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Microsoft Purview Audit vs Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Purview Audit
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
31st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (35th)
Microsoft Purview Insider R...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Insider Risk Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Audit is 1.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is 2.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management2.4%
Microsoft Purview Audit1.2%
Other96.4%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

OK
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.
Karthik Ekambaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Scybers
Have consistently built secure internal environments while implementing compliance tools for diverse customer needs
The customizable alerts system needs improvement. The detection rules are not extensive enough. There should be more possibilities for creating alerts based on additional criteria. While rules can be customized, the available criteria for creating detection rules should be expanded. Microsoft's pricing is very expensive. The Business Premium offering should be extended to enterprise customers, as it's currently limited to 300 users. There should be a tier below E5 that includes Microsoft Purview and other features. Currently, E5 licensing costs approximately 6,000 INR per user per month including taxes. Competitive solutions offer similar functionality at about 50% of Microsoft's cost. Email DLP is included in Business Premium or P1 licenses, while P2 licenses cover endpoint DLP and additional channels. Microsoft should introduce an intermediate tier below E5 that covers all P1 licenses, as customers often need coverage across the entire M365 suite.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 platform has significantly enhanced our operational insight into the overall Microsoft 365 environment."
"We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution."
"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."
"The scoring mechanism is exceptional because it eliminates the need to reinvent criteria for identifying risks, misconfigurations, or vulnerabilities."
"Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management was helpful in performing investigations after alerts were received."
"An example of how these features from Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management have benefited my organization is that we recently discovered a foreign actor, someone from North Korea took a job at our company and was pretending to be an employee, and with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, they notified us of that problem and we were able to remediate the fact that we had a North Korean spy working for us."
"Insider Risk Management's graphing is highly specific and useful. You can see the last six months of data for the Microsoft tenant. You can easily find what you need. For example, you can filter for alerts about devices, emails, etc."
"The best thing about Purview is that it's easy to integrate with our day-to-day environment. We have Active Directory, and Word and Excel. Using a third-party vendor and trying to integrate with our existing environment would be much more challenging."
 

Cons

"We are still in the early stages of leveraging Microsoft Purview Audit. Currently, it's primarily used for the audit function."
"We do have a Denial of Access happening."
"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."
"Areas for product improvement include enhancing customization options and integrating more comprehensive compliance features."
"The user interface also isn't user-friendly. When we introduce Insider Risk Management to our clients, they often find it difficult to understand. There is too much information, and the UI is not scalable. Also, entry-level IT technicians are not always interested in learning something new. It should be clearer and easier to understand."
"Microsoft's pricing is very expensive. The Business Premium offering should be extended to enterprise customers, as it's currently limited to 300 users."
"For certain things, you need to install an agent. I understand it's for integrity, but if there could be a clientless solution for certain aspects, it would make life easier."
"My experience with the deployment of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management was a fifty-fifty situation because we have a very diverse network, and not all of it is on Microsoft products."
"The reporting capabilities sometimes leave a little to be desired. It could be improved in terms of producing reports to provide information to the C-suite or others."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Audit?
We are still in the early stages of leveraging Microsoft Purview Audit. Currently, it's primarily used for the audit function. In a year's time, we will be able to provide more clarity and context ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Audit?
Microsoft Purview Audit functions as a compliance center. Whenever these systems generate logs, we use Microsoft Purview Audit to capture or retrieve those logs. While there are more tools availabl...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
I feel Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management can be improved by being able to identify patterns and practices of users to determine whether or not they fit the normal use case of a developer, a...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
My main use cases involve identifying issues related to problems with the current software deployments and whether or not it is being utilized correctly.
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management?
My advice to another organization that is considering using Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is to make sure they plan out their deployment very carefully because the biggest sticking poin...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Insider Risk Management
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Audit vs. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.