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Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery boosts ROI by improving data efficiency, compliance, risk management, and reducing legal and IT workloads.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Purview enhances protection, automates compliance, reduces response time, and supports growth, though exact savings are hard to quantify.
We have seen a 100% return on investment.
Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The ease of accessing necessary information promptly is the biggest return on investment.
Manager, Information Technology Operations & Security at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
It's hard to quantify the ROI in a dollar amount, but we realize value by doing more tasks in less time than we did before.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
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.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
The E5 license comes with different solutions like data discovery classification, CASB, DLP solutions, and Defender for Cloud.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is praised for responsive support, despite some mixed experiences with wait times and outcomes.
Sentiment score
4.0
Users experience inconsistent Microsoft Purview support, citing slow responses and unresolved issues, despite some improvements in visibility and engagement.
I would rate Microsoft Purview eDiscovery's customer service and technical support a ten.
Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
After our issues are reported, it takes a long time to find a resolution.
Director Security Architecture at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is scalable and efficient, seamlessly integrating with cloud infrastructures but lacks some search functions.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is praised for scalability despite some concerns with data analytics speed and policy update intervals.
It scales with us seamlessly.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
With the E3 licensing, I would rate the scalability of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery as a six because it lacks certain critical search functionalities.
Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
Information Technology Senior Expert at Garanti Teknoloji
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is generally stable, with minor slowdowns, but users seek more transparency on performance issues.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Purview is stable and reliable, with minor delays and occasional drawbacks, fostering user trust and wide deployment.
For us, it has been one hundred percent reliable.
Manager, Information Technology Operations & Security at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is highly reliable.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
The product is stable, and whatever it does, it does better than any other thing.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Since identity is where everything is based, if that goes down, you're screwed.
Director, Network & Cloud Infrastructure at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery needs faster, more efficient features, better integration, NLP for queries, and affordable pricing for users.
Microsoft Purview requires better integration, pricing, navigation, and feature enhancements to address user concerns about functionality and support.
Adding more features, as Microsoft continues to expand their cloud offerings, would be beneficial.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
Defining what constitutes a credit card because that is where I get the most false positives.
Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees
We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders.
Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Effectiveness in Microsoft Purview Information Protection means enforcing the policy and making sure it works consistently across non-Microsoft products as well.
Director Security Architecture at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
A lot of functionality in Microsoft Purview Information Protection is not exposed in an API officially yet, which has made a lot of implementation work difficult because we have to do click ops instead of DevOps.
CEO at Blue Cycle
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery pricing is complex, with E5 costly yet beneficial, while E3 is cheaper but limited.
Microsoft Purview offers competitive pricing, flexible enterprise licenses, and cost-effective bundled solutions, despite some complexity in licensing options.
With CSP or MCE-style agreements with Microsoft, the process is streamlined since we have reps from both Microsoft and CDW working together.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile.
Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The pricing and licensing with Microsoft can be complex, and licensing is known to be a challenge because it changes frequently.
Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead Developer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
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.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
Business Development Manager, Transformational Services at Dell Technologies
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery ensures efficient data retrieval with multi-platform integration, automation, compliance visibility, and adherence to global data privacy laws.
Microsoft Purview enhances data protection with encryption, automated labeling, and compliance, excelling in Microsoft ecosystem integration and management.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive.
Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, Android, and SaaS apps, which is critical for capturing SMS and MMS text message data.
Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Purview's inclusion of global regulations is critical because we're heavily regulated by FERC, Sarbanes-Oxley, and the SEC.
Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead Developer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
Business Development Manager, Transformational Services at Dell Technologies
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
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.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
 

Categories and Ranking

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)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (7th), Data Privacy Management Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Purview Information Protection1.8%
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery1.5%
Other96.7%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2595618 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests
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. It provides a solid starting point, and then we are able to refine the data from there. That has been very helpful because we do not always get enough information from our users to know what to look for. For example, a user is missing an email from x date but does not know anything else. In such a case, I give them a list of emails to look at so that they can tell me what they are missing. It is not a lack of the tool. It is more of a lack of the user providing info.
Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
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
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
In my experience with Microsoft Purview Information Protection, the experience of pricing, setup costs, and licensing is confusing, especially knowing what I have to do for add-ons with buying SCUs...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
I think the role of sensitivity labels in guiding AI interaction with Microsoft Purview Information Protection is pretty good, but for us, it's too general. It says, "Here's a dataset" and because ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
My main use case for Microsoft Purview Information Protection is sensitivity labeling, as I use it for exposing labeling for inside Teams and outside Teams.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.