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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 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
6.8
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint offers cost savings, enhanced security, time savings, and ransomware prevention, with improved functionality and productivity.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Purview enhances ROI via security improvements, process automation, and compliance, despite challenges in quantifying exact returns.
Without detection and protection measures, organizations would face substantial payments and reputational damage, including the necessity to inform customers about data breaches, potentially leading to loss of business.
Consultant at ACT4SERVICES
We have seen a return on investment when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it saves labor by reducing the need for staff to focus on it.
IT CONSULTANT at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
The biggest return on investment for me when using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is the time saving.
Lead security engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
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
6.3
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint support satisfaction varies, with faster responses for premium support but slower tier-one assistance.
Sentiment score
4.3
Mixed reviews on Microsoft Purview support highlight slow responses and untrained staff, with recent community engagement improvements noted.
The Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, 'Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then.'
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The level-one support seems disconnected from subject matter experts.
Office 365 Subject Expert at a government with 10,001+ employees
I rate Microsoft support 10 out of 10.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 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 Endpoint offers scalability and flexibility, supporting diverse organizations with seamless integration and extensive capabilities.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is scalable, integrates well, but faces challenges in data ingestion, policy updates, and document classification.
We managed to scale it out in a short amount of time, with two months of planning and three months of implementation on 10,000 computers.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable enough to handle various devices across environments, whether they are laptops, Android devices, or operating in hybrid environments.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
Compatibility is its main feature.
IT CONSULTANT at a tech company with 10,001+ 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
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is stable, reliable, integrates well with Windows, but occasionally faces update and cloud connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is generally stable, with reliable performance and occasional issues, especially with large data volumes.
I haven't seen any outages with Microsoft.
IT Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I rate Defender 10 out of 10 for stability.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Defender for Endpoint is extremely stable.
Systems engineers at Delta Dental of Colorado
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 Endpoint needs better interfaces, support, integration, performance, reporting, pricing, Linux features, cloud integration, and automation.
Microsoft Purview Information Protection needs improvements in integration, affordability, data protection, AI, automation, reliability, and cloud storage scanning.
Repeated interactions are necessary due to Level One's lack of tools and knowledge, hindering efficient problem-solving and negatively impacting our experience with Microsoft support.
Office 365 Subject Expert at a government with 10,001+ employees
In contrast, competing products offer reduced pricing for long-term commitments, which makes it difficult for us in that environment.
Solution Consultant at BIM Group of Companies
We use Microsoft partners to help govern the platform, and as part of an alliance, we want to gather data from each tenant and combine them for a complete view.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 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 Endpoint's pricing varies; included in some bundles but advanced features may require costly additional licenses.
Microsoft Purview Information Protection offers competitive, bundled pricing with E3 and E5 licenses, appealing for integrated security solutions.
That has been the trend we have seen with Microsoft lately—it is just getting more and more expensive.
Assistant Director, Hybrid Infrastructure & Operations at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Given our extensive Microsoft licensing, transitioning to Defender for Endpoint did not affect licensing costs.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
It costs $15 per VM for the P2 plan, which is seen as affordable for customers.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
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 Endpoint enhances security with seamless Windows integration, advanced threat detection, centralized management, and minimal performance impact.
Microsoft Purview Information Protection enhances security with sensitivity labels, multi-platform encryption, data classification, compliance features, and user education.
Defender for Endpoint's coverage across different platforms in our environment is pretty good. We have devices running Linux, Mac OS, Windows, iOS, and Android. It covers all of them.
Team manager of it department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides a unified management interface allowing customers to manage their on-premises and hybrid infrastructures from a single pane.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
One of the best features of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is its database for identifying zero-day attacks or malware attacks.
Consultant at ACT4SERVICES
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 Endp...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (2nd), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Anti-Malware Tools (1st), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (3rd)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (7th), Data Privacy Management Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is 7.1%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint7.1%
Microsoft Purview Information Protection2.0%
Other90.9%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Arbuckle - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Analyst III at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Automatically isolates threats and integrates with logging to reduce response time
Overall, I would evaluate the Microsoft support level that I receive at probably about a seven, but that depends on the day. It has been spotty. We have had issues where the urgency level of the Microsoft support is not as high as ours, especially during a data breach or potential data breach situation. We have had issues with some of the offshore support being lackluster. One specific thing that comes to mind is we were on a support call with our CISO on the call, and the Microsoft agent, who did not actually work for Microsoft, is one of the vendors that Microsoft uses for support, said, "Just to set expectations, my lunch break is in an hour and I am going to go away then." For us, it was already ten o'clock at night and we had been working on this for a couple of hours, trying to get a security engineer on with us. For him to tell us that he was going to go away and have lunch, it was, "Okay, but go find somebody else if you need to." It was just the lackluster approach, and it seemed like he did not really care. We seem to get a lot of this when we get non-Microsoft support. I can identify areas for improvement with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as it is kind of a convoluted mess to try to take care of false positives. Especially when they have been identified as false positives but they keep going off over and over again. It is great for my pocketbook because it generates a lot of on-call action, but I would really prefer more sleep at two o'clock in the morning than dealing with false positives. I would say that the unified portal for managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suitable for both teams as they are all in there. It would be great if they would stop moving things around and renaming things, which makes sense. The new XDR portal is pretty nice. Being able to have it central again inside of the regular Security Center without having to open up two windows is helpful. Overall, I think it is pretty good. There is always going to be something that could be improved, such as alerting and the ability to modify alerts would be a little bit helpful to have. Being able to add more data into the alerts and turn off alerts that are not as useful would be beneficial. It is hard to say what the quantitative impact the security exposure management feature has had on our company's security, because a lot of it is kind of subjective. I think we are sitting at around a fifty percent score still, and a lot of it is just kind of unusual circumstances that we cannot really implement without breaking the organization.
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
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise40
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

How is Cortex XDR compared with Microsoft Defender?
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security solution. The tool reduces the attack surface, applies behavioral-based endpoint protection and response, and includes risk-ba...
Which offers better endpoint security - Symantec or Microsoft Defender?
We use Symantec because we do not use MS Enterprise products, but in my opinion, Microsoft Defender is a superior solution. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-delivered endpoint security s...
How does Microsoft Defender for Endpoint compare with Crowdstrike Falcon?
The CrowdStrike solution delivers a lot of information about incidents. It has a very light sensor that will never push your machine hardware to "test", you don't have the usual "scan now" feature ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
It is reasonable from what I can say right now because we are using most of the Microsoft tools right now. We are using the managed SQL server of Microsoft. We are using Microsoft Purview Informati...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
One thing I personally felt is, let's take a use case where I want to know how many crimes Mr. Donald Trump has made in this organization. That kind of information we don't have in our systems. I'm...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
We are more focused on data quality and master data management perspective. From that angle, things are quite easy and good. In terms of AI integration or integrating with a third-party tool like I...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Defender ATP, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, MS Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Petrofrac, Metro CSG, Christus Health
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.