Google Vault vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comparison

Google and Microsoft are both solutions in the eDiscovery category. Google is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8. Google holds a 7.5% mindshare in eD, compared to Microsoft’s 15.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Google Vault

Read 13 Google Vault reviews

1,913 Views
1,703 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Read 8 Microsoft Purview eDiscovery reviews

2,449 Views
1,788 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Google Vault

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

Google Vault and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery compete in enterprise information governance. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery often has the upper hand due to its advanced features, making it a valuable investment.

Features: Google Vault integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem and offers basic archiving capabilities. While Microsoft Purview eDiscovery provides comprehensive legal hold functionality, advanced search options and analytics for in-depth data management.

Room for Improvement: Google Vault users note limitations in complex search functionalities, reporting capabilities, and features offered. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is often criticized for the complexity of navigating its extensive features, which may overwhelm new users, potential usability enhancements and simplified interface needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Vault is known for easy setup, swift deployment in the Google workspace, and straightforward customer service. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, although requiring a steeper learning curve initially, benefits from strong technical support and provides long-term value once integrated.

Pricing and ROI: Google Vault often has a lower initial setup cost, appealing for basic functionalities. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is more expensive yet known for better ROI due to its advanced capabilities and suitability for robust enterprise-grade needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Vault vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Vault vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

November 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 873,585 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:

Categories and Ranking

Google Vault

Ranking in eDiscovery

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (5th)

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

Ranking in eDiscovery

2nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (25th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the eDiscovery category, the mindshare of Google Vault is 7.5%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 15.1%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

eDiscovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Google Vault	7.5%
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery	15.1%
Other	77.4%

eDiscovery

Featured Reviews

Rahul Gill

GWS/M365 Consultant at ATOS

Has supported data retention and export tasks while leaving room for greater automation and feature expansion

If we can have more APIs open for Google Vault, that would be great, and instead of doing it manually, it would be better to do it programmatically. I think there is an API available with Google Vault, though I'm not certain about it. I have never used Vault programmatically, but if APIs exist, then it's beneficial, and if there aren't any, we should have the capability for programmers to create some sort of scripting so they can fetch the data. I assess the export feature in Google Vault in terms of ease and efficiency as quite efficient because most of the data we want to see is available in MBOX and PST formats. If possible, I would want to see Google Vault support additional formats such as iCal, iCad, or CardDAV, which are for iPhone users.

Read full review

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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The audit part of the tool is the most useful for me."

"What I appreciate about Google Vault is that one of the best features is the ability to use retention policies; it covers mail, chat groups, calendars, sites, Drive, and Google Voice, and the data will remain in Google Vault even if it gets deleted by the user accidentally or intentionally."

"Data retention is very valuable to us."

"Search feature is valuable for our customers."

"The most valuable features are automatic document and email retention."

"Google Vault acts as a great method for retrieving files from Google Drive and Gmail."

"Google Vault is a solution we can use for the data export of end-users."

More Google Vault pros

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The ability to query everything that's in Microsoft and send links or add people, like managers, to review the documents is valuable. It's easy as I don't have to download and email anything. I just add them as a reviewer, and they can access it from there."

"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

Cons

"The knowledge base is not as in-depth as it should be."

"One thing I've noticed is that it splits the data files into multiple parts, like the PFT files. For example, when there is a large data size of any account, the backup process splits it into many files. This can be confusing and not very efficient when trying to manage the backups."

"My personal opinion is that Google Vault could improve if they could have a similar version to Microsoft 365 where you can have an eDiscovery manager account. With this, you can separate a regular person from an organization and just transfer the specific files."

"So, when doing a search, perhaps in some instances when you use terms, the information is not very precise in the sense that I'm not getting what I'm looking for. And in some instances, the information, not all the time, but in some instances, it might not be accurate. For example, when doing a search, if you use too many terms, it might not return any results."

"Although it does a good job of searching through data and exporting it, I feel that Google Vault should have more export options available to the user. As a reseller, our customers demand a lot from their Google products, and exporting is one area where there's a lot of improvement needed."

"Google Vault needs to improve its data export timing because sometimes, it takes a very long time to export the data."

"Compared to Microsoft, they have more features in terms of compliance and retention policies."

"For us, customer service has been a bit lacking, probably with a rating of a five out of ten."

More Google Vault cons

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

"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. 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."

"Purview eDiscovery works, but it's not entirely perfect. There were times when search results would get hung up or error codes would be presented and we'd have to contact Microsoft to get that sorted out."

"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."

"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users. We still need all the backend stuff. We have to use Graph API to interface with everything and create custom interfaces on the front end to make it easier for the end users, which is costly. The reporting, sorting, and filtering capabilities that other products have aren't available natively in Purview."

"I would suggest adding more platforms."

"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."

More Microsoft Purview eDiscovery cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Google Vault is a cheaply priced product. Monthly payments are to be made towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no extra costs apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution."

"Last year, the price was randomly increased and our customers were really facing a challenge around this. Google launched new pricing under different plans, where formerly there were only three plans, and now there are four, each with their own separate usage allowances. I think it's good, though. The basic plan is now the Business Starter plan, and many customers find this plan very convenient and minimal in price. Overall, the pricing for all the plans is good."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing is fairly cheap."

"Google Vault comes as part of a package deal for us."

"If you have Google Enterprise, then Google Vault is free to use."

"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."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	3

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Vault?

It is a very stable solution...It is a very scalable solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Vault?

There is no setup cost; it's only the pricing which one needs to pay upon subscribing to Google Vault services.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Vault?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Vault

November 2025

Download Google Vault product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

October 2025

Download Microsoft Purview eDiscovery product report

Overview

Google Vault lets you retain, hold, search, and export data to support your organization’s archiving and eDiscovery needs. Vault supports:

Email messages
Chats in classic Hangouts with history turned on and Google Talk chats that are on the record
Google Groups
Files in Google Drive and Team Drives
Conversations in Hangouts Chat

Vault is entirely web-based, so there's no need to install or maintain any software. Vault is included with G Suite Enterprise, Business, Education, or Drive Enterprise edition. (Compare editions) Or you can buy Vault licenses for an additional $5 per user, per month.

Google

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

Broadcom, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Globeflight, Maven Wave, McClatchy, NII Holdings, Safetec, Sheboygan County

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Google Vault vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

November 2025

Free Report: Google Vault vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

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