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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
7.5
Microsoft Defender boosts productivity and security, integrating seamlessly with Office tools for significant budget savings despite ROI challenges.
Sentiment score
6.7
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.
It is pretty good because it offers various features such as Exchange, OfficeSuite, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
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
5.2
Users have mixed reviews of Microsoft Defender's support, noting contact difficulties and inconsistent technical assistance despite good onboarding.
Sentiment score
5.1
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Microsoft Defender for Business is scalable and effective across diverse environments, though special configurations might impact growth speed.
Sentiment score
7.6
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
7.3
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.
The package with Business Premium is good for what you get for the price.
 

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.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Busi...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (19th)
Microsoft Purview Data Loss...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Business is 3.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Roby Skariah - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation has given us consistent analytics and improved quality of insights into user activity
One of the valuable features of Purview is the ability to create a legal hold on a user's account within the compliance portal. That's pretty useful when it comes to any litigation or if you want to redeem the content within a mailbox, OneDrive, or a generic public SharePoint site. If you want to retain the user's data until the case is resolved, you can use the legal hold feature. Also, it's important that Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices. With smartphone involvement, so many applications can now be accessed through them and it is important to apply Purview across operating systems and platforms. Purview's natively integrated compliance across Azure Dynamics and Office 365 is also significant because within Microsoft 365 there are multiple applications. Irrespective of whether it's Dynamics or Azure, it's very important that it has native support. The data connectivity should be efficient enough to support and secure their own platform's data. In addition, with varying regulations in different industries and matters, Purview lets you create rules and conditions based on industry standards around the world. That is important. Our company is in pharmaceuticals and the rules and conditions are different from other industries. It is important to be able to keep track of all these regulations and have a tool that is flexible enough to create the regulatory rules and conditions we need. And when it comes to data loss protection, Purview has features that can recognize patterns and detect any sort of data loss, where the data is being transferred from its platform to a different one. The default settings that come with it are pretty nice for identifying data transfer or data loss across the platform. It also comes with a lot of training materials, with use cases and examples, to help educate users and make them familiar with the tool.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 improve by offering more of their offerings available in the basic tenants since not everyone has a budget for higher-level licenses, but everyone needs securi...
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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.