Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance comparison

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

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Helped 869,513 peers since 2012

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 Iden...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)

Microsoft Purview Communica...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

30th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

GRC (8th), Digital Risk Protection (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 6.5%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Identity	6.5%
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance	0.4%
Other	93.1%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Peter Arabomen

Security Engineer at Fidelity Bank Plc

Has supported hybrid identity management while integrating well with cloud directory services

The only challenge I have with Microsoft Defender for Identity is the latency. I may not put that entirely on Microsoft, because latency could be network related. At times when trying to authenticate, the prompt is delayed. We tried implementing passwordless authentication, especially for on-premises workloads, but we haven't been able to achieve that. Passwordless authentication is part of the identity functionalities, particularly when it comes to enforcing passwordless for on-premises workloads. In terms of improvements, you can't create OUs on Azure AD. Regarding giving users privileges on what they can do across different OUs, I haven't seen that feature on Microsoft Defender for Identity. Microsoft Defender for Identity needs to be able to plug into third-party applications that are not Microsoft. For instance, with a human resource application used to manage users and leave requests, when staff leaves the organization, they are first exited from that application before AD. Integration between Azure AD and third-party applications would allow automatic syncing when removing staff. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Identity is not hard. However, setup is one thing, and getting value from the application end-to-end is another. It can be set up and running from the first day but not functioning optimally. Initially, when we did the setup, it wasn't optimal. Over time, with continuous improvement, which we're still doing, we've gotten to a comfortable level, but there's still room for improvement.

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Rey Vazquez

Vice President of Technology at Park Avenue Finance

Creates robust rules for communication and data security, boosting compliance measures

I was talking with some engineer from Microsoft about how we can audit our web page. They create or add to Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance that part, the Layer seven of the OSI model, to check the application and maintain a good practice of coding. I've tried the web page part, and it works great. However, monitoring and compliance for web applications could be improved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of our users had the same password for every personal and company account. That was a problem because she started receiving phishing emails that could compromise all of her accounts. Defender told us that the user was not changing their password."

"The solution offers excellent visibility into threats."

"The feature I like the most about Defender for Identity is the entity tags. They give you the ability to identify sensitive accounts, devices, and groups. You also have honeytoken entities, which are devices that are identified as "bait" for fraudulent actors."

"All the integration it has with different Microsoft packages, like Teams and Office, is good."

"The basic security monitoring at its core feature is the most valuable aspect. But also the investigative parts, the historical logging of events over the network are extremely interesting because it gives an in-depth insight into the history of account activity that is really easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to export."

"It automates routine testing and helps automate the finding of high-value alerts."

"The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud."

"The feature I like most is that you can create your own customized detection rules. It has a lot of default alerts and rules, but you can customize them according to your business needs."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity pros

"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance helps with extra collaboration and ensures communication is within the framework."

"Customer support is excellent."

"The time it saves is very useful."

"The features I appreciate the most in Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance include the ability to build cases, give them dates, and find them based on the notes that I left behind."

Cons

"The documentation provided by Microsoft is often seen as a waste of time."

"And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives."

"Fixing the solution isn't very seamless."

"Defender for Identity gives us visibility, but we often get false positives from Azure that take us down the garden path. We go through 30 incidents each day and most of those are false positives or benign positive alerts. Occasionally, we get true positive alerts."

"We observe a lot of false positives. Sometimes, when we go for a coffee break, we lock our screens. Locking the screen has a separate Windows event ID and sometimes I see it is detected as a failed login."

"One area that needs improvement is the number of alerts generated, leading to alert fatigue."

"The solution should provide more detailed data regarding anomaly detections."

"The solution could be better at using group-managed access and they could replace it with broad-based access controls."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity cons

"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance can be improved by having more tutorials available for those who aren't used to using this platform."

"The product should incorporate more automation with the help of AI."

"Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance can be improved by having more tutorials available for those who aren't used to using this platform."

"Monitoring and compliance for web applications could be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender for Identity comes as part of the Microsoft E5 licensing stack."

"It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."

"You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."

"The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."

"Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	14

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?

Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?

I've used Microsoft Defender for Identity primarily for provisioning users on Azure AD and Microsoft authentication. For hybrid scenarios, I integrate on-premises AD to Azure AD. We use AD Connect ...

What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance helps with extra collaboration and ensures communication is within the framework.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?

What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance?

Overall, I rate Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance at a nine. I highly recommend it to anyone due to its robust system and valuable resources for IT security, risk assessment, and data mana...

Microsoft Entra ID Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Compared 16% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Compared 13% of the time

BloodHound Enterprise vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs Microsoft Defender for Identity

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Identity Competitors

RSA Archer vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Compared 21% of the time

Barracuda Email Protection vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Compared 20% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Compared 15% of the time

AuditBoard vs Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance

Compared 12% of the time

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Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Identity

Download Microsoft Defender for Identity product report

GRC

Download Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance product report

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance report

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Identity integrates with Microsoft tools to monitor user activity, providing advanced threat detection and analysis using AI. It enhances proactive threat response and security visibility, making it essential for securing on-premises and cloud environments like Active Directory.

Microsoft Defender for Identity offers comprehensive monitoring and AI-driven user behavior analysis. It detects threats through real-time alerts and identifies lateral movements and entity tagging, ensuring robust security management. With excellent visibility via its dashboard, it supports customized detection rules and seamlessly integrates with SIEM platforms. While SecureScore and SecureScan provide robust environment security, there is room for improvement in cloud security, on-premises application integration, and remediation capabilities. Azure integration is limited, and the administrative interface could be more user-friendly. Users experience frequent false positives, affecting threat detection efficiency.

What key features stand out in Microsoft Defender for Identity?

Integration with Microsoft Tools: Ensures comprehensive protection across environments.
AI-driven Behavior Analysis: Uses artificial intelligence to analyze user actions.
Real-time Threat Detection: Provides immediate alerts to potential threats.
Lateral Movement Identification: Detects unusual lateral access among users.
Dashboards with Visibility: Offers insights into security issues with customization options.
SIEM Integration: Works seamlessly with security information and event management systems.

What benefits should users look for when reviewing Microsoft Defender for Identity?

Enhanced Threat Prioritization: Helps in effective identification and tackling of threats.
Improved Proactive Responses: Facilitates a prompt and efficient response mechanism.
Security Across Environments: Protects both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures.
Optimized Conditional Access: Manages policies to enhance security protocol efficacy.

In specific industries such as education and finance, Microsoft Defender for Identity is crucial for securing on-premises Active Directory and Azure Active Directory environments. It effectively detects suspicious activities and manages conditional access policies, offering user and entity behavior analytics, endpoint detection and response capabilities. This helps prevent unauthorized access and strengthens overall security, making it an invaluable asset for organizations aiming to safeguard their digital infrastructure.

Microsoft

Communication Compliance is an insider risk solution in Microsoft 365 that helps minimize communication risks by helping you detect, capture, and act on inappropriate messages in your organization. Pre-defined and custom policies allow you to scan internal and external communications for policy matches so they can be examined by designated reviewers. Reviewers can investigate scanned email, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, or third-party communications in your organization and take appropriate actions to make sure they're compliant with your organization's message standards.

Communication Compliance policies in Microsoft 365 help you overcome many modern challenges associated with compliance and internal and external communications, including:

-Scanning increasing types of communication channels
-The increasing volume of message data
-Regulatory enforcement and the risk of fines

Additionally, there may be a separation of duties between your IT admins and your compliance management team. Communication Compliance supports the separation between configuration of policies and the investigation and review of messages. For example, the IT group for your organization may be responsible for setting up communication compliance role permissions, groups, and policies and investigators and reviewers may be responsible for message triage, review, and mitigation actions.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance