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Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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 Informati...
Ranking in Data Governance
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Privacy Management Software (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (13th)
Varonis Platform
Ranking in Data Governance
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (11th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 10.8%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Abhi T - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.
Herman Pienaar - PeerSpot reviewer
Has valuable data alerting capabilities and efficient reporting features
The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient. It provides good reporting and visualization, which is superior to previous tools like Microsoft's. The platform's data alerting capabilities and automation features for managing broken permissions are particularly notable. It offers robust automation capabilities, including global permission repair, broken access repairs, and data transport engine features for archiving and migration. The automation tools are useful for managing permissions and performing cleanup tasks efficiently. It provides strong reporting capabilities that help customers adhere to regulations and maintain compliance. Automating reporting is beneficial for maintaining robust governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) posture. It does incorporate some AI elements, particularly in its data alerting module. However, AI integration has yet to be the primary focus of my implementations. AI is expected to play a larger role in future enhancements. I recommend Varonis, particularly its effectiveness in performing data security remediation tasks. Despite its high cost, it is valuable for its capabilities and the lack of impact on end users. Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend Microsoft Purview Information Protection for organizations using the Microsoft ecosystem."
"Microsoft Purview Information Protection integrates with the productivity and security tools that my customers use regularly, allowing them to avoid using multiple information protection solutions."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is its ability to respond to sensitive data shared on Teams chat by deleting the message, not just monitoring or logging."
"The simplicity of the way we can configure the DLP rules in Microsoft Purview Information Protection is good."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is its ability to respond to sensitive data shared on Teams chat by deleting the message, not just monitoring or logging."
"Microsoft Purview Information Protection integrates with the productivity and security tools that my customers use regularly, allowing them to avoid using multiple information protection solutions."
"Purview is about auditing and discoverability. We need to ensure people aren't releasing information that they shouldn't and that they're doing multi-factor authentication or accessing it from the correct devices. It aids in reducing silos within organizations, enabling staff to easily find documents and contacts without exhausting human resources."
"The UI is user-friendly, and I have observed that it improves further each year."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"Technical support from Varonis is rated as nine out of ten."
"That alerting and reporting service is great."
"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."
"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
 

Cons

"The most concerning thing is that most of the capabilities they mention are not working as expected."
"Purview could better integrate with third-party tools, but I don't have a specific use case for that because It's currently integrated into the managed services we offer to Microsoft customers using E5 licenses."
"Most of the capabilities they mention are not working as expected. That is where the challenge lies."
"There should be more training and communication regarding new features. I may be missing those communications, but it often seems like changes happen in the Purview portal without notice. Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients. If things are constantly changing, I sometimes look silly when I log in, and things have moved or changed."
"Microsoft Purview Information Protection can improve in terms of scan concurrency and scan processing time."
"There is room for improvement with the policy tips feature."
"During the initial setup, I found the lack of policy segregation at the sub-site level for DLP policies to be a challenge."
"The communication around Microsoft product names and functionalities can be confusing, like when they combined Office 365 Risk and Compliance with Azure Purview. Then, they added Purview Hub to Fabric, and people thought Purview Hub would do data lineages, but it didn't. It isn't full-fledged Purview. It's just one feature set."
"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."
"I would like it to have cloud integration."
"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."
"The product is very complicated."
"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"
"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"It is significantly complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is not a problem for customers because they often purchase it as part of a bundle. With an E5 license, for example, users get access to the entire functionality. This is one of the main reasons why many customers are choosing Microsoft."
"The pricing and setup costs are transferred to my clients, who find it affordable and are satisfied with what they receive."
"The price is determined by the enterprise licensing, either the E3 or E5 licensing or the EMS plus security and other feature licensing."
"The tool's pricing is fairly low, less than 100,000 for a year."
"Initially, Purview's cost seemed quite high because it was for personal use. I was scanning a tiny tenant and thinking, "If I extrapolate this to an enterprise-scale tenant, it will be quite costly." However, I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started. At least, Purview has a free trial, so you can try some of the features early on."
"The product is affordable, and our clients agree. Sensitivity labels come with the MIP license at an additional $2 a month per user, an excellent deal for auto-labeling capabilities."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
Pricing is good because if somebody is looking for an overall cybersecurity solution, Microsoft has one license with many solutions bundled with that license. The E5 license covers most of the solu...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the mid...
What do you like most about Varonis Platform?
The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand w...
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Information Protection
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Nottingham Building Society
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.