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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
7.4
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (6th), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Identity Management (IM) (6th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (2nd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (1st), Active Directory Management (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (1st), Ransomware Protection (1st), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd), 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 (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Attack Surface Management (ASM) category, the mindshare of CrowdStrike Falcon is 20.4%, down from 30.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Attack Surface Management (ASM)
 

Featured Reviews

Chintan-Vyas - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good behavior-based analysis but needs a single-click recovery option
Most organizations are currently looking for a scheduled scan to meet their compliance needs. Other players like Symantec and Trend Micro, FireEye, et cetera, are still providing the signature-based regular scheduled scans also, which is not available in CrowdStrike. That is one parameter that we feel should be there in CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is only working on the dynamic or the files under execution. CrowdStrike is not scanning the static files. The product could be more accurate in terms of performance. We'd like to have a single-click recovery option. With some machines getting corrupted by malware, we need an easy way to start with a blank slate if things happen. That one feature should be there in the EDR.
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

"The anomaly detection is the most valuable feature."
"All the features are beneficial."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The malware protection is the most valuable feature of CrowdStrike Falcon."
"I like the vulnerability assessment and proactive hunting features of CrowdStrike Falcon."
"I like the dashboard nature of it. Everything is clickable, linkable, and information is easy to obtain and find. How it presents that information is probably the biggest win as far as the information correlation aspect. The presentation of it is very good."
"The CrowdStrike Falcon dashboard is good, and we haven't had any problems with it."
"The features I like the most are the response time and the dashboard are both excellent."
"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

"I would also like to see the endpoint firewall component produce some level of logging and feedback."
"CrowdStrike Falcon sometimes wrongly flags things as malicious. Let's say a user is active on Chrome only. Sometimes, our cross-segmenting will fetch from the backend data and show that it is malicious because of memory or CPU utilization."
"As the company has grown, the technical support has felt less personal."
"The biggest issue with Falcon as a standalone product is it doesn't have very much reporting."
"CrowdStrike costs a little more than its competitors."
"CrowdStrike Falcon could improve by adding manual scanning or serverless scanning. It is not available at this time."
"Falcon could be improved with more function on the mobile end of things and better optimization with mobile devices."
"Improvement is always possible. It's challenging to gauge how much future mitigation is provided, especially since we've only been using the product for about one and a half years. Every product faces this challenge because nothing is ever completely foolproof. So, besides relying on technology, we also focus on increasing our staff's awareness of security issues. Feedback from my colleagues suggests that the reporting and dashboarding of incidents could be improved."
"With Microsoft, support is always crazy, it's not easy to get support."
"The integration is not as seamless compared to competitors like Palo Alto."
"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing will depend upon your volume of usage."
"I am not aware of the price, but I believe that it is among the most expensive XDRs out there. Of course, this is dependent on the features you choose. Depending on the features, the price might increase."
"Crowdstrike Falcon is relatively cheap."
"We bought a very small number of licenses, then ran it for a year. We bought a 100 licenses for a year, so we didn't actually do a proof of concept. We just bought them. Then, the next year, we bought 10,000 licenses."
"Pricing and licensing seem to be in line with what they offer. We are a smaller organization, so pricing is important. Obviously, we would make a business case if it is something we really needed or felt that we needed. So, the pricing is in line with what we are getting from a product standpoint."
"In my opinion, the pricing of CrowdStrike Falcon seems aggressive."
"CrowdStrike Falcon is more expensive than other EDR solutions with similar features."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: February 2025.
839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.