microsoft Defender for Cloud · 80/100: MCSB assessments and standard recommendations run on Foundational CSPM, while paid Defender CSPM enables custom KQL recommendations and deeper agentless and container posture checks, so detection depth scales with the chosen plan and enabled scopes.
Wiz Cloud Security Platform · 90/100: The platform pairs 2,800+ configuration rules with AI- and Rego-customizable cloud configuration policies, which gives buyers a substantial detection and policy layer; the score reflects that some edition-specific limits are not publicly detailed.

Risk prioritization and context

7 pts

Microsoft Defender for Cloud · 86/100: The paid cloud security graph, attack paths, CIEM identity context, data-aware posture, and critical-asset marking supply the primary risk-context layer; without Defender CSPM those contextual signals are not part of the free baseline.
Wiz Cloud Security Platform · 93/100: Attack-path context that fuses exposure, identity, workload, and data relationships helps prioritize cloud risks beyond raw severity scores for complex interconnected estates.

Compliance and governance

7 pts

Microsoft Defender for Cloud · 82/100: The paid plan adds governance rules, assigning owners, and setting due dates, which are missing from the base benchmark tracking in the free plan.
Wiz Cloud Security Platform · 89/100: The platform includes 250+ compliance frameworks and auditor reporting, which supports governance and audit use cases for regulated buyers; the score is slightly below the top end because the public facts do not fully publish edition-level governance boundaries.

Research basis

This page uses stored product facts, official evidence, and category scoring rationales. It is not an account-based hands-on test, and third-party user ratings are not folded into the category buying score.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Fact confidence: 99% · Fact checked: 2026-08-10
Wiz Cloud Security Platform: Fact confidence: 98% · Fact checked: 2026-08-10

More tools

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Software

Add more tools from the same subcategory to this comparison. The page keeps up to 6 tools.

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud

Prisma Cloud is a SaaS CNAPP whose CSPM entitlement combines agentless multicloud inventory, configuration and compliance policy, IAM context, attack-path analysis, threat correlation, remediation guidance, automation, and enterprise integrations.

Rapid7 InsightCloudSec

Rapid7 InsightCloudSec is a cloud security platform with agentless multicloud inventory, CSPM policy checks, compliance governance, attack paths, contextual risk scoring, no-code remediation bots, APIs, and optional adjacent CNAPP capabilities.

Wiz Cloud Security Platform

Wiz Cloud Security Platform delivers CSPM through Wiz Cloud, using agentless cloud API connections, the Wiz Security Graph, configuration rules, compliance frameworks, attack-path context, remediation workflows, and a broad integration ecosystem.

85Compared

Orca Security Platform

Orca Security Platform delivers CSPM inside an agentless-first CNAPP, using cloud API and SideScanning data, a unified asset and relationship model, configuration controls, compliance frameworks, attack paths, automation, remediation guidance, and enterprise integrations.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides free Foundational CSPM and paid Defender CSPM plans, combining multicloud inventory, secure score, policy assessment, compliance, a cloud security graph, attack paths, data and identity context, governance, and workflow automation.

80Compared

Qualys TotalCloud

Qualys TotalCloud delivers CSPM through the Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform, with connectors for AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI, centralized inventory, continuous controls, compliance governance, attack-path context, remediation, and enterprise workflow integrations.

Tenable Cloud Security

Tenable Cloud Security is Tenable's current CNAPP domain for agentless cloud inventory, CSPM, compliance, identity-aware risk analysis, attack paths, remediation, and developer guardrails across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and Kubernetes. It is sold through quote-based standalone or Tenable One Cloud Exposure routes using billable cloud-resource scope rather than a public monetary rate.

AWS Security Hub

AWS Security Hub is a unified cloud security service whose Essentials plan combines Security Hub CSPM, Amazon Inspector vulnerability management, security-focused inventory, contextual exposure analytics, and response workflows under resource-unit pricing.

Sysdig Secure

Sysdig Secure delivers CSPM inside its broader CNAPP through agentless cloud connections, Kubernetes posture checks, dynamic inventory, graph search, custom posture controls, compliance governance, IaC remediation, and CSPM APIs.

#10

Lacework FortiCNAPP

Lacework FortiCNAPP is Fortinet's SaaS CNAPP whose cloud-security tiers all include CSPM and KSPM resource discovery, configuration management, custom policies, compliance reporting, and secrets detection, with advanced risk, attack-path, CIEM, workload, DSPM, and code-security capabilities gated or separately licensed.

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