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Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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
7.3
Microsoft Defender XDR delivers substantial ROI by streamlining operations, reducing costs, and enhancing security with consolidated functionalities.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Purview enhances protection, automates compliance, reduces response time, and supports growth, though exact savings are hard to quantify.
We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.
Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.
Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.
Purview can do a quick scan, and it doesn't use human resources, so it gets time to do things that we need humans to focus on.
The E5 license comes with different solutions like data discovery classification, CASB, DLP solutions, and Defender for Cloud.
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Defender XDR support is responsive but varies; premium users receive faster resolutions than smaller organizations or basic plans.
Sentiment score
4.4
Users experience inconsistent Microsoft Purview support, citing slow responses and unresolved issues, despite some improvements in visibility and engagement.
You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.
It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.
Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
After our issues are reported, it takes a long time to find a resolution.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender XDR offers scalable adaptability for large enterprises, accommodating diverse needs by leveraging flexible cloud infrastructure and licensing.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is praised for scalability despite some concerns with data analytics speed and policy update intervals.
Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.
Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.
It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender XDR is highly reliable but has occasional performance issues on macOS/Linux and alert misclassifications.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Purview is stable and reliable, with minor delays and occasional drawbacks, fostering user trust and wide deployment.
The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.
The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.
It provides high-fidelity signals.
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
The product is stable, and whatever it does, it does better than any other thing.
The solution is stable overall.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender XDR requires improved UI, integration, clarity, support, AI, and threat detection for better user experience.
Microsoft Purview requires better integration, pricing, navigation, and feature enhancements to address user concerns about functionality and support.
The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.
Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.
Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.
Effectiveness in Microsoft Purview Information Protection means enforcing the policy and making sure it works consistently across non-Microsoft products as well.
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Clarifying product features and use cases would help avoid such confusion.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing varies; it's cost-effective with Microsoft 365, but potentially expensive standalone for smaller businesses.
Microsoft Purview offers competitive pricing, flexible enterprise licenses, and cost-effective bundled solutions, despite some complexity in licensing options.
There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.
I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.
Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
The E5 license covers most of the solutions for different technologies, so that way, it is good and more affordable compared to any other solution.
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration, advanced threat management, and automation, enhancing security efficiency while reducing costs and tool complexity.
Microsoft Purview enhances data protection with encryption, automated labeling, and compliance, excelling in Microsoft ecosystem integration and management.
With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.
This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.
Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender XDR
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (3rd)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (5th), Data Privacy Management Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 1.2%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Gabor Nyerd - PeerSpot reviewer
Includes four services and four products, which can help organizations a lot
We found that sometimes integrations work, but testing them can take some time. Sometimes, configurations take much longer than expected. We have a configuration in place that needs to be synchronized with another server. However, the servers are four hours apart, so this can cause delays. In general, I believe that the time it takes to configure and test a service should be shorter. Sometimes, it can take a couple of hours to test a single configuration setting. Other times, it is only ten or fifteen minutes, which is normal. However, sometimes, even immediate actions can be triggered by configuration changes, and some settings can take up to eight hours to complete. I believe that this time can be improved. Microsoft is making a lot of improvements to its services in a short period of time. This is a good thing, as it means that the services are constantly being updated and improved. However, it can be challenging for customers to keep up with the changes. For example, a customer may read about an update, understand it, and share it with their colleagues and boss. However, it may take days or weeks to test the update and get the necessary approvals. This can be especially challenging for large customers with many users or machines. In some cases, Microsoft may change a service before the customer has had a chance to implement the previous update. This can be frustrating for customers, as it means that they have to constantly learn new things and adjust their workflows. On the one hand, it is important for Microsoft to keep updating and improving its services. This helps to ensure that the services are meeting the customers' needs and that they are staying ahead of the competition. Microsoft should also be mindful of the challenges that these changes can create for customers. One way to address this challenge is to provide customers with more time to implement changes. Microsoft could also provide more information about upcoming changes so that customers can plan ahead. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to strike a balance between keeping its services up-to-date and providing customers with a smooth transition to new features.
Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?
Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?
The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?
For Microsoft Defender XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ), there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge. Incident managem...
What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The pricing is not very high and is considered fine. Microsoft offers different licensing options. AIP Plan 2 is used for critical users. The AIP is included in the business standard license for cl...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
I am concerned about its accuracy levels. Sometimes it throws a lot of false positives. Microsoft Purview Information Protection needs to increase effectiveness and ensure compatibility. Effectiven...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.