Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention comparison

Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Download the complete report

Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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

Microsoft Defender External...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

33rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Attack Surface Management (ASM) (13th)

Microsoft Purview Data Loss...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

17th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

AndyChan3

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…

Read full review

Roby Skariah

Solution Architect : Corporate wide systems at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Automation has given us consistent analytics and improved quality of insights into user activity

One of the valuable features of Purview is the ability to create a legal hold on a user's account within the compliance portal. That's pretty useful when it comes to any litigation or if you want to redeem the content within a mailbox, OneDrive, or a generic public SharePoint site. If you want to retain the user's data until the case is resolved, you can use the legal hold feature. Also, it's important that Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices. With smartphone involvement, so many applications can now be accessed through them and it is important to apply Purview across operating systems and platforms. Purview's natively integrated compliance across Azure Dynamics and Office 365 is also significant because within Microsoft 365 there are multiple applications. Irrespective of whether it's Dynamics or Azure, it's very important that it has native support. The data connectivity should be efficient enough to support and secure their own platform's data. In addition, with varying regulations in different industries and matters, Purview lets you create rules and conditions based on industry standards around the world. That is important. Our company is in pharmaceuticals and the rules and conditions are different from other industries. It is important to be able to keep track of all these regulations and have a tool that is flexible enough to create the regulatory rules and conditions we need. And when it comes to data loss protection, Purview has features that can recognize patterns and detect any sort of data loss, where the data is being transferred from its platform to a different one. The default settings that come with it are pretty nice for identifying data transfer or data loss across the platform. It also comes with a lot of training materials, with use cases and examples, to help educate users and make them familiar with the tool.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The tool's most valuable feature is in the area of OCR."

"We can triage based on quick and sometimes constant alerts."

"The product has improved compliance and confidence. We are aware of the data that is leaving our organization. It provides confidence in data management and information storage."

"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention's classification and policy controls on our productivity within our organization is significant, as it's helped our security team."

"The auto-labeling feature is definitely the most valuable feature. It goes in and labels the documents for you in different repositories. It covers the Outlook and Exchange repositories along with SharePoint and OneDrive. It is really helpful in those areas."

"Insider risk management and data retention are beneficial."

"The product is easy to configure."

"The solution's IDM (Indexed Document Matching), EDM (Exact Data Matching), and DCM (Described Content Matching) features have been most effective in identifying and mitigating potential data leaks."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pros

Cons

"With Microsoft, support is always crazy, it's not easy to get support."

"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."

"The integration is not as seamless compared to competitors like Palo Alto."

"We faced a performance issue with the tool when we didn't get alerts for file uploads."

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention's licensing is expensive."

"It could cover more solutions and technologies."

"More training for end users on how it works would be beneficial."

"Improving Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention would involve recognizing that the whole AI path we are all on is going to help, given the massive amount of data we handle; even if there are true positives, implementing a degree of severity ranking is essential."

"The solution should provide better integration with other systems."

"Technical support is awful."

"The amount of false positives and the hash issue we had have brought down the score for me."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The cost works out to about $15 per user per month."

"You get the solution in a bundle if you get the E5 suite."

"It's a little bit pricey compared to competitors, but it's not too high."

"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the price as one out of ten."

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is part of a bundle and is not sold as a standalone product."

"The product has the best price-to-performance ratio."

"It is a part of our Microsoft licensing. We pay for a yearly renewal. Its price is reasonable for the size of the organization we are. It is fairly competitive, and you get what you pay for. We have an E5 license, and a part of understanding the E5 license is to see what all you get with it. If you really look at it from that standpoint, you get a lot of value. You have Defender and all its security features in there as well. Their licensing is fairly flexible. They have different programs. We've seen ones where you could pay for up to three to five years in advance. There is also a monthly pay-as-you-go type of deal, but we're doing a yearly renewal and fixing the budget."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management?

I rate the pricing of the solution as eight out of ten.

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?

What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

The most valuable features are identifying sensitive data and issuing alerts.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is not something I manage directly since I'm the owner operator; my colleagues might be more involved with that aspect as we have other te...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

Improving Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention would involve recognizing that the whole AI path we are all on is going to help, given the massive amount of data we handle; even if there are true ...

Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

Tenable Attack Surface Management vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Compared 15% of the time

Bitsight vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Compared 14% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Compared 14% of the time

Darktrace vs Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Compared 12% of the time

More Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management Competitors

Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Compared 13% of the time

Symantec Data Loss Prevention vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Compared 12% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon Macie vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Compared 9% of the time

Trellix DLP vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention Competitors

Product Reports

Attack Surface Management (ASM)

Download Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management product report

Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Download Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention product report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention report

Also Known As

No data available

Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention, MS Endpoint DLP, Microsoft Endpoint DLP

Overview

In this era of hybrid work, shadow IT creates an increasingly serious security risk. Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management helps cloud security teams see unknown and unmanaged resources outside the firewall.

Microsoft

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

Microsoft

Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention