Microsoft Purview eDiscovery vs Smarsh Enterprise Platform comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and Smarsh are both solutions in the eDiscovery category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8, while Smarsh is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 4.1% mindshare in eD, compared to Smarsh’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Smarsh users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Read 8 Microsoft Purview eDiscovery reviews

3,824 Views
2,333 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Smarsh Enterprise Platform

Read 1 Smarsh Enterprise Platform review

1,365 Views
1,365 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Smarsh Enterprise Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

Smarsh Enterprise Platform and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery compete in compliance and risk management. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is noted for its comprehensive feature set, which justifies its cost.

Features: Smarsh captures and archives communication across various channels, ensuring compliance in regulatory environments. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery focuses on data collection, processing, and analysis, providing robust tools for legal and compliance tasks. Smarsh emphasizes extensive communication capture, while Purview offers advanced analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Smarsh offers an intuitive deployment process with dedicated customer support during onboarding. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery facilitates streamlined integration with other Microsoft services, benefiting existing Microsoft users. Smarsh is recognized for personalized assistance, and Purview's strength is its compatibility within Microsoft environments.

Pricing and ROI: Smarsh's competitive pricing yields a quick return on investment for organizations focused on communication compliance without extensive analytics. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, despite higher setup costs, provides substantial value for comprehensive eDiscovery solutions. Smarsh focuses on cost-effectiveness, while Purview offers justified advanced features at a premium.

To learn more, read our detailed eDiscovery Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

eDiscovery

October 2026

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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 eDiscovery

Ranking in eDiscovery

1st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (21st)

Smarsh Enterprise Platform

Ranking in eDiscovery

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the eDiscovery category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 4.1%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smarsh Enterprise Platform is 4.2%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

eDiscovery Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery	4.1%
Smarsh Enterprise Platform	4.2%
Other	91.7%

eDiscovery

Featured Reviews

Frank Radeck

Director, IT Infrastructure & Cloud Technology at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees

Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented the solution now take just 30 minutes.

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. It is critical for Purview to be able to connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices and data in other SaaS apps. From a support perspective, I can do things while I'm eating lunch or something else. It's more dynamic and responsive. I think everybody appreciates it. We're not tied to one device. Purview's multi-cloud capabilities are also essential for the same reasons. Keeping everything under one umbrella further increases the time savings. Purview accounts for critical regulations from around the world. This is crucial because we hold ourselves accountable to standards and need to align with them. Working at a law firm, we have clients who dictate to us what standards they expect. The visibility is excellent. As we move more things into the cloud, more opportunities exist to put everything under one umbrella.

Read full review

reviewer2902509

Managing Director at a hospitality company with 11-50 employees

Compliance monitoring has created a trustworthy, well-documented record of all team communications

I think Smarsh Enterprise Platform's WhatsApp capture solution still needs improvement; a big part of that is due to Meta's platform that puts many restrictions, but it is not as simple to set up and start using as the other tools. I understand this is something that Smarsh is pursuing to improve, and it is evolving over time. The issue is to develop something that the user finds frictionless; most tools are totally frictionless, and for example, the Teams solution is amazing because when they operate it, they see no difference at all before and after implementing the tool. It is fantastic and state of the art, but WhatsApp, unfortunately, is not the same experience due to Meta's restrictions.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Our legal team benefits from using Microsoft Purview eDiscovery."

"The return on investment is saving the equivalent of one or two full-time IT department employees and a few hours per week for legal staff."

"Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented Purview now take just 30 minutes."

"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."

"I think eDiscovery Premium has made dealing with data from Teams much more accessible than any other platform."

"The machine learning wasn't half bad. I really like that part. I thought it was novel. It pretty much automated it, once you trained the model."

"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."

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery pros

"In my opinion, the best features Smarsh Enterprise Platform offers are how really easy it is to set up and very fast to start using, along with being trustworthy."

Cons

"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users."

"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper."

"I would suggest adding more platforms. Currently, it's compatible with OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange. Adding more features, as Microsoft continues to expand their cloud offerings, would be beneficial. Exploring options like Azure Files might be an avenue for improvement."

"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."

"The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery cons

"I think Smarsh Enterprise Platform's WhatsApp capture solution still needs improvement; a big part of that is due to Meta's platform that puts many restrictions, but it is not as simple to set up and start using as the other tools."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The costs associated with E5 licensing are currently expensive for us, so we use the E3 license, which comes with fewer features and functionalities."

"With the full bundle, pricing is not a significant concern. As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile."

"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."

"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."

"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Healthcare Company

Hospitality Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Smarsh Enterprise Platform?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been standard cost; I always use Microsoft because it is the best solution for me, and I trust them—they work properly. My whole system is ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Smarsh Enterprise Platform?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Smarsh Enterprise Platform?

My main use case for Smarsh Enterprise Platform is teams capture, recording, and archiving, which is my most important feature, along with emails. It is important for compliance reasons to document...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

October 2026

Download Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product report

Buyer's Guide

eDiscovery

October 2026

Download Smarsh Enterprise Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Micro Focus eDiscovery, Autonomy eDiscovery, HPE Autonomy eDiscovery, HPE eDiscovery, Actiance

Overview

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery offers rapid search capabilities across multiple Microsoft platforms, supporting compliance with global regulations and improving data management efficiency for organizations.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery empowers organizations to perform rapid content searches across Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and mobile devices. It enables keyword-based searches and automates content logging and tagging, ensuring privacy law adherence. This tool is designed to enhance visibility and legal compliance, featuring extensive data protection, native integration with Microsoft's ecosystem, and ensuring efficiency for collecting electronically stored information.

What are the key features of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

Rapid Content Search: Enables efficient keyword-based searches across multiple Microsoft platforms.
Data Connectivity: Ensures seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Compliance Support: Provides features vital for adhering to global privacy regulations.
Automated Content Logging: Streamlines tagging processes to adhere to privacy laws.
Extensive Data Protection: Offers robust protection for sensitive information.

What benefits should users expect from Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

Increased Efficiency: Speeds up data retrieval and legal processing tasks.
Enhanced Compliance: Supports adherence to international regulations.
Improved Data Management: Streamlines the management of electronically stored information.
Time Savings: Reduces time spent on manual data searches and tagging.
Cost-effectiveness: Potential to lower overall compliance and data management costs.

Industries like legal services employ Microsoft Purview eDiscovery extensively for handling litigation requests and managing legal holds. This tool facilitates the retrieval and management of historical data, particularly during workforce transformations or information governance challenges, making it crucial for efficient eDiscovery workflows.

Microsoft

Smarsh Enterprise Platform provides a comprehensive digital communications compliance and archiving solution for financial organizations, ensuring secure, efficient data management and regulatory adherence across multiple channels.

Smarsh Enterprise Platform is designed to meet the challenges of modern communication compliance. By capturing, archiving, and facilitating the review of digital communications, it ensures compliance with industry regulations. The platform integrates with a wide range of communication channels, providing organizations with the tools they need for efficient data retrieval and risk management. This cloud-based solution offers scalability and security, making it suitable for enterprises of all sizes.

What Are the Key Features of Smarsh Enterprise Platform?

Cross-channel Capture: Supports the capture of communications across email, messaging, social media, and more.
Advanced Archiving: Robust storage solutions ensure secure and compliant data archiving.
Search and eDiscovery: Powerful search tools simplify the process of finding and retrieving data.
Compliance Assurance: Aligns with industry regulations to maintain compliant records.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with many business-critical applications.

What Benefits and ROI Can Be Expected?

Regulatory Compliance: Helps meet and maintain industry-required compliance standards.
Risk Mitigation: Reduces potential risks associated with unmanaged communications.
Operational Efficiency: Streamlines compliance processes to save time and resources.
Scalability and Flexibility: Adapts to the changing needs of growing organizations.

Industries like finance and legal are utilizing Smarsh Enterprise Platform to handle big data challenges and stringent regulatory frameworks. It enables these sectors to archive communications securely while maintaining accessibility and compliance with ease, allowing for a streamlined approach to data governance.

Smarsh

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Bank AlJazira, MTS India, Vodafone Ireland

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Commvault, Google and others in eDiscovery. Updated: October 2026.

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