Microsoft Purview eDiscovery vs Varonis Platform comparison

The compared Microsoft and Varonis solutions aren't in the same category. Microsoft is ranked #2 in eD , with an average rating of 7.6, and holds a 23.3% mindshare in the category. Varonis is ranked #9 in DLP , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Varonis users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Read 8 Microsoft Purview eDiscovery reviews

2,502 Views
1,801 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Varonis Platform

Read 14 Varonis Platform reviews

8,652 Views
1,990 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Varonis Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and Varonis Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

To learn more, read our detailed eDiscovery Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

eDiscovery

August 2025

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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

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

eDiscovery (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (26th)

Varonis Platform

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), Data Governance (4th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (11th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and Varonis Platform aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is designed for eDiscovery and holds a mindshare of 23.3%, up 21.6% compared to last year.
Varonis Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Data Loss Prevention (DLP), holds 5.9% mindshare, up 3.7% since last year.

eDiscovery

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

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.

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Herman Pienaar

Senior Security Consultant at Intalock Technologies

Has valuable data alerting capabilities and efficient reporting features

The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient. It provides good reporting and visualization, which is superior to previous tools like Microsoft's. The platform's data alerting capabilities and automation features for managing broken permissions are particularly notable. It offers robust automation capabilities, including global permission repair, broken access repairs, and data transport engine features for archiving and migration. The automation tools are useful for managing permissions and performing cleanup tasks efficiently. It provides strong reporting capabilities that help customers adhere to regulations and maintain compliance. Automating reporting is beneficial for maintaining robust governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) posture. It does incorporate some AI elements, particularly in its data alerting module. However, AI integration has yet to be the primary focus of my implementations. AI is expected to play a larger role in future enhancements. I recommend Varonis, particularly its effectiveness in performing data security remediation tasks. Despite its high cost, it is valuable for its capabilities and the lack of impact on end users. Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.

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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 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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery pros

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."

"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."

"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."

"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."

"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."

"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."

"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery should be cheaper."

"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."

"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."

"I would suggest adding more platforms."

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery cons

"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"There is one thing that if I add something manually, I get so many alerts. That's the biggest bad thing."

"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."

"It is significantly complex."

"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."

More Varonis Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."

"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."

"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."

"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?

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 th...

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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 do you like most about Varonis Platform?

The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?

Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?

The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Veritas Enterprise Vault.cloud vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 4% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform

Compared 20% of the time

Cyera vs Varonis Platform

Compared 11% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 5% of the time

More Varonis Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

August 2025

Download Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product report

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform

July 2025

Download Varonis Platform product report

Overview

Efficiently respond to legal matters or internal investigations with intelligent capabilities that reduce data to only what’s relevant. Discover data where it lives. Discover and collect data in place, within your Microsoft Purview boundary. Manage workflows efficiently. Streamline your eDiscovery process with an end-to-end workflow from one platform. Accelerate your process. Get insights quickly with built-in capabilities, reducing review time and costs.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Varonis Platform specializes in network security and data monitoring with modules for alerting, data classification, and access management, benefiting environments like Microsoft 365.

Varonis is designed to secure data by auditing and tracking data movement. It leverages data alert and classification modules to identify and manage sensitive information. The platform enhances network security by alerting users to unexpected data modifications and deletions, crucial for effective data loss prevention. It supports unstructured data management, ensuring proper data access and permission controls. Known for its 24/7 support, Varonis offers comprehensive analytics and unified reporting, helping prevent data overexposure and facilitating compliance efforts.

What are the key features of Varonis Platform?

24/7 Support: Provides round-the-clock assistance.
Data Monitoring: Tracks data activities efficiently.
Unified Reporting: Consolidates data access reports.
Data Classification: Identifies sensitive data effectively.
Permission Management: Simplifies managing access rights.
Behavior Analytics: Detects abnormal behavior patterns.

What benefits should be highlighted in user reviews?

Enhanced Security: Improves data protection measures.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting compliance standards.
Data Transparency: Offers clarity in data access activities.
Access Control: Ensures proper access to data.
Centralized Remediation: Eases remediation procedures.

Varonis Platform is widely utilized in industries needing stringent data confidentiality and management, such as finance and healthcare, for tracking data modifications and unauthorized access. Enterprises deploy it to manage permissions within large datasets, benefiting Microsoft 365 environments. While Varonis requires enhancements in cloud integration, the current deployment is often based on-premises, with attention to addressing the security needs and effective data handling for critical infrastructure.

Varonis

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Commvault and others in eDiscovery. Updated: August 2025.

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