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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), Container Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Compliance Management (5th)
Microsoft Purview Data Life...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
34th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.1%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps
Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.
Al Mcpherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides clear visibility into our entire information estate, reduces our time to action, and saves us time
The integration across Azure is straightforward. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management has been a game-changer for our data governance. We now have clear visibility into our entire information estate, allowing us to pinpoint data location and implement effective classification. Even though real-time compliance isn't a current need, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management offers that capability for future requirements. Purview Data Lifecycle Management has reduced our time to action – since we previously lacked such a tool, it's effectively cut our response time in half. Purview Data Lifecycle Management has saved us one working day per month.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."
"It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has definitely helped us manage and secure our multi-cloud environment by providing ease of use."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."
"The UI is the most valuable feature."
"Purview's built-in functionality provides immediate access to reports, streamlining the entire process."
"The automatic data labeling is compelling, and we are investigating its use."
 

Cons

"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load."
"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved by adding capabilities for NetApp files and more PaaS resources from other vendors, not just Microsoft."
"Support needs to be highly responsive, especially in large enterprise environments."
"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."
"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
"Microsoft's Purview Data Lifecycle Management preview features can be unreliable, hindering their usefulness."
"The time it takes to scan is one issue; when we raise high-volume issues and tickets related to scanning failures, it relates to permission errors, which are technical challenges."
"Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management can be challenging to implement due to its complexity and dense documentation, making it difficult to get started."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."
"I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"The service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?
Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
We opted for Purview Data Lifecycle Management due to its significant cost advantage over competitors. At a 95 percent price reduction, it was a clear winner. The service operates on a pay-as-you-g...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
One of the requirements is to have data leak policies and data access policies. This is very critical to enforce data governance standards, which relate to data classification, access control, data...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management?
I am a customer and user of the tools. We are a big shop, and both the companies I work for are Microsoft Office 365 customers with over eighty thousand seats. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Mana...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Microsoft Information Governance
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.