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BigID vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

BigID
Ranking in Data Governance
8th
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Data Privacy Management Software (3rd)
Varonis Platform
Ranking in Data Governance
7th
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (13th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Compliance Management (8th), Ransomware Protection (9th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of BigID is 8.0%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 9.4%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Governance
 

Featured Reviews

Scott Margolis - PeerSpot reviewer
Commendable and robust data-centric tool
The initial setup is complex. There's a nuance to it, and that's one of the things that's been interesting as the technologies evolve. It's not complex in and of itself. You can install it quickly and attach data quickly. The complexity arises because most organizations I've worked with are thinking about their data for the first time. So, while installing the software and operationalizing it is easy, the onboarding and understanding of the data, design, legacy systems, and everything from Oracle to side-based to MS Access, that's where it gets tricky. They need to catalog, correlate, combine, rationalize, and really think through it all. So, the software itself is easy to implement and operate. But the operational side, from the client's perspective, requires a commitment. It's like buying a circular saw and expecting to build a house. The tool will take you some of the way, but if you don't have the underlying knowledge, you're going to struggle.
Frederic  Delos - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data
The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BigID's scanning feature is its most valuable component."
"The data classification offered by the tool can help companies improve their security strategy"
"The features that I have found most valuable are the user experience, the credentialing, and that BigID is user friendly. Additionally, you can deploy to several other Microsoft platforms and you can use it for other things, like a bigger element or a report."
"BigID integrates well with our other products."
"BigID offers different scan types for data discovery. The most powerful one is the full scan, which scans both data and metadata. However, the metadata scan is faster in comparison."
"BigID is more advanced than Microsoft Purview when it comes to machine learning and AI development tools."
"I like BigID's in-depth discovery and scanning capabilities, especially for unstructured data. This feature is a standout compared to competitors. The tool's data classification capabilities are impressive. It offers custom classifiers and a blend of regular exploration and artificial intelligence, making it a next-generation solution. This enhances data security, and its security posture management is straightforward and user-friendly."
"It provides a unified view across different databases and supports a wide range of data source types, including cloud and on-premises systems."
"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."
"That alerting and reporting service is great."
"There's also a 90-day policy where if a user is not using the warehouse, it will automatically delete that username."
"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."
"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"The challenge we encountered was with data connection across multiple databases. We struggled with configuring the data connection successfully. However, with the assistance of dynamic teams, we resolved this issue."
"Improvement could be made in data consent management and data privacy impact assessment."
"BigID is expensive. I prefer McAfee."
"The tool currently lacks security features."
"BigID needs improvement in terms of automation."
"BigID is making some forays into the GRC space, and that's a natural progression. I'd like to see that improve so that data governance is better, data risk is identified, and the ability to control and mitigate it."
"Some users find catalog navigation challenging due to the lack of a search-by-column feature, which makes it difficult to locate specific data quickly."
"More classifications about different states are needed"
"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."
"It is significantly complex."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."
"I would like it to have cloud integration."
"The product is very complicated."
"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive, but so are all competitor tools"
"The solution is not licensed per user but rather based on capacity. For instance, organizations with large amounts of data, such as 50 GB or more, are the ones that typically qualify for BigID."
"The solution is expensive."
"I think that BigID's pricing is very reasonable."
"The pricing depends. If you have thousands of data sources to connect and manage, and you struggled with an MDM package in the past, you'll find BigID valuable and even cheap. But if you're a small business, it's probably not the right tool for you."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"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."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigID?
I like BigID's in-depth discovery and scanning capabilities, especially for unstructured data. This feature is a standout compared to competitors. The tool's data classification capabilities are i...
What needs improvement with BigID?
BigID needs improvement in terms of automation. Its automation capabilities are limited compared to Purview. While BigID can generate outcomes, it is not adept at automating business processes, whi...
What is your primary use case for BigID?
I have used BigID to scan for data discovery, data protection, analyze where the data is found, data classification, and data mapping. I integrated BigID with Microsoft Purview to expand the scope ...
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?
The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components. The interface has improved with the move to a SaaS model, but aspects could s...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
Customers use the product to identify sensitive information, correlate it with access permissions, and utilize its automation engine for remediation. It includes fixing broken permissions and manag...
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Home Depot, Grant Thornton LLP, Cimpress, Fidelity Investments
Nottingham Building Society
Find out what your peers are saying about BigID vs. Varonis Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.