Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Purview Audit comparison

Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft Purview Audit are both solutions in the Microsoft Security Suite category. Microsoft Entra ID is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Microsoft Purview Audit is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft Entra ID holds a 7.7% mindshare in Microsoft Security Suite, compared to Microsoft Purview Audit’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft Entra ID users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Microsoft Purview Audit users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 266 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

24,265 Views
3,640 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview Audit

Read 4 Microsoft Purview Audit reviews

1,184 Views
320 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft Purview Audit

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft Purview Audit based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Purview Audit Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Purview Audit

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

266

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

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (35th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 7.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Audit is 1.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID	7.7%
Microsoft Purview Audit	1.2%
Other	91.1%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Dewey Phillips

Senior Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Implementing seamless integration boosts secure access and supports Zero Trust

What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Entra ID is that it integrates seamlessly with all the Defender products and is easy to use. Microsoft Entra ID's integration capabilities influence our Zero Trust model by allowing us to enforce our Zero Trust model. Conditional access policies allow us to leverage Microsoft Entra ID to verify that devices signing in to our cloud services are coming from registered devices, and that people are passing all the other requirements we have in order to complete sign-on or conditional access policies. Since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, I've observed changes in the frequency and nature of identity-related security incidents. The organization already had it implemented when I arrived, and I've been working to enhance it. Better configuration of Microsoft Entra ID has allowed us to better protect our organization from threats. Having it alone isn't a solution, but ensuring proper configuration goes a long way in preventing future compromises. My company's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has evolved since implementing Microsoft Entra ID. We haven't experienced any known compromises from nation-state attacks, and implementing newer features gives me more confidence in our protection. Regarding device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator and our approach to phishing-resistant authentication, we are currently implementing Microsoft Entra ID certificate-based authentication. Adding a strong form of MFA is important as we found it to be the most cost-effective way. While other solutions might be equally or more secure, they are significantly more expensive. Having worked as an IT consultant mainly with the Microsoft stack across various industries, I have experience with different identity management solutions. Microsoft Entra ID remains the best option. The major advantages when comparing it to Okta include integration with Defender products, Defender for Identities' integration with conditional access policies, and insider threat management integration for blocking sign-ins based on risk factors. The enhancement of Microsoft Entra ID's implementation is relatively straightforward. My main concern is the occasional lack of documentation and the frequency of changes, which can make feature location challenging.

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Oksana Kosukhina.

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I have found most valuable is its authentication security. That is Azure Active Directory's purpose - making cloud services' security and integration easier."

"We have about 80 users in the Azure Active Directory right now, however, we know that if it was necessary to scale it for hundreds or thousands of users, it wouldn't be a problem."

"A use case that we did for an end user in a manufacturing organization: We used WVD with biometric authentication because 1,500 processes need to happen in a process. The user didn't want to use a login using their credentials. They wanted to use fingerprinting or tap their ID. That is where we integrated with the authentication. Now, they can process in a couple of hours, and they run those 1,500 processes every day. This changed their login process, which improved the manufacturing process. This helped a lot for their high deployment."

"After implementing Microsoft Entra ID, secure access to apps has become seamless."

"The most valuable feature is Identity and Access Management. As an IT administrator, this feature allows me to manage access for users and groups."

"I saw the benefits of Microsoft Entra ID immediately after I started using it."

"Many of its features are valuable, including: facilitating application authentication, privileged access management, processes for attestation, and access reviews."

"It has things like conditional access. For example, if someone is accessing sensitive information, then we could force them to do multi-factor authentication. Therefore, we can stop access if it is coming from a location that we did not expect."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

"The main Microsoft feature is that it offers common integration of services, of data, of identity, meaning user accounts, user access, and privileged access."

"We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution."

"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 platform has significantly enhanced our operational insight into the overall Microsoft 365 environment."

Cons

"In the compliance area, the granulation of access to storage accounts or Kubernetes could be improved."

"The visibility in the GUI is not good for management. There are a lot of improvements that could make it better. It should be more user-friendly overall. It is not user-friendly because everything keeps changing on the platform. I can understand it because I know the platform, am familiar with it, and use it every day. However, for a lot of clients, they don't use it every day or are not familiar with it, so it should be more user friendly."

"Entra could be improved by enhancing self-service options for end users, such as making password reset options more accessible. This would simplify the user experience for end users."

"Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by having more resources for learning how to best use the tool and understanding best use case scenarios. The learning curve is challenging, so I would appreciate seeing a training portal that is easier to use."

"I believe that Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by adding more granularity in options within Conditional Access specifically, because there are certain scenarios that we cannot address due to insufficient options to set up those rules."

"The ability to manage and authenticate against on-premises solutions would be beneficial."

"The solution has not saved costs. While we’ve eliminated some tools, there are some other features that we are dependent on as admin, which are not yet integrated with Azure AD."

"Initially, we wanted to exclude specific users from MSA. So, we had a condition policy, which forces MSA for all the users. So we wanted to exclude users who are using an NPS extension. So it was not listed, as a NPS extension was not listed outside an application, in actual, so, we go back and were not able to exclude users using NPS extension from MSA. So that was one limitation that we found and we had to work around that."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

"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."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think we're on the E3 — I think it was about 35 dollars per user."

"This product is sold as part of the enterprise package and our licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"We pay about $35 per user."

"The product's price is in the midrange."

"We pay a yearly license. Licenses are very expensive."

"Pricing could always be better. You pay the premium for Microsoft. Sometimes, it is worth it, and at other times, you wish to have more licensing options, especially for smaller companies."

"We are working with the Premium P2 licenses, which are reasonable. If you invest in the on-premises environment setup, then it costs so much. However, on-prem AD gives you the ability to manage your organization in a very organized manner, where you can create a group policy."

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis and the cost depends on the number of users."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	85
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	155

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID is that it is decent.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?

I think Microsoft Entra ID could be improved by assigning permissions to nested groups in the next release.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Audit?

I'm not aware of the pricing of licensing terms.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Audit?

We are still in the early stages of leveraging Microsoft Purview Audit. Currently, it's primarily used for the audit function. In a year's time, we will be able to provide more clarity and context ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Audit?

Microsoft Purview Audit functions as a compliance center. Whenever these systems generate logs, we use Microsoft Purview Audit to capture or retrieve those logs. While there are more tools availabl...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

Okta Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

Sumo Logic Security vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 9% of the time

SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 8% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 7% of the time

Splunk Cloud Platform vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Purview Audit Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

January 2026

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Buyer's Guide

Log Management

January 2026

Download Microsoft Purview Audit product report

Also Known As

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

Microsoft

Overview

Microsoft Entra ID is an advanced identity and access management service offering seamless single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and centralized user access across applications, enhancing security and efficiency for organizations transitioning to cloud-based environments.

Recognized for its centralized management, Microsoft Entra ID significantly boosts organizational security by integrating features such as conditional access and identity protection. It supports a wide array of applications, facilitating a secure transition from on-premises to scalable cloud environments. By adopting robust security measures and flexible identity management, organizations can streamline operations and ensure consistent user experiences. However, challenges like confusing licensing costs, outdated documentation, and limited integration with non-Microsoft applications persist. Enhancements in technical support, interface design, and more granular permissions are needed to address these issues effectively.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Seamless Single Sign-On: Allows users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials.
Multifactor Authentication: Adds an extra layer of security by requiring multiple forms of verification.
Conditional Access: Provides adaptive policies to ensure the right access under the right conditions.
Identity Protection: Detects and responds to potential vulnerabilities and threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Controls and monitors access to critical resources.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Entra ID?

Enhanced Security: Protects against unauthorized access and data breaches.
Operational Efficiency: Centralizes identity management to reduce administrative tasks.
Scalability: Supports growth by accommodating evolving IT environments.
Cost Management: Facilitates cost control through centralized systems and automated processes.

In healthcare, Microsoft Entra ID facilitates secure patient record access and compliance with industry regulations. Financial institutions rely on it for robust security measures in safeguarding client data. In the education sector, it streamlines access to online resources for students and faculty. Global enterprises benefit from its ability to manage complex identity frameworks across multiple regions, ensuring reliable security amidst increasing cyber threats.

Microsoft

The unified auditing functionality in Microsoft 365 provides organizations with visibility into many types of audited activities across many different services in Microsoft 365. Advanced Audit helps organizations to conduct forensic and compliance investigations by increasing audit log retention required to conduct an investigation, providing access to crucial events that help determine scope of compromise, and faster access to Office 365 Management Activity API.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Purview Audit

December 2025

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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Purview Audit and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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