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Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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

Microsoft Defender External...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
33rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Attack Surface Management (ASM) (9th)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (7th), Data Privacy Management Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management is 1.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview Information Protection2.3%
Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management1.2%
Other96.5%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.

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."
"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 features I like the most about Microsoft Purview Information Protection include the ability to set different retention policies, which have benefited my organization by being crucial in maintaining taxpayer anonymity when communicating with government employees."
"I created training materials for end users on applying different labels, explaining their purposes, and providing examples. This was crucial since end users would apply the labels in different protection scenarios. The implementation helped the organization in several ways."
"The feature I prefer the most is the automated controls around it, such as automated labeling, which is effective."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is its ability to respond to sensitive data shared on Teams chat by deleting the message, not just monitoring or logging."
"Before using it, we had a lot of unlabeled data, and the tool helped us quickly and accurately label a large number of documents."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Purview Information Protection is sensitivity labels."
"My favorite feature about Microsoft Purview Information Protection is how it applies to everything generally, so I don't have to do it manually."
"It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device."
 

Cons

"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."
"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."
"Our primary concern is third-party application visibility. Many people choose other DLP tools, as they can search the Office 365 suite and detect sensitive information across thousands of other apps. The product is weak compared to the competitors on the DLP front, but the classification is good; the tool needs a bit more maturation."
"There is room for improvement with the policy tips feature."
"I assess its ability to classify data and identify sensitive information as an area where we have not really gotten a lot of progress yet."
"Microsoft can improve the affordability of Purview Information Protection by offering it at a lower cost."
"Microsoft Purview Information Protection can improve in terms of scan concurrency and scan processing time."
"I wouldn't recommend Microsoft Purview Information Protection for petabytes of documents as performance might be affected."
"I would like the time it takes to update a DLP policy on an endpoint to be reduced."
"There is potential for more integration in the use of AI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The tool's pricing is not a problem for customers because they often purchase it as part of a bundle. With an E5 license, for example, users get access to the entire functionality. This is one of the main reasons why many customers are choosing Microsoft."
"The tool's pricing is fairly low, less than 100,000 for a year."
"The pricing and setup costs are transferred to my clients, who find it affordable and are satisfied with what they receive."
"The product is affordable, and our clients agree. Sensitivity labels come with the MIP license at an additional $2 a month per user, an excellent deal for auto-labeling capabilities."
"Initially, Purview's cost seemed quite high because it was for personal use. I was scanning a tiny tenant and thinking, "If I extrapolate this to an enterprise-scale tenant, it will be quite costly." However, I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started. At least, Purview has a free trial, so you can try some of the features early on."
"The price is determined by the enterprise licensing, either the E3 or E5 licensing or the EMS plus security and other feature licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
It is reasonable from what I can say right now because we are using most of the Microsoft tools right now. We are using the managed SQL server of Microsoft. We are using Microsoft Purview Informati...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
In my opinion, Microsoft Purview Information Protection can be improved by having a more seamless user experience and ease of use in protecting both structured and unstructured data.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
My main use case for using Microsoft Purview Information Protection is protecting our unstructured files.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.