Microsoft Purview Audit vs Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention comparison

Microsoft Purview Audit 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 Purview Audit

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

31st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (32nd)

Microsoft Purview Data Loss...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Audit is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is 2.7%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention	2.7%
Microsoft Purview Audit	1.4%
Other	95.9%

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Oksana Kosukhina.

Cloud Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Integrated auditing has strengthened data retention and improved incident investigations

I have seen areas for improvement, specifically in Microsoft Purview Audit or in general about Microsoft. I have had a situation with documentation. I had a customer who wanted to create alerts and they had Microsoft 365 Business Premium. In the documentation, it was noted that this license is enough for creating alerts. When we tried to make them, we noticed they cannot do it with Microsoft 365 E3 because the customer had limited features to manage alerts. The customer had to buy E3. We created Microsoft support requests, and they confirmed that the documentation displayed not the real situation and they have been going to update documentation. The same situation occurred now with implementing Microsoft Purview Audit in the last autumn. eDiscovery was combined with search and content search, and the documentation was not clear at the beginning. It was a little difficult to describe to customers that now it is a part of eDiscovery. Content search is a very simple functionality, while eDiscovery is a little difficult. I am not entirely sure why Microsoft is going in the way of combining these services because they are the same. However, for a customer who has never seen these services, it is difficult to understand quickly. The same situation occurs with litigation holds and some other holds. For any mail, I am trying to keep data. For example, emails are held for a year or two years, ten years, it does not matter. It is difficult to understand where to find this data and where these emails are being held. I need to use eDiscovery to find out all deleted data that was kept somewhere in some hidden folders of the mailbox. Regular customers and regular administrators know that on-premises Exchange, for example, allows them to find the data in some repository and review the list of kept data. However, with this hold, we do not have any functionality to review the list of kept data. It is difficult to understand for customers how to work with this. I had a case where I spent three or four hours working deeply with a customer to explain how to work with eDiscovery, why Content Search is not there when it was before, what is an eDiscovery case, and why we are talking about all of this just to review a list of kept emails. This is difficult.

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Rohit Jaiswar

Soc Anaylst at Softcell Technologies Limited

Integrated controls have reduced insider risk and now protect sensitive data across our workforce

One standout feature about Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is the tight integration with Insider Risk Management and Defender XDR, as it gives much better context during investigations instead of treating DLP as an isolated alerting tool. We also use endpoint DLP heavily to control USB, copy, print, clipboard, and browser upload activity, which has been very effective for remote workforce security. The best features Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention offers include real-time policy enforcement, endpoint DLP, and deep integration with Microsoft 365 plus Defender XDR. We also heavily rely on sensitive information type detection, adaptive policy tips, and insider risk integration to investigate suspicious user behavior with proper context. Another standout feature is the ability to control USB copy, browser uploads, print clipboards, and cloud sharing actions directly from endpoint policies. The integration with Microsoft Defender 365 and Defender XDR helps our team in day-to-day operations because DLP alerts are automatically correlated with endpoint identity, email, and user activity telemetry, which helps the SOC investigate incidents much faster from a single workflow. The sensitive information type detection makes a difference compared to other tools we have used because it is more effective than many legacy DLP tools. It understands context, exact data patterns, document labeling, and Microsoft 365 native content, reducing false positives while improving detection accuracy. Another strong feature of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is auto-labeling and policy inheritance with Microsoft's Information Protection, which helps maintain protection even after files are shared or moved across workloads. We also value the user coaching or policy tip capability because it educates users in real time instead of only blocking actions, which reduces repeated DLP violations significantly.

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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

"The platform has significantly enhanced our operational insight into the overall Microsoft 365 environment."

"The overall user experience with Microsoft Purview Audit is of higher quality than when it was branded as Compliance Center, and Microsoft consistently updates and evolves functionalities and the overall experience."

"We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution."

"The main Microsoft feature is that it offers common integration of services, of data, of identity, meaning user accounts, user access, and privileged access."

"The impact of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention's classification and policy controls on our productivity within our organization is significant, as it's helped our security team."

"It's secure and can be integrated with an existing Forcepoint DLP setup."

"The tool's most valuable feature is in the area of OCR."

"The auto-labeling feature is definitely the most valuable feature, as it goes in and labels the documents for you in different repositories, covering the Outlook and Exchange repositories along with SharePoint and OneDrive, which is really helpful in those areas."

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention has absolutely helped improve my organization's ability to manage data because we use M365 for the majority of our knowledge worker storage, and that's where people's data lives."

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

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention makes it way easier to prevent unauthorized sharing of sensitive information within the organization."

"Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention prevents users from sharing sensitive information outside the organization based on the configurations that we've implemented."

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pros

Cons

"We do have a Denial of Access happening."

"Areas for product improvement include enhancing customization options and integrating more comprehensive compliance features."

"We are still in the early stages of leveraging Microsoft Purview Audit. Currently, it's primarily used for the audit function."

"I had a case where I spent three or four hours working deeply with a customer to explain how to work with eDiscovery, why Content Search is not there when it was before, what is an eDiscovery case, and why we are talking about all of this just to review a list of kept emails."

"I rate the overall solution 3 out of 10."

"The major challenge we had was overreach. When our initial design inception blocked more data than we expected, we had a lot of help desk related issues that we did not see in testing."

"Technical support seriously needs work. They are not helpful at all."

"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."

"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 could cover more solutions and technologies."

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

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It's a little bit pricey compared to competitors, but it's not too high."

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

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

"The pricing is reasonable."

"We are using the E3 license for Microsoft 365 with the E5 compliance license add-on."

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

"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."

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

More Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Audit?

It is not so expensive in comparison with other products, but I can tell you about an example.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Audit?

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Audit?

I work with Defender for IoT by chance because I see that we have enough reviews for Defender for Office 365 today, and we need reviews for some Azure products. I work with Azure products such as L...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that everything is included in our enterprise licensing, so there are no particular pluses or minuses.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

To improve Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention, I think it would be helpful if we could make bulk labeling easier, as it is a little cumbersome at the moment. The bulk labeling process is a chal...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention?

My main use cases involve trying to prevent sensitive files from leaving the company. Any sensitive data that the business has marked as should not be able to leave the company is stopped at the em...

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Product Reports

Microsoft Purview Audit

Download Microsoft Purview Audit product report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention

Download Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention product report

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Microsoft Purview Audit offers streamlined, user-friendly solutions for managing Microsoft 365 environments. It excels in security incident log management, privileged access control, and simplifying data access adjustments with integration between AD and Azure AD.

Key functionalities of Microsoft Purview Audit include capabilities tailored to monitor environment health, compliance, and security management within Active Directory and Microsoft ecosystems. Users can efficiently manage roles, access controls, and data retention protocols, making it a valuable resource for strategically-driven organizations with legal requirements. While the integration with Dataverse enhances its utility, user challenges arise due to complexity in certain aspects such as litigation holds and accessing hidden folder data. Additionally, users have reported issues with the precision of customization and compliance documentation, particularly when handling alerts and eDiscovery functions. Despite these challenges, Purview Audit remains a leading tool within the Microsoft suite for managing log retrieval and security oversight.

What are the key features of Microsoft Purview Audit?

User-friendly Dashboards: Easily track the health of Microsoft 365 environments.
Privileged Access Management: Efficiently manage and secure access to critical resources.
Log Management: Gain insights into security incidents through comprehensive log management.
Rules-based Access Control: Implement strict access protocols tailored to organizational frameworks.
Role-based Delegation: Streamline role delegation while adhering to security policies.
Zero Trust Security: Enhance security with a zero trust model for data protection.

What benefits should users look for?

Data Retention: Meet legal and compliance needs efficiently.
Easy Configuration: Simplify setup processes for quick implementation.
Seamless AD to Azure AD Migration: Transition effortlessly between directory services.
Detailed Audit Capabilities: Understand, monitor, and review security actions easily.

In industries with stringent data governance and compliance mandates, Microsoft Purview Audit is utilized to ensure a robust security posture. Users engage it for monitoring compliance within financial services, healthcare, and other sectors where data privacy is paramount. With its SaaS-based integration in Microsoft environments, organizations access refined log data leveraging platforms like Power Platform Admin Center, ensuring comprehensive oversight and operational efficiency.

Microsoft

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention helps businesses protect sensitive data through robust compliance automation and seamless multi-platform integration, supporting environments like Office 365, Azure, iOS, Android, and macOS.

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention focuses on identifying sensitive data and maintaining compliance through automation and integration with platforms such as Exchange email, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. Auto-labeling, classification controls, and monitoring capabilities ensure secure data management, reducing insider threat response times by 25%. While praised for its capabilities, improvements in system integration, endpoint handling, and incident management are needed. Licensing costs and limited language support pose challenges. Usability can be enhanced through interface updates and better documentation. OCR and scalability enhancements could improve policy propagation speed. More end-user training examples would be beneficial.

What are the key features?

Sensitive Data Identification: Detects confidential information across environments.
Compliance Automation: Streamlines regulatory requirements adherence.
Multi-Platform Integration: Supports Office 365, Azure, iOS, Android, macOS seamlessly.
Auto-Labeling: Automatically categorizes sensitive data for protection.
Classification Controls: Provides robust data classification options.
Alerts and Monitoring: Enhances data security with proactive alerting.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Efficient Threat Response: Reduces insider threat response times by 25%.
Enhanced Data Governance: Simplifies managing data privacy and compliance.
Comprehensive Protection: Integrates with multiple platforms for wide coverage.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and legal, Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information due to strict compliance demands. It automates data classification and policy configurations, preventing accidental data leakage and ensuring security protocols align with regulatory standards.

Microsoft

Microsoft Purview Audit vs. Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention