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CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR
Ranking in Attack Surface Management (ASM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
138
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (3rd), Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (2nd), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (3rd)
Microsoft Defender External...
Ranking in Attack Surface Management (ASM)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Attack Surface Management (ASM) category, the mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR is 5.8%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management is 2.9%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Attack Surface Management (ASM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon5.8%
Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management2.9%
Other91.3%
Attack Surface Management (ASM)
 

Featured Reviews

Dipak M Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd
Efficient threat detection and seamless deployment improve overall security
The single panel console of CrowdStrike Falcon is very user-friendly, which is what we are looking for. Having multiple administrators between various offices with this single console gives us the ability to see all offices, branch offices, and partners, making it very useful to detect machines, identify machines, and check security risks. Everything in the single console is very useful. CrowdStrike Falcon has positively impacted our organization in terms of efficiency because it's very lightweight, easy to deploy, easy to manage, and works very efficiently. It quickly detects issues and doesn't have a signature-based system, so it works fast and takes immediate action.
AndyChan3 - PeerSpot reviewer
General manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Enhanced visibility and exposes vulnerabilities but needs more integration
I am currently in the pilot stage of implementing Microsoft External Attack Surface Management (EASM). My organization is transitioning to a comprehensive track of Microsoft solutions, and we will move to full-scale production in another year, maybe Microsoft External Attack Surface Management…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that we don't need to re-image machines as much as we had to."
"We like Falcon's network visibility. We can see how threats are evolving on PCS or in the company network. The solution's real-time incident response is very fast."
"We are now able to find the root cause analysis on any threat. We can figure out where the issue came in versus just dealing with where it is at the moment."
"The most valuable features are the complete IPS and IDS."
"CrowdStrike Falcon offers a comprehensive dashboard that is highly effective in protecting against and blocking external infiltration attempts."
"The platform is very scalable."
"In general, we feel more secure knowing that we are not relying on multiple different technologies to provide a different kind of protection."
"It has definitely minimized resources. When everything was on-prem, there was a lot more work maintaining it. One of the big value tickets: I don't have lists of hundreds of exceptions for certain applications that I have to maintain, add, delete, and move. The very nature of the product has lessened my workload considerably."
"It seems to be better at protecting from cyberattacks."
"Microsoft External Attack Surface Management helps improve the visibility of my exposed vulnerabilities and provides an overview of my security posture across the globe."
 

Cons

"Unfortunately, native applications are not supported."
"Dashboard creation is one of the areas for improvement in CrowdStrike Falcon. Sometimes, management asks for a custom dashboard, so my team has to collect data from CrowdStrike Falcon, integrate that in Splunk, then create the dashboard in Splunk. The Splunk dashboard is more elaborate, so the CrowdStrike Falcon dashboard needs improvement. Another area for improvement in the tool is the malware detection report, as it needs to be more detailed and include some graphics so that if you want to present that data in a nutshell, it's easier to do. For example, the report should consist of some graphical representation that shows a month's worth of data. In terms of an additional feature I'd like CrowdStrike Falcon to have, it's the device posture assessment feature that detects the device posture within the network. Whichever device connects to the corporate network, my company should be able to analyze the device posture. Then there should be communication with the network, which means that as soon as a device connects, CrowdStrike Falcon can assess the device posture, detect its corporate asset, and decide whether it should be allowed on the network."
"We sometimes get false positives."
"Setting up and installing CrowdStrike Falcon is not easy, so an area for improvement is for that process to be simplified."
"There is room for improvement in managing multiple customer IDs."
"Support, particularly related to after-sales and after deployment, could be improved a bit. If you need to connect to support, it takes at least a day to reach the support team and get a proper reply."
"During these two years with CrowdStrike Falcon, I certainly faced some problems, including the known CrowdStrike outage, which was quite pinching and brought many of the Windows-related services to a halt just because of one bad configuration push from CrowdStrike tracks."
"It would be nice if the dashboard had some more information upfront, and looked a little better."
"The integration is not as seamless compared to competitors like Palo Alto."
"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."
"With Microsoft, support is always crazy, it's not easy to get support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Purchasing the product through the AWS Marketplace is just a click away. Since we were using the on-premise version of the product, we continued on the cloud by purchasing it through the AWS Marketplace."
"Our licensing fees were between $50,000 and $60,000 per year, which was pretty expensive for a small business."
"The other administrator and I can log in to check the exact details of what happened, what was running, and what caused the detection. We know exactly what was happening on the end users PC and we can tell if it's something that we actually need or something that's malicious."
"Different components are additional price points. We got the components that were right for us, but other organizations may require more (or less) components to suit their needs."
"I would like them to further reduce the price, because it is quite pricey at the moment."
"The price is too high."
"The solution isn't very costly; it's affordable."
"We have a yearly subscription and find the price to be good. I'd give it a rating of four out of five for price, we got a good discount."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise63
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Comparing CrowdStrike Falcon to Cortex XDR (Palo Alto)
Cortex XDR by Palo Alto vs. CrowdStrike Falcon Both Cortex XDR and Crowd Strike Falcon offer cloud-based solutions that are very scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Cortex XDR by Palo Alto offers ...
How does Crowdstrike Falcon compare with Darktrace?
Both of these products perform similarly and have many outstanding attributes. CrowdStrike Falcon offers an amazing user interface that makes setup easy and seamless. CrowdStrike Falcon offers a cl...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management?
Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement. Introduction of more AI automation into the products would also be beneficial. The integration is not as seamless co...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management?
I am currently in the pilot stage of implementing Microsoft External Attack Surface Management (EASM). My organization is transitioning to a comprehensive track of Microsoft solutions, and we will ...
 

Also Known As

CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface, CrowdStrike Falcon Platform
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR vs. Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.