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CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in Attack Surface Management (ASM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Threat Intelligence Platforms (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (1st), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (1st), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (2nd), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (1st)
Microsoft Defender External...
Ranking in Attack Surface Management (ASM)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Attack Surface Management (ASM) category, the mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 11.9%, down from 27.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management is 3.1%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Attack Surface Management (ASM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CrowdStrike Falcon11.9%
Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management3.1%
Other85.0%
Attack Surface Management (ASM)
 

Featured Reviews

Waleed Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides effective real-time threat detection with potential for cost optimization
Some features such as device control, firewall management, and file analysis are standalone products that we need to purchase separately. If these features came out of the box within the product, it would be much more beneficial for us. Other providers such as SentinelOne include these features in their base product. We attended a CrowdStrike Falcon event where they discussed some shallow AI features, but we cannot see these in our panel yet. We work with different solutions such as Darktrace and SocRadar, where AI features are automatically displayed in our dashboards after release. However, for CrowdStrike Falcon, we cannot see these features.
AndyChan3 - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Falcon has the capacity to identify potential problems quickly. The administrator can deploy the agent, and the users cannot change it. This assures you that the agent remains on this device. Also, the agent can act preemptively to provide alerts about potential problems."
"CrowdStrike Falcon helps with endpoint protection by having very low memory utilization and processor usage, so it doesn't impact the computer system performance, and the computer system works very fast compared to all other endpoint protection solutions."
"Overall, what I found most valuable in CrowdStrike Falcon is its good mechanism. It also has a good reporting feature. CrowdStrike Falcon is an invaluable tool because, through it, you can take quick action, for example, when an OS is missing specific patches."
"The real-time analytics aspect of CrowdStrike performs well because we get all logs in real-time, with no delay, allowing us to take action immediately."
"The malware protection is the most valuable feature of CrowdStrike Falcon."
"The most valuable feature is the machine learning that they use to check certain patterns in the endpoint devices. It checks the whole ecosystem or entire environment."
"The stability is good; we haven't experienced any glitches or bugs."
"I haven't had any issues with bugs or glitches. I haven't had a problem with stability so far."
"Microsoft External Attack Surface Management helps improve the visibility of my exposed vulnerabilities and provides an overview of my security posture across the globe."
"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

"It would be nice if they did have some sort of Active Directory tie-in, whether that be Azure or on-prem. Sometimes, it is difficult for us to determine if we are missing any endpoints or servers in CrowdStrike. We honestly don't have a great inventory, but it would be nice if CrowdStrike had a way to say this is everything in your environment, Active Directory-wise, and this is what doesn't have sensors. They try to do that now with a function that they have built-in, but I have been unsuccessful in having it help us identify what needs a sensor. So, better visibility of what doesn't have a sensor in our environment would be helpful."
"The solution isn't known in my market. The brand isn't as recognizable. Their shortcomings are more on the marketing side."
"The pricing is a bit too high."
"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."
"I recommend that some deep-dive trainings are required for the NG SIEM, specifically for their next-generation SIEM module, as they need some basic trainings for that."
"The installation process for this software needs to be simplified."
"I believe nothing can be done to make CrowdStrike Falcon a ten out of ten, as I think it's one of the best solutions in the market. However, rating it a ten overall would imply there's no scope for improvement, but to survive in the market, changes must be made every day."
"The solution could improve the policies themselves. It would be helpful if there were cost-cutting measures."
"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."
"The integration is not as seamless compared to competitors like Palo Alto."
"With Microsoft, support is always crazy, it's not easy to get support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing could be reduced. If it was more reasonable that would be great."
"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."
"CrowdStrike is a reasonably priced tool."
"CrowdStrike Falcon can be more expensive than some competitors, and its base price doesn't cover every feature."
"Our licensing fees were between $50,000 and $60,000 per year, which was pretty expensive for a small business."
"It's an expensive solution but you get a very good product for the price. Compared to other products, SentinelOne is definitely cheaper and the Microsoft E5 package is probably more expensive. Not many companies are willing to purchase CrowdStrike Falcon in Turkey due to the cost, but the market is changing."
"When comparing to Microsoft, CrowdStrike Falcon is more expensive."
"In my opinion, the pricing of CrowdStrike Falcon seems aggressive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise61
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, CrowdStrike Falcon XDR, CrowdStrike Falcon Threat Intelligence, CrowdStrike Identity Protection, CrowdStrike Falcon Surface
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike Falcon vs. Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.