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Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps 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 Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (13th)
 

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 Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps3.4%
Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management1.2%
Other95.4%
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…
FV
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Deployment has been seamless with insightful data categorization and enhanced control
The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that I have found most valuable include the overall portal view, with bubble graphs which give us insight into what goes where in the categorization, nowadays with Generative AI but all kinds of categorization, collaboration, etc. That central view of the portal is very useful for us. The impact of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps on our organization's ability to assess and manage app related risks has been significant because we have more visibility. Therefore, we can add more control, and we have already done so. This was not possible in the old solution, in the old CASB solution with Netskope. We now can see on the spot, and we do that almost weekly, what the end users are utilizing, which cloud providers or cloud apps they're using. The visibility into OAuth apps provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very good. The visibility into risk and risk management of our organization's Generative AI apps is very nice, as you can choose the category Generative AI and then see exactly what traffic has been going to and from Generative AI in the cloud. This makes us very insightful on what is used within the company. We have some policies on blocking specific Generative AI, and we use within our company one particular AI part, which is CoPilot of Microsoft. In this way, we can see what the end users are using other than CoPilot, and that makes us more in control. The effectiveness of the integration of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender XDR and defending against SaaS attacks is very intuitive. It works immediately if we create a new policy or in Purview or in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, or when we make an app unsanctioned by blocking it, then it is almost immediately, or at least within a couple of hours, effective on all the endpoints where the EDR is running. This gives us much better control over things than before.

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 solution is bundled with E3 and E5 licenses; that's the reason it's most commonly deployed, as it's part of the bundle and not a separate cost, and if your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"It has helped identify areas where we should improve, make changes to improve, the reason why we should make a change, and the impact of making the change."
"From what I've seen, it's a good product."
"From a security monitoring perspective, there is a productivity improvement and fewer human errors."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management; the management is cloud-based and we can work inside or outside on public networks."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"In summary, we have just begun using this product but so far, it works well and we are satisfied with it."
 

Cons

"Further integration across different Microsoft products would be an improvement."
"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."
"We would like to get more information from the endpoint. I don't get enough detailed information right now on why something failed."
"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."
"Sometimes the support is actually lacking."
"An area of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that needs to be improved or enhanced is the reporting function. In the beginning, there was a good reporting function which gave us a sort of monthly overview report. But that has gone away."
"The areas of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that need improvement are related to IAM, as they do not provide much support for local users."
"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."
"The product's pricing seems fair."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
"The pricing is fair."
"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise19
 

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 ...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.