Comparison

TENET: The CoreStack alternative for Azure & Microsoft 365

CoreStack does cloud governance well — cost visibility, policy enforcement, and operations management across your Azure estate. Where governance ends is where attackers begin. TENET adds attack path analysis, identity risk, NIS2 compliance, and Microsoft 365 monitoring to the governance foundation your team already understands.

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From governance to risk intelligence

Cloud governance tools give you control over your cloud estate — policy enforcement, cost optimization, and operational governance. That is a solid foundation. The gap is what happens when a misconfiguration becomes an attack path, an over-privileged identity becomes an incident, or your auditor asks for NIS2 article evidence. Governance platforms were not built for those questions. TENET was.

Attack path analysis

See how misconfigurations chain into exploitable paths from exposed resources to critical assets. Mapped to MITRE ATT&CK techniques. Governance-focused platforms do not include attack path analysis.

Microsoft 365 monitoring

Defender alerts, Intune device compliance, SharePoint data exposure, and OneDrive sharing risks — correlated with your Azure context. Governance platforms do not monitor any M365 workload.

NIS2 & NIST CSF compliance

421 policies mapped to specific NIS2 articles with automated evidence collection. Most governance platforms support 27+ frameworks but NIS2 is not among them.

TENET vs. CoreStack

 TENETCoreStack
Exposure management
Attack graph & blast radius
Identity risk detection
NIS2 compliance mapping
NIS2 incident management
GRC risk register
Policy vault & supplier risk
Data breach log
AI Services governance
AI assistant with live tools
Microsoft 365 monitoring

CoreStack supports 27+ compliance frameworks. NIS2 is not among them. Comparison based on publicly available product documentation.

Governance tells you what you have. TENET shows you what attackers can do with it.

Cloud governance tools give you visibility into your Azure resources and policy compliance. What they do not show is how those resources chain together into exploitable attack paths. A misconfigured NSG, a service principal with Owner rights, and an internet-exposed VM are three separate governance findings. For an attacker, they are a three-hop path to your Key Vault.

TENET maps attack paths across your Azure environment — from exposed entry points through identity pivot nodes to critical assets — and maps them to MITRE ATT&CK techniques. Each path shows the blast radius, the steps required, and the specific remediations that break the chain. Connect your Azure tenant in two minutes and your first attack paths appear in the same session.

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Attack Path Analysis
Port10250aks-workloadAzure AKSPublicExposureInternet ExposureAdminAccessPrivileged AccessPIIStorageSensitive DataHighData VolData Exfiltration
Microsoft 365 Coverage
14
Alerts
3
Devices
29
Findings
6
High
Microsoft Defender
Active14 alerts
Intune
Watch3 non-compliant
SharePoint
Active9 findings
OneDrive
Watch6 findings

Cloud governance stops at Azure. Threats don't.

Cloud governance platforms manage Azure infrastructure — resource policy, cost controls, and configuration management. They do not monitor Microsoft Defender alerts, Intune device compliance, SharePoint data exposure, or OneDrive sharing risks. For teams running Azure and Microsoft 365, those are the most active threat surfaces in the estate.

Phishing campaigns land in Exchange. Files leak through SharePoint. Non-compliant Intune devices become entry points. An attacker who gets into an Entra ID account does not stop at the Azure boundary. TENET monitors Defender, Intune, SharePoint, and OneDrive — and correlates every signal with your Azure identity and infrastructure data. One view of your full Microsoft estate, not two separate tools with no shared context.

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Identity risk — the gap between governance and security

Cloud governance platforms track who has access. Security platforms track what that access enables. Governance tools show role assignments across your subscriptions. TENET shows you which of those assignments creates an attack path, violates a compliance control, or should never have been granted.

Over-privileged service principals, dormant guest accounts, application registrations with admin consent no one remembers approving — these are routine findings in any Azure environment that has been running for more than six months. TENET models Entra ID, RBAC, service principals, and PIM natively. Risks are surfaced automatically, each linked to the attack paths they enable and the NIS2 articles they violate.

SEE IDENTITY GOVERNANCE
Identity Risks — Entra ID12 FINDINGS
svc-infra-prod-01Critical
Service PrincipalOwner on 4 subscriptions — excessive privilege
Attack path node
bg-task-runner-0041Critical
App RegistrationDirectory.ReadWrite.All — admin consent, unverified publisher
No legitimate uses found
guest-j.harrison@ext.comHigh
Guest User90 days inactive — retains access to 3 resource groups
MFA not enforced
vm-svc-reportingHigh
Managed IdentityContributor on production key vault — no time-bound scope
PIM not enabled
Compliance — NIS2 & NIST CSF 2.08 GAPS
Art. 2171%
Art. 1085%
Art. 2068%
Art. 2354%
Linked Findings
nsg-prod-east-01
Port 22 open to 0.0.0.0/0
Art. 21
svc-infra-prod-01
Owner on 4 subs — no time bound
Art. 21
audit-log-workspace
Retention below 12 months
Art. 23

27 compliance frameworks — and NIS2 is not among them.

If you are subject to NIS2, your auditors are not satisfied with ISO 27001 alignment or a CIS benchmark score. They want evidence mapped to specific NIS2 articles — collected from your actual environment, not a self-assessment. Governance platforms support a broad range of compliance standards. NIS2 is not in that library.

TENET maps every Azure and M365 finding to specific NIS2 articles and NIST CSF 2.0 controls. Evidence is collected automatically from your live environment. When an open NSG, a dormant privileged account, or a Defender alert creates a compliance gap, TENET identifies the article, the specific resource, and the remediation steps — not a generic recommendation.

SEE COMPLIANCE MODULE

Ask questions. Get answers from your live environment.

Governance dashboards show you the state of your environment. They do not tell you what it means for your risk posture, your compliance gaps, or the attacker's likely next move. For that, you need someone to interpret the data — or a tool built to do it for you.

BriteAI is built into TENET. Ask about attack paths, identity exposure, NIS2 compliance gaps, or anomalies in plain language — and get specific answers drawn from your live Azure and M365 data, with remediation steps tied to the exact resources involved. For teams running SRE agents, the TENET MCP lets those agents query your environment and execute targeted fixes — with human approval for sensitive operations.

BriteAI
Which identities have an active attack path to a Key Vault?
Found 3 identities with active attack paths to Key Vault resources:
svc-infra-prod-013-hop path
vm-backend-022-hop path
Recommended: Remove Owner role from svc-infra-prod-01 and scope to target subscription only.
Which NIS2 article does this violation map to?
Maps to NIS2 Article 21(2)(e) — access control policies. The over-Owner finding creates a gap in access minimisation requirements under the NIS2 security measures obligation.
We already use CoreStack for cloud governance — do we need TENET as well?

It depends on what your governance programme needs to cover. CoreStack handles cost optimization, policy enforcement, and operational management well. If your requirements also include security posture management, attack path analysis, identity risk, NIS2 compliance, and Microsoft 365 monitoring, CoreStack does not cover those. Some teams run CoreStack for FinOps and TENET for security — they do not significantly overlap. Others find TENET's governance capabilities sufficient to consolidate onto one platform.

Does a governance platform's SecOps module cover security posture?

SecOps modules in governance platforms focus on compliance enforcement against policy standards — CIS benchmarks, ISO, NIST SP 800-53. That is policy-level governance. It does not include attack path analysis, identity risk detection across Entra ID, Microsoft 365 monitoring, or NIS2 article-level evidence collection. If security posture means seeing how your Azure and M365 environment looks to an attacker and generating regulator-ready compliance evidence, TENET covers that ground.

Does TENET replace CoreStack entirely?

For Azure and Microsoft 365 security and compliance, yes — TENET covers security posture, identity risk, attack paths, M365 monitoring, NIS2 compliance, and an AI assistant in one platform. For FinOps and cost optimization, CoreStack does things TENET does not. If cost governance is a primary use case, they can run alongside each other. If your main need is security posture and NIS2 compliance, TENET is the simpler choice.

Does TENET handle cost governance like a dedicated FinOps platform?

TENET monitors Azure cost anomalies and Azure OpenAI quota/cost as part of its risk intelligence view — unusual spend spikes are surfaced as risk signals. It does not replace a dedicated FinOps platform. If cost optimization, chargeback, and budget management are central to your programme, a platform built specifically for that addresses it better. TENET focuses on security posture, compliance, and risk intelligence.

How does pricing compare?

Governance platforms in this category don't publish pricing — you will need to engage their sales team for a quote. TENET starts at $199/month with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required. You can connect your Azure tenant and see your first findings before any conversation with us. TENET is also available directly through the Azure Marketplace.

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