Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps review and pricing

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (formerly Microsoft Cloud App Security, originally the Adallom acquisition in September 2015 for ~$320M) is the Microsoft-native CASB, included in the Microsoft 365 E5 bundle and tightly integrated with Entra ID, Microsoft Purview (DLP and information protection), and Defender XDR. Best fit for any Microsoft 365 E5-licensed organization where the CASB is effectively pre-paid as part of the bundle, or for hybrid Microsoft-anchored shops standardizing on the Defender XDR stack. Trade-offs: outside the Microsoft licensing envelope the product is materially less compelling than Netskope on pure CASB depth and discovery quality; the deep Microsoft integration is a double-edged sword for non-Microsoft customers (Google Workspace, AWS-native, and Slack-first shops report inferior discovery and policy granularity); per-user pricing as a standalone SKU (outside E5) is high relative to feature parity; and the product roadmap has historically prioritized Microsoft-ecosystem use cases over multi-cloud breadth.