HEAD TO HEAD · SCORED SEPTEMBER 2026 · CROWDSTRIKE EASM ADDED 13 OCTOBER 2026

Microsoft Defender EASM vs Censys ASM: attack surface management compared

Quick answer

Microsoft Defender EASM scores 6.00 to Censys ASM's 5.85 on our weights, a gap of 0.15. Microsoft Defender EASM leads on attribution, time to value and pricing transparency; Censys ASM leads on exploitability validation and remediation. They tie on discovery and integrations.

Scored September 2026 · CrowdStrike EASM added 13 October 2026 · Drawn from vendor product pages, docs and public pricing

Microsoft Defender EASM

Rank 7 of 10

6.00 / 10

Best for Azure-billed, self-serve starts

Censys ASM

Rank 10 of 10

5.85 / 10

Best for internet-scan evidence and threat hunting teams

How do Microsoft Defender EASM and Censys ASM compare on each criterion?

Scores for Microsoft Defender EASM and Censys ASM on each criterion
Criterion	Weight	Microsoft Defender EASM	Censys ASM	Winner
Discovery of unknown assets and subsidiaries	20%	7	7	Tie
Attribution accuracy and false-positive handling	15%	7	6	Microsoft Defender EASM
Exploitability validation	15%	3	5	Censys ASM
Remediation and mitigation support	20%	4	5	Censys ASM
Integrations and platform reach	10%	8	8	Tie
Time to value	10%	8	6	Microsoft Defender EASM
Pricing transparency	10%	7	4	Microsoft Defender EASM

Microsoft Defender EASM leads on 3 criteria, Censys ASM on 2, 2 tied. Weighted: Microsoft Defender EASM 6.00, Censys ASM 5.85.

What does a finding arrive with in each?

Microsoft Defender EASM

Owner or subsidiary attributedPartial
Exploitability provenNot documented
Ticket or workflow createdPartial
Compensating control appliedNot documented
Fix retestedNot documented

Censys ASM

Owner or subsidiary attributedNot documented
Exploitability provenPartial
Ticket or workflow createdDocumented
Compensating control appliedNot documented
Fix retestedNot documented

Where does each one win?

Microsoft Defender EASM wins on

Attribution accuracy and false-positive handling: 7 vs 6
Every asset carries a state (Approved Inventory, Dependency, Monitor Only, Candidate, Requires Investigation) based on connection strength and confidence.
Time to value: 8 vs 6
30-day free trial on the first resource, plus the prebuilt inventory.
Pricing transparency: 7 vs 4
Self-serve Azure billing against a published definition of billable assets (approved hosts, domains and IP addresses) after the trial.

Censys ASM wins on

Exploitability validation: 5 vs 3
Confirms reachability and applies EPSS and KEV scoring; no active exploitation testing is documented.
Remediation and mitigation support: 5 vs 4
Auto-creates, routes and tracks remediation tasks through ticketing; no mitigation is documented.

Tied: Discovery of unknown assets and subsidiaries (7), Integrations and platform reach (8).

How do Microsoft Defender EASM and Censys ASM price?

Pricing and deployment for Microsoft Defender EASM and Censys ASM
Item	Microsoft Defender EASM	Censys ASM
Pricing	Billed through Azure on billable assets (approved host:IP combinations, domains and IP addresses) after a 30-day free trial. See Microsoft's pricing page for the current rate.	ASM: contact sales. A free Censys platform account exists.
Deployment	Azure resource (SaaS)	SaaS
Pricing transparency score	7	4

Prices and pricing bases as published by each vendor and reviewed in September 2026. 'Not published' means we did not find it on the vendor's public pages.

Should you choose Microsoft Defender EASM or Censys ASM?

Choose Microsoft Defender EASM if

You want results with the least setup. Microsoft Defender EASM scores 8 on time to value: 30-day free trial on the first resource, plus the prebuilt inventory.
The tool has to fit a wider security platform or many existing tools. Microsoft Defender EASM scores 8 on integrations: Data connectors to Log Analytics and Azure Data Explorer and a Security Copilot integration in preview; no cross-tenant resource access.

Choose Censys ASM if

The tool has to fit a wider security platform or many existing tools. Censys ASM scores 8 on integrations: Jira, ServiceNow ITSM and CMDB, Tenable VM, Google Security Operations, Microsoft Sentinel, Axonius, Brinqa, Slack, Webex, plus AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.
Finding unknown assets, subsidiaries and acquired infrastructure is your main gap. Censys ASM scores 7 on discovery: First-party scanning across all 65K ports finds services on nonstandard ports and hosts with self-signed certificates; discovery expands from seeds the customer supplies.

On our default weights Microsoft Defender EASM comes out ahead. Change the weights in the score calculator to see whether that holds for your priorities.

Frequently asked questions

Is Microsoft Defender EASM better than Censys ASM?

On our weights Microsoft Defender EASM scores higher, 6.00 to 5.85. Microsoft Defender EASM leads on 3 criteria and Censys ASM on 2 criteria, with 2 tied. The better choice depends on which criteria matter most to you; the score calculator lets you change the weights.

What do Microsoft Defender EASM and Censys ASM cost?

Microsoft Defender EASM: Billed through Azure on billable assets (approved host:IP combinations, domains and IP addresses) after a 30-day free trial. See Microsoft's pricing page for the current rate. Censys ASM: ASM: contact sales. A free Censys platform account exists.

Which one does more to help fix exposures?

Censys ASM scores 5 on remediation and mitigation support against 4 for Microsoft Defender EASM. Censys ASM: Auto-creates, routes and tracks remediation tasks through ticketing; no mitigation is documented.

Sources: Overview, What is discovery, Billable assets, Data connections, Pricing, External exposure management, Pricing, Integrations, ASM get started, Seed your attack surface · Reviewed September 2026