Microsoft Defender

Yes, there are many differences.

 

But before the answer, just a noteworthy mention, Windows defender name change: https://www.minitool.com/news/windows-defender-gets-a-new-name-017.html

 

But to the question at hand, the most important difference is what they protect, referring to their current names: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint - protects workstations and mobile devices it's an Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), more details about it here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/protect/advanced-threat-protection

I recommend learning more about EPP, the industry definition of this kind of solution, get started here: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/05/11/gartner-names-microsoft-a-leader-in-the-2021-endpoint-protection-platforms-magic-quadrant/

 

Microsoft Defender for Cloud - is a platform to protect Cloud environments (Azure,AWS,GCP) in multiple layers.

For Cloud Management/Control it offers Cloud security posture management (CSPM) capabilities.

For Data, it offers Workload Protection (CWPP) capabilities to a number of different Cloud-native workloads and even to some on-premises workloads.

Learn more here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/defender-for-cloud-introduction

 

Plus, the Microsoft learn platform has great free content on these...

 

HTH, thumbs up if it's helpful 🙂