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Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery 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 Life...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (9th), Document Management Software (2nd), Data Governance (27th)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 1.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery1.6%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management1.4%
Other97.0%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

RK
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A comprehensive data management solution shows potential for improvement while providing strong integration with existing infrastructure
One of the requirements is to have data leak policies and data access policies. This is very critical to enforce data governance standards, which relate to data classification, access control, data protection, and retention. It covers the entire lifecycle, helping us to protect, detect, and classify the documents. Challenges are mostly related to the security products onboarded into the bank; they have challenges in terms of those products complying with the internal standards. Sometimes, we cannot just use the DLP across the state. For example, using Microsoft products has been easy to adopt, such as OneDrive and SharePoint on-premise, but it becomes a challenge when it comes to AWS, as data also exists in S3 buckets. Testing is still ongoing, but it will eventually be done. The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges. These take time because we have high volume tickets in terms of connectivity, scanning failures, and related matters. There are also frequent change requests, especially regarding scoping or rescoping due to complexities, creating several challenges. In both organizations I work with, there are gaps, and there is no enterprise-wide data classification available. However, there are pockets of implementations for various products. Some agencies are using it, but otherwise, there's no product existing across the enterprise. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is definitely a good solution, but there is significant room for improvement from a product perspective. Reporting is another area that needs improvement.
John Alvis - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operations & Security at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
Enables us to guarantee that we followed the regulations
The ability to query everything that's in Microsoft and send links or add people, like managers, to review the documents is valuable. It's easy as I don't have to download and email anything. I just add them as a reviewer, and they can access it from there. Purview's inclusion of critical regulations is essential. Lawyers will ask how we gathered information. With Purview, we can guarantee that we've followed the regulations. The visibility into what's happening and who has access is great for legal matters and saves us a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The UI is the most valuable feature."
"Purview's built-in functionality provides immediate access to reports, streamlining the entire process."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"The automatic data labeling is compelling, and we are investigating its use."
"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."
"Purview eDiscovery has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests."
"Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented Purview now take just 30 minutes."
"The speed of it is valuable. I am able to search even 10,000 mailboxes for specific content. It helps search and accommodate the often limited information provided by users regarding what they need."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery has saved me personally a lot of time because I can query it, and it touches everything we have as a full Microsoft shop."
"The most valuable features are automatic content logging tagging. Performing these tasks manually would be impossible. Since most of our data is already in Microsoft, it's convenient to run it through this tool."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. It enables a streamlined, unified process for searching across these platforms."
"The tool has been beneficial. Some of our previous users left the organization without sharing the information they had at a personal level. This information was related to the organization, and they didn't disclose it. Thanks to the product, it's easy for me to search and find out what communication a specific user has done, whether it's from SharePoint or any other platform. With Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, we can easily retrieve and restore this data."
"The ability to query everything that's in Microsoft and send links or add people, like managers, to review the documents is valuable. It's easy as I don't have to download and email anything. I just add them as a reviewer, and they can access it from there."
 

Cons

"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper."
"We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders. It would be beneficial to have more options available for E3 customers. Enhanced Teams functionalities and better capture of text message data, both SMS and MMS, would also be improvements."
"We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders."
"It has been one of the most solid tools I have worked with. However, Purview Data Loss Protection for remediating policy violations needs refinement, for example, in defining what constitutes a credit card because that is where I get the most false positives."
"Purview eDiscovery works, but it's not entirely perfect. There were times when search results would get hung up or error codes would be presented and we'd have to contact Microsoft to get that sorted out."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users."
"I see two significant challenges with many of my clients. One is that there are some functionality gaps compared to specialized tools in the legal industry, like a legal hold tool or a document review tool. They have features that Purview eDiscovery lacks. Those gaps create a situation where I almost have to do things twice. I need to collect all my data in eDiscovery and ship it to another platform to complete the review."
"The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially. While there are options with dropdowns to select criteria, having a natural language feature would be beneficial. Copilot is expected to add such functionality in the future."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses."
"In the positions that I've had through contracting over the years, I've heard talk of it being overpriced and underperforming compared to its competitors."
"The costs associated with E5 licensing are currently expensive for us, so we use the E3 license, which comes with fewer features and functionalities."
"The pricing and licensing with Microsoft can be complex, and licensing is known to be a challenge because it changes frequently. While the licensing for Purview is not as tricky as other Microsoft products, navigating licenses since the shift to E3 and E5 plans has been a task, as individual licenses must now be purchased separately."
"With the full bundle, pricing is not a significant concern. As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
My major use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is for the classification of data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The setup process was very straightforward. We acquired pricing through our reseller in NASDAQ, eliminating the need to search for prices ourselves.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially. While there are options with dropdowns to select criteria, having a natural language feature would be benefici...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
I sometimes use it for legal holds or to find lost items, and to determine what is going on. However, most of the time, my use case is legal-related.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.