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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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
7.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security and efficiency, offering significant ROI with up to 60% savings and streamlined operations.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Purview enhances protection, automates compliance, reduces response time, and supports growth, though exact savings are hard to quantify.
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
As a small team, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps allowed us to manage systems with just one or two people.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
We have at least saved the costs we had from the Netskope solution this year.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Purview can do a quick scan, and it doesn't use human resources, so it gets time to do things that we need humans to focus on.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
The E5 license comes with different solutions like data discovery classification, CASB, DLP solutions, and Defender for Cloud.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support is praised for its responsiveness, though some users experience delays and resource access challenges.
Sentiment score
4.0
Users experience inconsistent Microsoft Purview support, citing slow responses and unresolved issues, despite some improvements in visibility and engagement.
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The support is excellent, and the speed of response is commendable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
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.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
After our issues are reported, it takes a long time to find a resolution.
Director Security Architecture at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable, seamless integration, and reliable management for organizations of all sizes and environments.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is praised for scalability despite some concerns with data analytics speed and policy update intervals.
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.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very scalable, provided you have the right subscription.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
In my experience, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is good enough for small to medium businesses.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
Information Technology Senior Expert at Garanti Teknoloji
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is highly stable, reliable, and maintains performance with minor, swiftly resolved incidents.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Purview is stable and reliable, with minor delays and occasional drawbacks, fostering user trust and wide deployment.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as stable
Network Engineer at Apexon
My impression on the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it is very stable.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
The product is stable, and whatever it does, it does better than any other thing.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Since identity is where everything is based, if that goes down, you're screwed.
Director, Network & Cloud Infrastructure at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps seeks enhanced pricing, integration, user interface, automation, and multi-cloud support, while improving insights and management.
Microsoft Purview requires better integration, pricing, navigation, and feature enhancements to address user concerns about functionality and support.
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
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.
Network Engineer at Apexon
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps would benefit if Microsoft allows users to fine-tune false positives, enabling us to dismiss alerts or make adjustments so that such things don't trigger multiple times in the future.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Effectiveness in Microsoft Purview Information Protection means enforcing the policy and making sure it works consistently across non-Microsoft products as well.
Director Security Architecture at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
A lot of functionality in Microsoft Purview Information Protection is not exposed in an API officially yet, which has made a lot of implementation work difficult because we have to do click ops instead of DevOps.
CEO at Blue Cycle
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is seen as cost-effective for enterprises within Microsoft ecosystems, despite standalone pricing concerns.
Microsoft Purview offers competitive pricing, flexible enterprise licenses, and cost-effective bundled solutions, despite some complexity in licensing options.
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
My organization is currently revisiting pricing, but previously, the cost was a bit expensive, yet comparable to other solutions with similar functionalities and features.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It's not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive, placing it in the mid-level range.
IT Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
The E5 license covers most of the solutions for different technologies, so that way, it is good and more affordable compared to any other solution.
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
Business Development Manager, Transformational Services at Dell Technologies
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps integrates well, offering threat detection, management ease, shadow IT discovery, and robust security enhancements.
Microsoft Purview enhances data protection with encryption, automated labeling, and compliance, excelling in Microsoft ecosystem integration and management.
It provides excellent suggestions and options for configuration; for example, it can track suspicious files getting uploaded to cloud resources on Azure based on their signatures, generating alerts for those files.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The product recommends things that need to be blocked and allows for dynamic configuration, which cuts down on potential issues that might arise from going through lists and understanding what needs to be blocked.
Partner & Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
Business Development Manager, Transformational Services at Dell Technologies
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Client Experience Officer at 1234 Micro Technologies
Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
Mgr Data Engineering at Avanade
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (7th), Data Privacy Management Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 3.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 1.6%, up from 1.1% 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 Information Protection1.6%
Other95.2%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

FV
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Deployment has been seamless with insightful data categorization and enhanced control
The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that I have found most valuable include the overall portal view, with bubble graphs which give us insight into what goes where in the categorization, nowadays with Generative AI but all kinds of categorization, collaboration, etc. That central view of the portal is very useful for us. The impact of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps on our organization's ability to assess and manage app related risks has been significant because we have more visibility. Therefore, we can add more control, and we have already done so. This was not possible in the old solution, in the old CASB solution with Netskope. We now can see on the spot, and we do that almost weekly, what the end users are utilizing, which cloud providers or cloud apps they're using. The visibility into OAuth apps provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very good. The visibility into risk and risk management of our organization's Generative AI apps is very nice, as you can choose the category Generative AI and then see exactly what traffic has been going to and from Generative AI in the cloud. This makes us very insightful on what is used within the company. We have some policies on blocking specific Generative AI, and we use within our company one particular AI part, which is CoPilot of Microsoft. In this way, we can see what the end users are using other than CoPilot, and that makes us more in control. The effectiveness of the integration of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender XDR and defending against SaaS attacks is very intuitive. It works immediately if we create a new policy or in Purview or in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, or when we make an app unsanctioned by blocking it, then it is almost immediately, or at least within a couple of hours, effective on all the endpoints where the EDR is running. This gives us much better control over things than before.
Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

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 Information Protection?
It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
In my experience with Microsoft Purview Information Protection, the experience of pricing, setup costs, and licensing is confusing, especially knowing what I have to do for add-ons with buying SCUs...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
I think the role of sensitivity labels in guiding AI interaction with Microsoft Purview Information Protection is pretty good, but for us, it's too general. It says, "Here's a dataset" and because ...
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
Microsoft Information Protection
 

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 Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.