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M-Files vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Document Management Software
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (8th), Data Governance (26th), Microsoft Security Suite (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of M-Files is 3.9%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 5.5%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management5.5%
M-Files3.9%
Other90.6%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

LN
Director of IT at JH Kelly
Good workflows, and it is easy to use with a dashboard that improves contract visibility
My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing this product is to do a pilot first. After you do your research, do an actual pilot before you commit because everyone has nuances and you might find out that it is not what you want, or that it doesn't really do what you think it's going to do. It is not the simplest product to use but because of the robustness of its feature set in the ability with the workflows, and the APIs, to do just about anything you can imagine with it, that's very valuable. I wish it was a little easier to use because we have to spend more time than I'd like with new users, teaching them how it works. We try to hide all that from them but the setup time to get everything the way we wanted was probably two months. That is two months in one resource working on it half time a week, but it just took a lot of work to get the metadata set up, to get the workflows set up, and to get all the documents added to the repository. Now we've got versioning and we know where everything's at, the dashboard is great, but don't assume when they tell you that you'll be up and running in two weeks, that that is the truth. It takes much longer than you think. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
ST
Ict Systems Manager at Lltnpa
Automated retention has transformed compliance workflows and now simplifies audit responses
The deep native integration with Microsoft 365 is what ultimately made me decide on Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management over Enterprise Vault and OpenText Content Manager. Auto-apply retention labels using machine learning is the specific integration with Microsoft 365 that made it the deciding factor for me over Enterprise Vault or OpenText. Manually labeling content at our data volumes is not realistic. The automated classification based on sensitive information types and trainable classifiers is what makes the program actually scale. That feature gets used constantly. We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. That shift from a compliance audit perspective is enormous.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using M-Files means anybody on the executive team to go in and immediately look at a dashboard and know the status of a contract."
"M-Files licence model is very flexible. You have the choice of Named User, Concurrent, or SaaS. This gives the business so much room and flexibility to implement new projects whilst maintaining costs and maximizing production."
"HPE Apollo Systems has positively impacted our organization by improving business operations by eighty percent, saving time, improving efficiency, and facilitating the management of large data sets."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management."
 

Cons

"Technical support is probably the weakest part. We had a number of authentication issues and support has been very slow to respond and get us solutions."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
"The initial setup took longer than we expected. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is not a turn-it-on-and-go product."
"There is no specific improvement I would suggest for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, but I think if they can work on policy design and usability, adding more granular control for the organization regarding controlling the movement of data outside would definitely improve the solution."
"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Better coverage outside Microsoft 365 is a feature I wish Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management had that it does not offer today. If I could change one thing about Microsoft Purview Data Life...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Automating retention and deletion across our Microsoft 365 environment is my main use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. At Microsoft scale, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and T...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about M-Files vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.