Microsoft Entra External ID vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention comparison

Microsoft Entra External ID vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

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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 Entra External ID

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (13th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (7th)

Microsoft Purview Data Loss...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

16th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra External ID is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is 2.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Corrado Vigano

Sales Manager - Program Manger at Altitudo srl

Solution integrates well with existing systems while being easy to use

The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use. Furthermore, Microsoft's reliability in providing a clear roadmap for the solution is very important, especially at a time when cybersecurity is a risk in every company. The solution is easy to reuse and not difficult to find expertise for in the market because it is widespread. It is gaining attention even from partners and from the market on the offering side. This serves as a good starting point for customers who can develop internal competence on the solution. Additionally, the presence of reliable partners who know the solution and can provide internal knowledge is the best aspect for them.

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Roby Skariah

Solution Architect : Corporate wide systems at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Automation has given us consistent analytics and improved quality of insights into user activity

One of the valuable features of Purview is the ability to create a legal hold on a user's account within the compliance portal. That's pretty useful when it comes to any litigation or if you want to redeem the content within a mailbox, OneDrive, or a generic public SharePoint site. If you want to retain the user's data until the case is resolved, you can use the legal hold feature. Also, it's important that Purview can connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices. With smartphone involvement, so many applications can now be accessed through them and it is important to apply Purview across operating systems and platforms. Purview's natively integrated compliance across Azure Dynamics and Office 365 is also significant because within Microsoft 365 there are multiple applications. Irrespective of whether it's Dynamics or Azure, it's very important that it has native support. The data connectivity should be efficient enough to support and secure their own platform's data. In addition, with varying regulations in different industries and matters, Purview lets you create rules and conditions based on industry standards around the world. That is important. Our company is in pharmaceuticals and the rules and conditions are different from other industries. It is important to be able to keep track of all these regulations and have a tool that is flexible enough to create the regulatory rules and conditions we need. And when it comes to data loss protection, Purview has features that can recognize patterns and detect any sort of data loss, where the data is being transferred from its platform to a different one. The default settings that come with it are pretty nice for identifying data transfer or data loss across the platform. It also comes with a lot of training materials, with use cases and examples, to help educate users and make them familiar with the tool.

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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

"It's quite easy to manage and monitor."

"The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use."

"It's similar to using a Microsoft account to create accounts on other websites. We are also using Microsoft Entra to monitor which applications our guests are using. This allows us to filter, block, or adjust permissions for these applications as needed for our collaborators."

"The most valuable feature for me is the firewall capabilities."

"Microsoft Entra External ID is more secure, offering a secure environment."

"I have not encountered any stability issues with Microsoft Entra External ID."

"The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use."

"The most valuable feature for me is the firewall capabilities."

More Microsoft Entra External ID pros

"The policy customization feature is very useful, and we have successfully used the auto policy configuration."

"The product has improved compliance and confidence. We are aware of the data that is leaving our organization. It provides confidence in data management and information storage."

"Because everything is on Microsoft and we use Azure, integration with the product is easier. That's the most important thing when you use many Microsoft products. It's easier to integrate everything in one place."

"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."

"When you are going to use Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention, most of the setup is already done by default as per your needs."

"The solution's IDM (Indexed Document Matching), EDM (Exact Data Matching), and DCM (Described Content Matching) features have been most effective in identifying and mitigating potential data leaks."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the mature O365 DLP, which works with SharePoint and Teams."

"For Purview's natively integrated compliance across Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365, I would give it a 10 out of 10. It provides all the insights and information."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pros

Cons

"A common concern among the customers I visit is the unpredictability of Microsoft's costs at every renewal. This is really bothersome for the customer, and I would say it is the worst element I have seen in these years."

"The quality of Microsoft customer support varies. With an enterprise contract, good resources are usually provided, especially in regions like Saudi Arabia or UAE. However, we have faced challenges with support quality, especially in some subcontinent areas where the resources might not be as experienced."

"Technical support needs improvement."

"Single sign-on for external applications such as Oracle could be improved to be a little bit cheaper."

"Microsoft's pricing is complex and difficult to fathom due to a range of different licensing options."

"There is room for improvement in AI technology for Microsoft Entra External ID, particularly in providing detailed alerts."

"The problem with Microsoft products is that they often cater to enterprise-level needs, which can be too costly for medium-sized businesses."

"I generally find Microsoft solutions expensive, especially in specific offerings."

More Microsoft Entra External ID cons

"A site can have different containers where you store data. We have always wanted to apply compliance, labels, and policies at the container level, rather than to an outer shell or at the site level. That is something we have been looking forward to and I believe Microsoft is already planning something like that."

"The AI advancements can improve the false positives."

"The solution should provide better integration with other systems."

"They do not provide language options beyond the ones already available, so our language option is missing."

"I would like Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention to be on the source code or SQL databases. It is difficult to do classification and labeling when you have a third-party source code or a third-party Oracle database. It is seamless when it comes to Microsoft documents but is not so with third-party source codes. Microsoft needs to work on it a little bit more."

"The support is poor."

"More training for end users on how it works would be beneficial."

"The scalability, in terms of the portal, could be more user-friendly. Sometimes I have faced difficulties in identifying the options."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't pay separately for Microsoft Entra External ID as it's part of our Microsoft Exchange subscription."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"It is a part of our Microsoft licensing. We pay for a yearly renewal. Its price is reasonable for the size of the organization we are. It is fairly competitive, and you get what you pay for. We have an E5 license, and a part of understanding the E5 license is to see what all you get with it. If you really look at it from that standpoint, you get a lot of value. You have Defender and all its security features in there as well. Their licensing is fairly flexible. They have different programs. We've seen ones where you could pay for up to three to five years in advance. There is also a monthly pay-as-you-go type of deal, but we're doing a yearly renewal and fixing the budget."

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is part of a bundle and is not sold as a standalone product."

"You get the solution in a bundle if you get the E5 suite."

"The cost works out to about $15 per user per month."

"The product has the best price-to-performance ratio."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Though I am not a specialist, the tool is quite expensive."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra External ID?

The cost can be a factor for Microsoft Entra External ID, but in general, it offers a scalable and efficient solution compared to deploying individual solutions.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra External ID?

Some areas where Microsoft Entra External ID could improve include cost and enhanced security for integration with federated logins like LinkedIn and Gmail.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Entra External ID?

I am working on a project for a university where we are trying to create a digital twin of a coral reef restoration project in Saudi Arabia. This involves using a big data platform and developing a...

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?

It is quite expensive for us as the shift to E5 licenses represents a significant increase in cost. The cost works out to about $15 per user per month.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

Endpoint Data Loss Prevention needs to be improved as it is not up to expectations. Auto labeling and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for devices need improvement as well.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Entra External ID

Download Microsoft Entra External ID product report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Download Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention product report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention report

Also Known As

Azure Active Directory External Identities

Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention, MS Endpoint DLP, Microsoft Endpoint DLP

Overview

Microsoft Entra External ID, part of Microsoft Entra, provides highly secure digital experiences for partners, customers, citizens, patients, or any users outside your organization with customization controls. Combine external identities and user directories in one portal to seamlessly manage access across the organization.

Microsoft Entra External ID refers to all the ways you can securely interact with users outside of your organization. If you want to collaborate with partners, distributors, suppliers, or vendors, you can share your resources and define how your internal users can access external organizations. If you're a developer creating consumer-facing apps, you can manage your customers' identity experiences.

With External ID, external users can "bring their own identities." Whether they have a corporate or government-issued digital identity, or an unmanaged social identity like Google or Facebook, they can use their own credentials to sign in. The external user’s identity provider manages their identity, and you manage access to your apps with Entra ID or Entra External ID to keep your resources protected.

The following capabilities make up External ID:

B2B collaboration - Collaborate with external users by letting them use their preferred identity to sign in to your Microsoft applications or other enterprise applications (SaaS apps, custom-developed apps, etc.). B2B collaboration users are represented in your directory, typically as guest users.
B2B direct connect - Establish a mutual, two-way trust with another Azure AD organization for seamless collaboration. B2B direct connect currently supports Teams shared channels, enabling external users to access your resources from within their home instances of Teams. B2B direct connect users aren't represented in your directory, but they're visible from within the Teams shared channel and can be monitored in Teams admin center reports.
Azure AD B2C - Publish modern SaaS apps or custom-developed apps (excluding Microsoft apps) to consumers and customers, while using Azure AD B2C for identity and access management.

Microsoft

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.

Microsoft

Microsoft Entra External ID vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention