Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention 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
4.5
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective and efficient, offering incident prevention and resolution without complex hardware setups.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Purview DLP offers cost savings, security enhancements, and reduced onboarding time, though ROI varies among users.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Opinions on Microsoft Defender for Identity support vary, highlighting responsiveness, but issues include delays, contact challenges, and false positives.
Sentiment score
5.1
Microsoft Purview DLP support is inconsistent, with quick responses and clear resources but also delays and monopolistic concerns.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
Technical support from Microsoft rates an eight on a scale of 1 to 10 for response time.
Once we got to the Microsoft engineers, the experience was great.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Identity efficiently integrates and scales globally, supporting diverse organizational needs within Microsoft’s ecosystem effectively.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention offers scalable, flexible cloud solutions, but needs improvements in user-friendliness and device-level scalability.
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
The policy working and detection technology need enhancements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly reliable, with minimal incidents, seamless operation, and consistent ratings between seven and nine.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is highly stable, reliable, and responsive, though minor real-time issues and internal connection challenges exist.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
We do not see any issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
Sometimes the solution is not stable when the internal connection is not reliable, so this aspect needs improvement.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Identity users seek improved cloud integration, user-friendly features, better support, and streamlined processes for enhanced threat management.
Microsoft Purview DLP needs better integration, improved UI, enhanced AI features, cost-effective licensing, and better language support.
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
Microsoft Defender for Identity needs to be able to plug into third-party applications that are not Microsoft.
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
Implementing a degree of severity ranking is essential.
Endpoint Data Loss Prevention needs to be improved as it is not up to expectations.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective with E5 licenses despite complex pricing and competitive against other security solutions.
Microsoft Purview DLP in E5 licenses offers competitive pricing and flexible payment, valued for security features and added services.
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
the Microsoft Defender Suite is quite expensive, especially when integrated into Sentinel.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Identity integrates with Azure to offer comprehensive threat detection, identity protection, and advanced real-time security insights.
Microsoft Purview DLP enhances data security with auto-labeling, multi-cloud support, cross-platform protection, and strong compliance features.
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
Based on the detection of incidents, we can prevent issues, and if there are any identity-related alerts, they are prevented through a conditional access policy.
I find the most valuable features in Microsoft Defender for Identity to be the conditional access and the rule-based access control to give users their actual role-based permission to work.
The feature I find most valuable that I'm currently using is the quickness of the emails that the Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention solution sends to us, where we get notifications that say a user has potentially breached our data guideline rules, and we get those alerts continuously, allowing us to enforce them manually.
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention usually performs well, except for endpoint Data Loss Prevention, which may need improvements.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
Microsoft Purview Data Loss...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)
 

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 Loss Prevention is 2.7%, up from 2.3% 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 Identity6.5%
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention2.7%
Other90.8%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Arabomen - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
HosmanRodriguez - PeerSpot reviewer
Nice dashboard, good data loss prevention, and helps with compliance
The data loss prevention is great. It can prevent things like credit card information from being taken. The data protection is excellent. We can use the solution on Windows and iOS. We mostly use it with Office 365 and ingest data sources from Microsoft. The solution is natively integrated and compliant across Azure. It takes into account critical regulations from around the world. We need to comply with various regulations. For our business case, it's very important. If we can prevent information from going out, eventually, when a regulator is asking about our security measures, we can show what we've been doing. It helps us to reduce the likelihood of potential fines. We can educate users on how to handle sensitive data. By showing the records we keep and explaining the technologies implemented, we can provide awareness to our users. The solution offers good visibility into our environment. Our security team can use the product to monitor and track. Its dashboard allows us to show compliance in real-time. We've been able to reduce the time to action on insider threats. Security permissions are always being monitored. In general, it has saved us time and money when dealing with security. It's made us become more efficient. We've increased our compliance capabilities by 25%.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.
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
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

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?
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 authentica...
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 Data Loss Prevention?
The most valuable features are identifying sensitive data and issuing alerts.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is not something I manage directly since I'm the owner operator; my colleagues might be more involved with that aspect as we have other te...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?
Improving Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention would involve recognizing that the whole AI path we are all on is going to help, given the massive amount of data we handle; even if there are true ...
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention, MS Endpoint DLP, Microsoft Endpoint DLP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,513 professionals have used our research since 2012.