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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager 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
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security, reduces costs by 35-45%, and improves uptime with efficient cloud application management.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager reduces costs by 50%, streamlines tasks, and is included in Office 365 E5 licensing.
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
As a small team, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps allowed us to manage systems with just one or two people.
We have at least saved the costs we had from the Netskope solution this year.
The process is reduced from weeks to a day, showcasing a solid nine for return on investment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support is generally good, but users suggest faster responses and improved communication.
Sentiment score
4.7
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager support faces mixed reviews, citing long resolution times and outsourced staff inefficiencies.
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
The support is excellent, and the speed of response is commendable.
There were instances where the engineers were knowledgeable and helpful, but at other times it felt like a ping pong game, with unnecessary transfers until the right person was found.
Since I approach them with more complicated issues, it takes quite a bit of time to get through those two support tiers.
The support staff, who are often outsourced, seem not adequately equipped to handle issues quickly and efficiently.
The quality of support is affected because most support staff seem focused on obtaining five-star ratings rather than resolving problems thoroughly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable security, efficiently managing large user bases and app integrations with centralized management.
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager excels in scalable deployment across environments but faces constraints in crafting detailed policies.
For what I know about the log collector and how much data it can take in, it is super scalable and capable of handling high workloads.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very scalable, provided you have the right subscription.
In my experience, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is good enough for small to medium businesses.
As services increase, eDiscovery capabilities also increase, allowing easy deployment.
It is straightforward since it scans everything, covering all aspects needed in our operations.
While the solution is scalable in terms of user numbers, there are limitations when creating more granular level policies.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is praised for high reliability, minimal downtime, consistent performance, and swift issue resolution.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is reliable but needs improved eDiscovery and search functionality despite regular updates and changes.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as stable
My impression on the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it is very stable.
Despite stability, it needs to be more user-friendly and competitive compared to other eDiscovery tools.
It is reliable and I can depend on it.
In terms of latency, stability is not an issue.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps could improve integration, pricing, support, reporting, automation, alerts, and overall user experience across multi-cloud environments.
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager needs integration, UI improvements, cost reduction, and enhanced policy and monitoring features for better usability.
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
Defender typically connects to Entra ID, but we have local users on the cloud for database access, SSH, or RDS, and there is nothing produced by Defender regarding those local IAM users.
A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass.
Microsoft Copilot Security converts human language to search queries using its AdLM language model.
The speed and accessibility, particularly in the user interface, require significant work.
The Purview Compliance Portal's log management could be more user-friendly, making data retrieval, like email logs, challenging.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is cost-effective within Microsoft 365 bundles, especially for large organizations with discounts available.
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager offers cost-efficient pricing, especially for existing Microsoft users, and is notably cheaper than competitors.
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable.
My organization is currently revisiting pricing, but previously, the cost was a bit expensive, yet comparable to other solutions with similar functionalities and features.
It's not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive, placing it in the mid-level range.
I rate the pricing as a one since it is included in what I am already paying for, as part of the Microsoft 365 E5 licensing.
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is priced at 60% to 70% compared to some competitors.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers integration, threat detection, and management, enhancing security with comprehensive visibility and proactive assessment.
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager streamlines multi-cloud data protection and compliance, enhancing visibility and integrating seamlessly with Microsoft 365.
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very comprehensive, providing a complete 360-degree view of applications within an organization.
The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include live, up-to-date information, which provided real-time alerts.
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager's eDiscovery is essential for organizations using Outlook as their email service.
The most valuable feature is data classification retention since I deal with terabytes of data, and managing and monitoring it simplifies the process.
The best aspect is that it requires little to no time for implementation if I am using all of Microsoft's tools.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (14th)
Microsoft Purview Complianc...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is 1.3%, down from 1.5% 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 Cloud Apps3.2%
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager1.3%
Other95.5%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.
Peter-Murphy - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined data management and improved compliance with efficient document classification
The most valuable feature is data classification retention since I deal with terabytes of data, and managing and monitoring it simplifies the process. Additionally, the system provides a dashboard showing our compliance status, which aids in managing compliance tasks. The compliance score feature allows me to assess and compare our compliance across organizations. I've also noticed efficiency gains, especially in handling subject access requests. Previously, these tasks were manual and time-consuming, but now they are streamlined, reducing the process from weeks to just a day.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?
It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager?
We have more visibility of data and how it is being shared.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager?
While not cheap, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager is priced at 60% to 70% compared to some competitors. Additional costs may involve OCR page scanning.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager?
When I tried to set up Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager for my organization to ensure people are not sending PII documents, especially payment cards, using keywords for flagging, it disrupted o...
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
Microsoft Compliance Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.