Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management comparison

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Download the complete report

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 Data Life...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

33rd

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Email Archiving (11th), Document Management Software (2nd), Data Governance (29th)

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 Data Lifecycle Management is 0.6%, up from 0.2% 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 Data Lifecycle Management	0.6%
Other	92.9%

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.

Read full review

AnonyAdmin

Enterprise Messaging Systems Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees

Provides data protection across platforms and connects to different devices

The rollout of Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is not yet complete. The goal of this implementation is to mitigate the risk of oversharing, particularly in anticipation of the broader adoption of Copilot. Purview's ability to connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices, as well as data in other SaaS applications, is crucial. As a university with a bring-your-own-device policy, we cannot control the devices used by our diverse population of students and faculty. Therefore, an inclusive ecosystem that seamlessly integrates with various devices is essential, as we cannot enforce restrictions on specific devices or mandate particular technologies due to the open nature of our system. It is critical that Purview provides data protection across diverse cloud and platform environments, including AWS and GCP. Historically, our primary platform has been AWS, but we are increasingly expanding into Microsoft Azure. Therefore, I anticipate a future where we utilize both platforms extensively, making comprehensive data protection essential. Purview's design incorporates critical global regulations, ensuring compliance for university researchers and the institution itself with government and various regulatory requirements. Purview enhances visibility across our data estate. The new AI-powered data security features, especially the oversharing report, promise to be invaluable by providing insights into potentially overshared files and sites. This automation eliminates the need for custom scripts and manual data mining, previously necessary for identifying such issues, and ultimately saves significant development time. Purview saves time by eliminating the need for manual scripts, which can take days to run due to the volume of people and sites involved. Instead of running scripts multiple times or waiting hours for completion, Purview's built-in functionality provides immediate access to reports, streamlining the entire process.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect."

"I recommend Microsoft Defender for Identity because it is easy to implement."

"Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience."

"We use AD Connect to sync on-premises AD to Azure AD, and so far, it has been effective."

"This solution has advanced a lot over the last few years."

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

"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."

"The solution offers excellent visibility into threats."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity pros

"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."

"The system is stable; I haven't encountered any worldwide stability issues unlike other office products."

"The UI is the most valuable feature."

Cons

"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."

"Microsoft should look at what competing vendors like CrowdStrike and Broadcom are doing and incorporate those features into Sentinel and Defender. At the same time, I think the intelligence inside the product is improving fast. They should incorporate more zero-trust and hybrid trust approaches. They need to build up threat intelligence based on threats and methods used in attacks on other companies."

"One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform to promptly alert affected users and their friends."

"They should improve the automation for impossible travel detection. When connected to Wi-Fi and then to VPN, the system sometimes interprets the IP address change as impossible travel."

"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."

"An area for improvement is the administrative interface. It's basic compared to other administrative centers. They could make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate."

"The impact of the sensors on the domain controllers can be quite high depending on your loads. I don't know if there's any room for improvement there, but that's one of the things that might be improved."

More Microsoft Defender for Identity cons

"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."

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."

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

"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."

"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 service operates on a pay-as-you-go basis, charging an extra one cent per field of metadata scanned in our data."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

869,513 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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 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...

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

AWS Artifact vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 41% of the time

OpenText Content Manager vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 9% of the time

M-Files vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 9% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 7% of the time

Alfresco vs Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Identity

Download Microsoft Defender for Identity product report

Data Governance

Download Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management product report

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management report

Also Known As

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

Microsoft Information Governance, Microsoft Purview Records Management

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

Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management helps businesses manage data effectively, enhancing compliance and control while optimizing data usage across the organization.

Designed for comprehensive data governance, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management aids businesses in automating data retention, labeling, and protection policies. It integrates seamlessly with existing systems, facilitating robust data management, which supports compliance and risk management efforts. Suitable for businesses seeking to consolidate data management processes, it ensures that valuable data is efficiently cataloged, accessible, and secured, contributing to informed decision-making and resource optimization.

What features should users be aware of?

Automated Data Retention: Simplifies data management by automatically applying retention policies.
Sensitivity Labeling: Offers robust capabilities to classify and protect sensitive information.
Data Insights: Provides analytical insights that help in monitoring compliance and data usage.
Policy Enforcement: Integrated tools for automating policy application across data assets.

What benefits can users expect from reviews?

Improved Compliance: Ensures adherence to regulations through automated policy enforcement.
Operational Efficiency: Streamlines data management tasks, reducing manual intervention and potential errors.
Cost Effectiveness: Reduces the need for multiple tools by consolidating data management activities.
Enhanced Security: Protects sensitive data through advanced labeling and encryption features.

In finance, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management facilitates compliance with strict regulations, in healthcare, it safeguards patient data while streamlining retention policies, and in retail, it organizes customer data for better insights and tailored marketing strategies, ensuring data is a strategic resource across sectors.

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 Data Lifecycle Management