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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Purview Insider Risk 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security, reduces costs, and optimizes resources with seamless integration and proactive monitoring.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Purview boosted ROI by enhancing data protection, efficiency, and compliance, reducing false positives, and involving external agencies.
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
As a small team, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps allowed us to manage systems with just one or two people.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
We have at least saved the costs we had from the Netskope solution this year.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Purview saved us from potential lawsuits and the loss of confidential information, preventing legal issues.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
The one example that I provided was worth significant attention, as the FBI and other organizations became involved, so I am assuming it was really important.
IC Sharepoint Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support has mixed reviews, with high technical proficiency but inconsistent responsiveness and communication delays.
Sentiment score
4.8
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management's support varies by tier, with premium support praised and regular service facing challenges.
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The support is excellent, and the speed of response is commendable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
There were instances where the engineers were knowledgeable and helpful, but at other times it felt like a ping pong game, with unnecessary transfers until the right person was found.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Premium support provides excellent service, but it can be challenging for customers who cannot afford it.
Director at Scybers
Overall, I had a few issues, so I would rate the service a nine for Purview.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable, cloud-native security but may require extra resources for large-scale policy management.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is praised for scalability, automation, policy creation, and multi-location efficiency despite alert speed concerns.
For what I know about the log collector and how much data it can take in, it is super scalable and capable of handling high workloads.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very scalable, provided you have the right subscription.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
In my experience, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is good enough for small to medium businesses.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
The capability of creating policies to facilitate detections and responses improved.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
I believe Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management scales well with the growing needs of the organization.
IC Sharepoint Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and continuous improvements praised by users.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is stable, dependable, and quickly resolves issues, with improved integration over time.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as stable
Network Engineer at Apexon
My impression on the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it is very stable.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
We have experienced minimal downtime, with Microsoft resolving issues within five to ten minutes maximum.
Director at Scybers
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management as having improved.
IC Sharepoint Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps needs improvements in pricing, interface, integrations, alert precision, documentation, and multi-cloud support.
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management needs better alert customization, simplified UI, affordable pricing, optimized ML components, and non-Microsoft integration.
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Defender typically connects to Entra ID, but we have local users on the cloud for database access, SSH, or RDS, and there is nothing produced by Defender regarding those local IAM users.
Network Engineer at Apexon
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps would benefit if Microsoft allows users to fine-tune false positives, enabling us to dismiss alerts or make adjustments so that such things don't trigger multiple times in the future.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft's pricing is very expensive.
Director at Scybers
I feel Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management can be improved by being able to identify patterns and practices of users to determine whether or not they fit the normal use case of a developer, an architect, and other roles.
IC Sharepoint Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It could be improved in terms of producing reports to provide information to the C-suite or others.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps affordable within bundles but expensive standalone, desiring more pricing transparency.
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
My organization is currently revisiting pricing, but previously, the cost was a bit expensive, yet comparable to other solutions with similar functionalities and features.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It's not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive, placing it in the mid-level range.
IT Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers seamless integration, real-time threat detection, and robust security features for comprehensive cloud protection.
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management enhances threat detection and prevention with advanced analytics, role-based access, and seamless investigations.
It provides excellent suggestions and options for configuration; for example, it can track suspicious files getting uploaded to cloud resources on Azure based on their signatures, generating alerts for those files.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The product recommends things that need to be blocked and allows for dynamic configuration, which cuts down on potential issues that might arise from going through lists and understanding what needs to be blocked.
Partner & Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
It has saved us money on lawsuits and the loss of important confidential information that could lead to legal issues.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
The scoring mechanism is exceptional because it eliminates the need to reinvent criteria for identifying risks, misconfigurations, or vulnerabilities.
Director at Scybers
We were able to remediate the fact that we had a North Korean spy working for us.
IC Sharepoint Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Microsoft Purview Insider R...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Insider Risk Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is 2.2%, up from 1.2% 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 Purview Insider Risk Management2.2%
Other94.4%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Karthik Ekambaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Scybers
Have consistently built secure internal environments while implementing compliance tools for diverse customer needs
The customizable alerts system needs improvement. The detection rules are not extensive enough. There should be more possibilities for creating alerts based on additional criteria. While rules can be customized, the available criteria for creating detection rules should be expanded. Microsoft's pricing is very expensive. The Business Premium offering should be extended to enterprise customers, as it's currently limited to 300 users. There should be a tier below E5 that includes Microsoft Purview and other features. Currently, E5 licensing costs approximately 6,000 INR per user per month including taxes. Competitive solutions offer similar functionality at about 50% of Microsoft's cost. Email DLP is included in Business Premium or P1 licenses, while P2 licenses cover endpoint DLP and additional channels. Microsoft should introduce an intermediate tier below E5 that covers all P1 licenses, as customers often need coverage across the entire M365 suite.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
I feel Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management can be improved by being able to identify patterns and practices of users to determine whether or not they fit the normal use case of a developer, a...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
My main use cases involve identifying issues related to problems with the current software deployments and whether or not it is being utilized correctly.
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
My advice to another organization that is considering using Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is to make sure they plan out their deployment very carefully because the biggest sticking poin...
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
Microsoft Insider Risk Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.