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Microsoft Defender for Business vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
6.8
Microsoft Defender boosts productivity and security, integrating seamlessly with Office tools for significant budget savings despite ROI challenges.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Purview DLP offers cost savings, security enhancements, and reduced onboarding time, though ROI varies among users.
Using Microsoft Defender for Business results in cost reductions as it consolidates various features under one product, saving around 20% to 30% of the budget.
The value I see in Microsoft Defender for Business is in its ability to track and respond to application usage and security threats through its CASB and automation features, which are cost-beneficial.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.5
Users have mixed reviews of Microsoft Defender's support, noting contact difficulties and inconsistent technical assistance despite good onboarding.
Sentiment score
5.0
Microsoft Purview DLP support is inconsistent, with quick responses and clear resources but also delays and monopolistic concerns.
It is rated ten out of ten for its quality and assistance.
The onboarding support is exceptional, ensuring seamless integration and implementation.
Faster support is needed for endpoint security solutions.
Once we got to the Microsoft engineers, the experience was great.
I have escalated questions to technical support and would rate the technical support as a five on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the best.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft Defender for Business is scalable and effective across diverse environments, though special configurations might impact growth speed.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention offers scalable, flexible cloud solutions, but needs improvements in user-friendliness and device-level scalability.
The cloud-based nature of the solution ensures high scalability.
The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Business is rated as ten, indicating it is very scalable.
In terms of scalability, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Business a ten.
The policy working and detection technology need enhancements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Business is stable and reliable, with minimal crashes, but some report occasional bugs impacting stability.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is highly stable, reliable, and responsive, though minor real-time issues and internal connection challenges exist.
No customer complaints about its functionality or reliability.
Although it generally works, there are occasional issues and errors that sometimes require a complete system format to rectify.
I would rate the stability of Microsoft Defender for Business with a three out of ten, where one is very bad.
Sometimes the solution is not stable when the internal connection is not reliable, so this aspect needs improvement.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Business needs better reporting, integration, simplified interface, and enhanced features to address various limitations and concerns.
Microsoft Purview DLP needs better integration, improved UI, enhanced AI features, cost-effective licensing, and better language support.
Microsoft should provide batch management solutions with the application, integrating pass management with roles.
Features related to Advanced Persistent Threat detection vectors and cyber kill chain integrations are not available out-of-the-box.
There can be improvements in the user interface to make it more intuitive.
Implementing a degree of severity ranking is essential.
Endpoint Data Loss Prevention needs to be improved as it is not up to expectations.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Business offers competitive pricing with enterprise value, though some users find costs high compared to competitors.
Microsoft Purview DLP in E5 licenses offers competitive pricing and flexible payment, valued for security features and added services.
Single-year pricing remains good.
The pricing is quite affordable at the enterprise level with no extra expenses noted.
Although the cost can be slightly higher, it expedites deployment, which is beneficial, especially for startups.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Business integrates seamlessly with Microsoft products, offering comprehensive security, scalability, and user-friendly features for effective threat management.
Microsoft Purview DLP enhances data security with auto-labeling, multi-cloud support, cross-platform protection, and strong compliance features.
The threat detection capabilities are robust, with a dedicated research team and a continuously updated threat feed.
Its vulnerability management is regarded as one of the best in the industry.
The most effective features of Microsoft Defender for Business include its threat detection and response capabilities in managing vulnerabilities and ransomware attacks.
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention usually performs well, except for endpoint Data Loss Prevention, which may need improvements.
The feature I find most valuable that I'm currently using is the quickness of the emails that the Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention solution sends to us, where we get notifications that say a user has potentially breached our data guideline rules, and we get those alerts continuously, allowing us to enforce them manually.
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention has helped to improve my organization's ability to discover sensitive data.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (19th)
Microsoft Purview Data Loss...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 3.4%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is 2.8%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Business3.4%
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention2.8%
Other93.8%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Takayuki-Umehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Product deployment protects assets but needs improvement in system support
I am doing maintenance for Microsoft Defender for Business, and I'm currently working with it. We don't need to use the latest version of Microsoft Defender for Business. We still use the latest virus definition file that Microsoft Defender for Business has automatically updated. We implement a basic update mechanism. Our compliance division manages how many servers and PCs we have and whether those servers have antivirus solutions. I am not certain about how Microsoft Defender for Business helps with AI-driven security strategies. I just use it normally and don't know if it uses AI technology. I rate Microsoft Defender for Business a six out of ten.
Bryan Sprowls - PeerSpot reviewer
An affordable and easily scalable tool that decreases the risk of data leakage in an organization
It is important to me that Purview delivers data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments. Otherwise, we would have to have multiple DLP solutions. It is very important to me that the solution was built taking into account critical regulations from around the world. It makes it easier to templatize deployments for data loss prevention. I use the tool for data loss protection. The tool works fairly well in remediating policy violations. There could be a little bit of improvement in policy tips. Policy tips aren't consistent across different experiences. The tool has greatly impacted the visibility of most of our customers. Some of our customers didn't realize they had a lot of PII data being sent externally until after the tool was implemented. Later, they become more aware. The solution enables us to show our compliance as close to real-time as possible. It has affected our meetings with compliance regulators. We don't save time and money directly. The tool saves us time and money by saving on fines for regulatory compliance violations. Without the solution, one of our customers would have been fined about $2,500,000. It is important to me that the product can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices, as well as data in other SaaS apps. It's not a complete solution unless it can be used everywhere. We are implementers. People evaluating the product must understand the types of data and the compliance models they must adhere to. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
6%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Business?
A few things are valuable. One is the alerting we see when any kind of intrusion is happening, any kind of malware is being deployed across the endpoints, or any kind of suspicious activity is goin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Business?
Our thoughts on the pricing for Microsoft Defender for Business are that we wish it could be better. If the pricing was a little better, we would definitely increase what we currently have.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Business?
Microsoft Defender for Business could be improved by making the advanced threat hunting available to all plans, as currently, it is only available to one of their plans which is not encouraging. It...
What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?
The most valuable features are identifying sensitive data and issuing alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is not something I manage directly since I'm the owner operator; my colleagues might be more involved with that aspect as we have other te...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?
Improving Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention would involve recognizing that the whole AI path we are all on is going to help, given the massive amount of data we handle; even if there are true ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention, MS Endpoint DLP, Microsoft Endpoint DLP
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.