Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comparison

Microsoft Defender XDR vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

December 2025

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Helped 880,901 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

7.1

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.

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

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

It helped stop multiple intrusion points where we would have had millions in lost revenue if the attackers got in.

Joshua Hart

Network Technician at T. Baker Smith, LLC

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

6.1

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

6.9

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.

My concern is about the scale of events and alerts being generated, and the product is doing a very good job of only surfacing the important items for us.

reviewer2315544

Vice President, Information Technology at a construction company with 201-500 employees

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.

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

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

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

8.1

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.

Soumitra_Chakraborty

Security manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

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.

Soumitra_Chakraborty

Security manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

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.

reviewer2596452

Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead Developer 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.

Soumitra_Chakraborty

Security manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

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.

reviewer2596452

Enterprise Content Mamagement Lead Developer 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

106

Ranking in other categories

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (7th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (4th)

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

22nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

eDiscovery (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender XDR is 6.3%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 1.5%, up from 0.6% 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	6.3%
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery	1.5%
Other	92.2%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Kunle Oluwadiya

House security operator at Cypress Creek Renewables

Advanced threat hunting saves significant time in tracking and responding to incidents

Microsoft Defender XDR could be improved with a lower price. My main suggestion would essentially be what Copilot is providing, which is a single pane of glass, so I don't have to go to different windows. That's just a workflow consideration for me. It would be great to have all the information centralized into one particular data app. If I need to open up extra ones, I can, however, I would appreciate a future where everything I need is right there on one single pane of glass. Beyond that, there's really nothing else I see that I would want Microsoft to improve.

Read full review

Has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests

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

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.

Read full review

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880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	47
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	38

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?

My experience with pricing, setup, costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender XDR is tied to our E5 subscription, which is very straightforward for us. We also purchase the uplift for our mobile us...

What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Defender?

I am not aware of a mobile app that would be available for my team. With a single analyst, if she is ever away, it would be beneficial to have easier access. While she can use the web portal, the e...

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.

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Product Reports

Download Microsoft Defender XDR product report

Microsoft Defender XDR

January 2026

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

January 2026

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