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Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Purview Audit 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 Entra ID
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st)
Microsoft Purview Audit
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
31st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (32nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 7.7%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Audit is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID7.7%
Microsoft Purview Audit1.4%
Other90.9%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.
OK
Cloud Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Integrated auditing has strengthened data retention and improved incident investigations
I have seen areas for improvement, specifically in Microsoft Purview Audit or in general about Microsoft. I have had a situation with documentation. I had a customer who wanted to create alerts and they had Microsoft 365 Business Premium. In the documentation, it was noted that this license is enough for creating alerts. When we tried to make them, we noticed they cannot do it with Microsoft 365 E3 because the customer had limited features to manage alerts. The customer had to buy E3. We created Microsoft support requests, and they confirmed that the documentation displayed not the real situation and they have been going to update documentation. The same situation occurred now with implementing Microsoft Purview Audit in the last autumn. eDiscovery was combined with search and content search, and the documentation was not clear at the beginning. It was a little difficult to describe to customers that now it is a part of eDiscovery. Content search is a very simple functionality, while eDiscovery is a little difficult. I am not entirely sure why Microsoft is going in the way of combining these services because they are the same. However, for a customer who has never seen these services, it is difficult to understand quickly. The same situation occurs with litigation holds and some other holds. For any mail, I am trying to keep data. For example, emails are held for a year or two years, ten years, it does not matter. It is difficult to understand where to find this data and where these emails are being held. I need to use eDiscovery to find out all deleted data that was kept somewhere in some hidden folders of the mailbox. Regular customers and regular administrators know that on-premises Exchange, for example, allows them to find the data in some repository and review the list of kept data. However, with this hold, we do not have any functionality to review the list of kept data. It is difficult to understand for customers how to work with this. I had a case where I spent three or four hours working deeply with a customer to explain how to work with eDiscovery, why Content Search is not there when it was before, what is an eDiscovery case, and why we are talking about all of this just to review a list of kept emails. This is difficult.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Configuring the domain and setting it up in the Azure portal is just three clicks to be honest."
"It's a very scalable solution."
"User and device management is the most valuable feature."
"It enhances security, especially for unregistered devices, and it 1000% has security features that help to improve our security posture."
"Entra's conditional access policies allow us to fine-tune how we allow people into the environments and secure them."
"Many of its features are valuable, including: facilitating application authentication, privileged access management, processes for attestation, and access reviews."
"The most valuable feature is that it is very easy to implement, you don't need a lot of effort to set up the solution."
"This product is very nice."
"We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution."
"The platform has significantly enhanced our operational insight into the overall Microsoft 365 environment."
"The overall user experience with Microsoft Purview Audit is of higher quality than when it was branded as Compliance Center, and Microsoft consistently updates and evolves functionalities and the overall experience."
"The main Microsoft feature is that it offers common integration of services, of data, of identity, meaning user accounts, user access, and privileged access."
 

Cons

"I hope, in the roadmap, Microsoft eventually offers the same features as Okta. It will take some more time to mature."
"The monitoring dashboard could be a bit better."
"Microsoft is working with Microsoft Identity Manager for Active Directory on-premise. It will be very important to have these identity management solutions directly in Azure Active Directory."
"The downside is that we now have all our eggs in one basket with Microsoft. We have this great authentication and single sign-on, but if Microsoft has an outage in North America or globally, on Outlook or Teams, we're dead in the water."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The deadlines for this feature were set for March, and that has already passed without deployment. We commented that we are still waiting for that, and they commented that they would update us when it is finished, but we haven't received any update about it."
"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."
"If somebody is using an IdP or an identity solution other than Active Directory, that's where you have to start jumping through some hoops... I don't think the solution is quite as third-party-centric as Okta or Auth0."
"Areas for product improvement include enhancing customization options and integrating more comprehensive compliance features."
"We do have a Denial of Access happening."
"We are still in the early stages of leveraging Microsoft Purview Audit. Currently, it's primarily used for the audit function."
"I had a case where I spent three or four hours working deeply with a customer to explain how to work with eDiscovery, why Content Search is not there when it was before, what is an eDiscovery case, and why we are talking about all of this just to review a list of kept emails."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."
"There are add-on components and services, such as identity services, that we have to add to our Azure subscription. Only then can I actually say it's on par with the on-prem server edition. Why should I pay for a component? It should be included in my subscription."
"The price is fine. It's a good value for the money compared with other solutions."
"It's really affordable."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be lower. Price is the most important factor for Turkish people."
"The solution costs us 60,000 Rupees annually, just over $700, and there are no additional costs."
"It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."
"The pricing of Azure Active Directory is competitive. By default, the product exists in almost every Microsoft cloud product. But it then depends on the features that a customer really wants to make use of."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business90
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise160
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that going through and being able to use these things is always part of delivering an M365 bundle, so I don't think the experience is great ...
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by open-sourcing it. You already have Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is open-source Linux in Microsoft. One major shift for Microsoft would be using the commo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Audit?
It is not so expensive in comparison with other products, but I can tell you about an example.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Audit?
I have seen areas for improvement, specifically in Microsoft Purview Audit or in general about Microsoft. I have had a situation with documentation. I had a customer who wanted to create alerts and...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Audit?
I work with Defender for IoT by chance because I see that we have enough reviews for Defender for Office 365 today, and we need reviews for some Azure products. I work with Azure products such as L...
 

Also Known As

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Purview Audit and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.