Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comparison

Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,445 peers since 2012

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

6.7

Microsoft Defender XDR provides high ROI by consolidating security tools, streamlining operations, and enhancing security, despite licensing costs.

Sentiment score

7.7

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery boosts ROI by improving data efficiency, compliance, risk management, and reducing legal and IT workloads.

We can quarantine and isolate a device within minutes.

Information Security Analyst at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

Microsoft Defender XDR has saved me at least 50% of my time.

Kunle Oluwadiya

House security operator at Cypress Creek Renewables

Ever since we turned on the M5 feature set back in June, we have seen a reduced number of potentially malicious clicks and faster alerting when incidents occur.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

John Alvis

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.2

Microsoft Defender XDR's support is timely and responsive, yet smaller organizations experience slower, less effective assistance than larger ones.

Sentiment score

7.6

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is praised for responsive support, despite some mixed experiences with wait times and outcomes.

You get stuck in low-level support for way longer than you should, instead of them escalating the issue up the chain.

Darrell Carr

Enterprise Application Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's critical to escalate SEV B issues immediately to a domestic engineer.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Infrastructure engineer at Cetera Financial Group

Once issues are escalated to the second or third layer, the support is much better.

Ankit-Joshi

Cyber Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1-10 employees

I would rate Microsoft Purview eDiscovery's customer service and technical support a ten.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Microsoft Defender XDR scales well for various organizations, efficiently supporting growth and flexibility despite some network deployment challenges.

Sentiment score

7.9

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is scalable and efficient, seamlessly integrating with cloud infrastructures but lacks some search functions.

Microsoft Defender XDR shows tremendous scalability, much more so than on-premises solutions.

Infrastructure engineer at Cetera Financial Group

Microsoft Defender XDR scales pretty well.

Information Security Analyst at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

It is suitable for enterprise-level deployment but has room for improvement.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Security manager at Accenture

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.0

Microsoft Defender XDR is praised for high stability, reliable performance, minimal issues, frequent updates, and prompt issue resolution.

Sentiment score

8.6

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is generally stable, with minor slowdowns, but users seek more transparency on performance issues.

The service has remained consistently online, with any issues isolated to specific components, suggesting a well-designed and modular architecture.

Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The services within our ecosystem have been reliable, meeting their SLAs.

Infrastructure engineer at Cetera Financial Group

It provides high-fidelity signals.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Information Security Analyst at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

For us, it has been one hundred percent reliable.

John Alvis

Manager, Information Technology Operations & Security at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is highly reliable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

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

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender XDR requires enhancements in speed, integration, automation, AI, ease-of-use, and industry-specific threat intelligence.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery needs faster, more efficient features, better integration, NLP for queries, and affordable pricing for users.

The licensing process needs improvement and clarification.

reviewer2595324

Owner at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Improvements are needed in automated response capabilities.

Security manager at Accenture

Some inconsistencies exist between blades, which could be improved for a more seamless user and UI experience.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Infrastructure engineer at Cetera Financial Group

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

Is admin at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender XDR pricing is seen as complex but fair, with high costs alleviated in bundled Microsoft 365 packages.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery pricing is complex, with E5 costly yet beneficial, while E3 is cheaper but limited.

There are certainly savings when using Microsoft Defender XDR, which can range from 30%, 40%, and even up to 50%.

Clay Bowlin

Director, Sales at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

I would rate the pricing as eight out of ten, indicating it is a reasonable cost for the product.

Security manager at Accenture

Microsoft purposefully obfuscates this through marketing ploys to hide costs.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Senior System Engineer at a sports company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

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.

Michael Bollhoefer

Deveoper Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender XDR integrates tools for comprehensive security, offering threat detection, automation, identity protection, and enhanced efficiency.

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery ensures efficient data retrieval with multi-platform integration, automation, compliance visibility, and adherence to global data privacy laws.

With Microsoft threat intelligence information, it detects various types of threats, including insider attacks, malicious content, and data exfiltration.

Security manager at Accenture

This allows us to secure our systems in advance and proactively improve security, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.

A Roy

Works at Hometrack

Once we have it on the security dashboard, we can see a real-time storyline.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Defender XDR report

Information Security Analyst at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Purview eDiscovery report

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.

Michael Bollhoefer

Deveoper Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender XDR

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

5th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (2nd)

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

eDiscovery (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.5%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender XDR	6.5%
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery	1.1%
Other	92.4%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

MohtesanShaikh

Business Development Executive at TechnoFirrm

Experience improves security management and simplifies threat protection

I have created automated investigations, and while they work, they operate rather slowly in the Microsoft portal. If I automate something, it takes considerable time; if I do it manually, I can complete it in a quarter of the time. The automation response being slow is the main concern; when an incident occurs or if I run a remediation, it takes significant time to complete the remediation. There are some limitations regarding the scalability of Microsoft Defender XDR with specific licensing. For SMB customers, there is only Microsoft Defender for Business, and if they want more features such as XDR features and automation investigation or incident response, they need to purchase Defender for Endpoint. We are currently using the EDR.

Read full review

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

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

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

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	37

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Defender?

Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Defender?

The pricing for Microsoft Sentinel operates on a pay-as-you-go model based on data ingestion. I recall that Defender XDR pricing is based on the number of endpoints.

What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?

For Microsoft Defender XDR ( /categories/extended-detection-and-response-xdr ), there is currently no ability to reset passwords for on-premises accounts, which is a key challenge. Incident managem...

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...

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...

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Comparisons

Compared 11% of the time

Wazuh vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 9% of the time

Trend Vision One vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager vs Microsoft Defender XDR

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Defender XDR Competitors

Google Vault vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 35% of the time

Relativity vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 10% of the time

Exterro vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 7% of the time

Veritas Enterprise Vault.cloud vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 6% of the time

Varonis Platform vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery Competitors

Product Reports

Download Microsoft Defender XDR product report

Microsoft Defender XDR

August 2025

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

August 2025

Download Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product report

Also Known As

Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Threat Protection, MS 365 Defender

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Defender XDR is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect against threats in the Microsoft 365 environment.

It offers robust security measures, comprehensive threat detection capabilities, and an efficient incident response system. With seamless integration with other Microsoft products and a user-friendly interface, it simplifies security management tasks.

Users have found it effective in detecting and preventing various types of attacks, such as phishing attempts, malware infections, and data breaches.

Watch the Microsoft demo video here: Microsoft Defender XDR demo video.

Microsoft

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

Sample Customers

Accenture, Deloitte, ExxonMobil, General Electric, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and many others.

Information Not Available