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Microsoft Purview Data Governance 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Purview Data Gove...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (1st)
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 Purview Data Governance is 4.4%, down from 4.6% 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 Purview Data Governance4.4%
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management2.2%
Other93.4%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

AS
Tech lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated data discovery has streamlined management while configuration remains complex
Compared to Big-ID, Microsoft Purview Data Governance looks complicated to me. I do not feel it has a good user-level UI. The interface feels a little complicated compared to Big-ID. I did not appreciate the configuration part. It felt complex, whereas when I went for a Big-ID demo, the interface looked better and was easier to understand for any user.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important aspect is our vision to create a data marketplace and Data Governance policies."
"I like Purview's data discovery features. It automatically scans and identifies all the fields. In the last project, the customer required us to have some of the codes we specified in this, and we had to structure the codes in a specific way. We can define the structure."
"Has a good interface and is reasonably priced."
"Purview helped us automate and control our data without having to rely on people to manually tag documents with specific retention periods."
"Overall, Purview is a fantastic tool for staying on top of compliance, knowing where your data is and what data you hold."
"It's certainly easy to work with all Microsoft data sources like SQL Server, Synapse, and data lakes, but it also has great functionality working with Oracle. And of particular interest to us is the ability to pull data from Excel, CVS files, and other types of flat files."
"One important feature is data security, which both end users and the organization seek."
"Purview helps mitigate risk and allows us to govern the information being shared among apps and devices."
"Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management was helpful in performing investigations after alerts were received."
"An example of how these features from Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management have benefited my organization is that we recently discovered a foreign actor, someone from North Korea took a job at our company and was pretending to be an employee, and with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, they notified us of that problem and we were able to remediate the fact that we had a North Korean spy working for us."
"The scoring mechanism is exceptional because it eliminates the need to reinvent criteria for identifying risks, misconfigurations, or vulnerabilities."
"The best thing about Purview is that it's easy to integrate with our day-to-day environment. We have Active Directory, and Word and Excel. Using a third-party vendor and trying to integrate with our existing environment would be much more challenging."
"Insider Risk Management's graphing is highly specific and useful. You can see the last six months of data for the Microsoft tenant. You can easily find what you need. For example, you can filter for alerts about devices, emails, etc."
"Instead of having multiple vendors' solutions, I can install Purview, or I can enhance the features in Purview to make my life easier, and it can be managed through a single portal."
 

Cons

"There should be more clarity about the costing, particularly how the cost is calculated, especially when utilizing health reports and quality features."
"While Microsoft Purview currently allows weekly scans for data sources, this limitation hinders the usefulness of the tool for frequently changing data."
"I lose a little bit of that control when we're talking about third-party connectors. Compliance-wise, I would like to see more ability to audit from a user perspective, where I could extrapolate what the user was thinking or trying to do."
"Overcoming certain control issues would significantly enhance our overall satisfaction."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to Purview's data connector platform in supporting ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources."
"There are some non-Microsoft file formats that are not supported."
"The Microsoft Purview data connector platform, which supports ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, can be somewhat complex."
"The features in the actual data governance could be improved, and I think there is room for improvement in the product."
"For certain things, you need to install an agent. I understand it's for integrity, but if there could be a clientless solution for certain aspects, it would make life easier."
"The user interface also isn't user-friendly. When we introduce Insider Risk Management to our clients, they often find it difficult to understand. There is too much information, and the UI is not scalable. Also, entry-level IT technicians are not always interested in learning something new. It should be clearer and easier to understand."
"My experience with the deployment of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management was a fifty-fifty situation because we have a very diverse network, and not all of it is on Microsoft products."
"For certain things, you need to install an agent; installing an agent on the client workstation is a headache and whenever a new client comes in, you need to install an agent on it, which is an added task for IT."
"The reporting capabilities sometimes leave a little to be desired. It could be improved in terms of producing reports to provide information to the C-suite or others."
"Microsoft's pricing is very expensive. The Business Premium offering should be extended to enterprise customers, as it's currently limited to 300 users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Some people find the tier licensing system complicated, but it offers a lot of value for money if we use the features."
"While Purview's standard pricing might not be accessible to most small businesses, we were fortunate to benefit from the educational pricing which made it a financially viable option for our needs."
"Microsoft Purview has a pay-per-use pricing model, so it's one of the most cost-effective tools, as your cost will be based on your usage. It's a pricing model that Microsoft has nailed down, making it great whether you're a small organization or a multinational, giant organization."
"Purview is included in our Microsoft E5 licensing."
"The categorization within the licensing could be improved. There are a lot of solutions within Microsoft Purview. If the licensing could be a bit clearer and the solutions could be better categorized according to function and across multiple environments, that would be excellent. The licensing is very confusing."
"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is not cheap."
"The pricing is decent. It is neither too low nor too high. Given its capabilities, the pricing is justified."
"Purview's price is pretty high when you factor in storage costs."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise32
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Purview?
Microsoft Purview Data Governance is quite affordable compared to other market solutions, which have high initial costs. It allows for a cost-effective start with negligible initial cost. However, ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Purview?
The features in the actual data governance could be improved, and I think there is room for improvement in the product. We haven't used role-based access control in a complex way; it's somehow embe...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure Purview?
We are currently working with Microsoft Purview Data Governance and other Microsoft products. We are using Microsoft Purview Data Governance.
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

Microsoft Purview, MS Azure Purview
Microsoft Insider Risk Management
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.