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BigID Next vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 22, 2026

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

BigID Next
Ranking in Data Governance
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (13th), Data Privacy Management Software (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), AI Data Analysis (7th), Data Security Platforms (DSP) (1st)
Microsoft Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Data Governance
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (9th), Document Management Software (6th), Microsoft Security Suite (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of BigID Next is 4.2%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BigID Next4.2%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management1.2%
Other94.6%
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Aniruddha Nath - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Data discovery has transformed compliance workflows and automation now speeds up requests and remediation
The best feature that BigID offers is data discovery and classification, which is the most powerful engine. It allows connecting to many different data sources, ranging from cloud to on-premises to structured to unstructured data. If there is no connector available, you can build your own classifiers as well. Regarding the custom classifier option, you can build custom classifiers using regular expressions, and I have done that if you know how to create regular expressions. Custom connectors are something you create to connect to a database where the connector is not available. BigID has positively impacted my organization as it's a very powerful tool, especially with the increasing regulatory compliances for different countries such as GDPR, CCPA, and India's recent DPDPA act. Having these tools in place greatly helps organizations avoid any penal charges for not being compliant with the regulatory compliances. For example, regarding compliance or reduced risks for my clients, the DSAR process I was talking about allows organizations to respond quickly to user data deletion requests under GDPR law, which traditionally has a 30-day or 60-day timeline. In larger organizations, when the number of requests is high, it becomes tedious. However, using DSAR automation with BigID, it's almost instantaneous; instead of 30 days, you can respond in just one day to what users have requested.
ST
Ict Systems Manager at Lltnpa
Automated retention has transformed compliance workflows and now simplifies audit responses
The deep native integration with Microsoft 365 is what ultimately made me decide on Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management over Enterprise Vault and OpenText Content Manager. Auto-apply retention labels using machine learning is the specific integration with Microsoft 365 that made it the deciding factor for me over Enterprise Vault or OpenText. Manually labeling content at our data volumes is not realistic. The automated classification based on sensitive information types and trainable classifiers is what makes the program actually scale. That feature gets used constantly. We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. That shift from a compliance audit perspective is enormous.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BigID is more advanced than Microsoft Purview when it comes to machine learning and AI development tools."
"BigID has one of the best technical support teams."
"It provides a unified view across different databases and supports a wide range of data source types, including cloud and on-premises systems."
"BigID's scanning feature is its most valuable component."
"BigID integrates well with our other products."
"One of the most valuable things in a data-focused world is a tool, a technology that's data-centric, not trying to master data management or whatever else. It's a source of truth for what data an organization holds, giving it the ability to catalog, categorize, and understand its data."
"I like BigID's in-depth discovery and scanning capabilities, especially for unstructured data. This feature is a standout compared to competitors. The tool's data classification capabilities are impressive. It offers custom classifiers and a blend of regular exploration and artificial intelligence, making it a next-generation solution. This enhances data security, and its security posture management is straightforward and user-friendly."
"My experience with BigID has been very positive and memorable, as BigID is simple, straightforward, and reliable when it comes to data discovery and data scanning exercises."
"We went from inconsistent ad-hoc retention practices to a consistent, automated, documented program across the whole organization with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management."
"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management on my unified data catalog has improved a lot; the improvements I see are in the lineage, the discovery, and the labeling."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"I want them to focus on data mapping, assessment, automation workflow, and privacy incident management. The privacy tools have not been widely used, and they have not invested much in privacy code privacy tools."
"The challenge we encountered was with data connection across multiple databases. We struggled with configuring the data connection successfully. However, with the assistance of dynamic teams, we resolved this issue."
"The tool currently lacks security features."
"BigID's user interface was problematic as it was not very user-friendly, though I believe it improved over time."
"BigID needs improvement in terms of automation."
"One area where BigID can be improved is the UI, which has a lot of bugs."
"BigID is expensive. I prefer McAfee."
"Some users find catalog navigation challenging due to the lack of a search-by-column feature, which makes it difficult to locate specific data quickly."
"The initial setup took longer than we expected. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is not a turn-it-on-and-go product."
"I think labeling could use a lot more AI assistance. AI implementation into labeling would be beneficial."
"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends. If you have thousands of data sources to connect and manage, and you struggled with an MDM package in the past, you'll find BigID valuable and even cheap. But if you're a small business, it's probably not the right tool for you."
"The solution is not licensed per user but rather based on capacity. For instance, organizations with large amounts of data, such as 50 GB or more, are the ones that typically qualify for BigID."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product is expensive, but so are all competitor tools"
"I think that BigID's pricing is very reasonable."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BigID?
One improvement I would suggest is addressing the intermittent failures of BigID scans, as there are times when some errors occur. I think the BigID team is aware of this and works on resolving iss...
What is your primary use case for BigID?
BigID's main use case is connecting to various data sources to perform the data discovery process, classify the data within those systems, and identify sensitive information across various structur...
What advice do you have for others considering BigID?
I have covered information regarding data scanning, data classification, and the DSAR module, as these are the parts I have worked on, apart from developing custom connectors for a few data sources...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Better coverage outside Microsoft 365 is a feature I wish Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management had that it does not offer today. If I could change one thing about Microsoft Purview Data Life...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Automating retention and deletion across our Microsoft 365 environment is my main use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management. At Microsoft scale, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and T...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management implementation is very much a team-wide effort. The policies apply organization-wide across all Microsoft 365 users. The management side, configuring pol...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Home Depot, Grant Thornton LLP, Cimpress, Fidelity Investments
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BigID Next vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.