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Google Vault vs Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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

Google Vault
Ranking in eDiscovery
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery
Ranking in eDiscovery
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the eDiscovery category, the mindshare of Google Vault is 18.2%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is 27.2%, up from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
eDiscovery
 

Featured Reviews

Swapnil Dassi - PeerSpot reviewer
Capabilities in data management, eDiscovery, backup solutions, and ensuring data security and accessibility for admins
One thing I've noticed is that it splits the data files into multiple parts, like the PFT files. For example, when there is a large data size of any account, the backup process splits it into many files. This can be confusing and not very efficient when trying to manage the backups. It would be better if the backup process creates one or two files instead of numerous smaller ones. It should be easier for the admin to manage the data and perform imports or uploads to other accounts. So the backup solution should be more streamlined and provide options for easier data management and import/export processes. There is room for improvement in this aspect. It would be great to see enhancements in this area to make the backup process more user-friendly and efficient. Another area of improvement is support. Earlier, Google support used to be very attentive and responsible, but in the past few months, I've noticed delays in their responses, not only related to Google Vault but also to other products.
Frank Radeck - PeerSpot reviewer
Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented the solution now take just 30 minutes.
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. It enables a streamlined, unified process for searching across these platforms. It is critical for Purview to be able to connect to iOS, Mac, and Android devices and data in other SaaS apps. From a support perspective, I can do things while I'm eating lunch or something else. It's more dynamic and responsive. I think everybody appreciates it. We're not tied to one device. Purview's multi-cloud capabilities are also essential for the same reasons. Keeping everything under one umbrella further increases the time savings. Purview accounts for critical regulations from around the world. This is crucial because we hold ourselves accountable to standards and need to align with them. Working at a law firm, we have clients who dictate to us what standards they expect. The visibility is excellent. As we move more things into the cloud, more opportunities exist to put everything under one umbrella.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The audit part of the tool is the most useful for me."
"In my opinion, the search functionality is the best feature. With Google Vault, we can quickly search for any email within Gmail accounts. And then we can get further information, such as if you want the full header or want to know any extra details about the emails."
"You can retrieve any type of data; for example, if a user accidentally deletes data, as an admin with access to Google Vault, you can easily restore the deleted data."
"The most valuable features are automatic document and email retention."
"Search feature is valuable for our customers."
"Overall, I would rate Google Vault a ten out of ten."
"Google Vault is a solution we can use for the data export of end-users."
"The most valuable feature of Google Vault is its reliability."
"Purview eDiscovery has made it significantly easier to handle rare litigation requests."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery has saved me personally a lot of time because I can query it, and it touches everything we have as a full Microsoft shop."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is the content search. We can use it to find the data we need by searching for keywords, phrases, or the sender or recipient. It helps us gather information from current employees or ones who have left the company."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview eDiscovery is its ability to search across various platforms, including Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. It enables a streamlined, unified process for searching across these platforms."
"Tasks that took an entire day before we implemented Purview now take just 30 minutes."
"The machine learning wasn't half bad. I really like that part. I thought it was novel. It pretty much automated it, once you trained the model."
"The ability to query everything that's in Microsoft and send links or add people, like managers, to review the documents is valuable. It's easy as I don't have to download and email anything. I just add them as a reviewer, and they can access it from there."
"The most valuable features are automatic content logging tagging. Performing these tasks manually would be impossible. Since most of our data is already in Microsoft, it's convenient to run it through this tool."
 

Cons

"One thing I've noticed is that it splits the data files into multiple parts, like the PFT files. For example, when there is a large data size of any account, the backup process splits it into many files. This can be confusing and not very efficient when trying to manage the backups."
"For us, customer service has been a bit lacking, probably with a rating of a five out of ten."
"The knowledge base is not as in-depth as it should be."
"Searching could be improved. There's a lot of limitations when searching with Google Vault."
"My personal opinion is that Google Vault could improve if they could have a similar version to Microsoft 365 where you can have an eDiscovery manager account. With this, you can separate a regular person from an organization and just transfer the specific files."
"Customer service has been a bit lacking."
"Google Vault lacks speed."
"Although it does a good job of searching through data and exporting it, I feel that Google Vault should have more export options available to the user. As a reseller, our customers demand a lot from their Google products, and exporting is one area where there's a lot of improvement needed."
"I see two significant challenges with many of my clients. One is that there are some functionality gaps compared to specialized tools in the legal industry, like a legal hold tool or a document review tool. They have features that Purview eDiscovery lacks. Those gaps create a situation where I almost have to do things twice. I need to collect all my data in eDiscovery and ship it to another platform to complete the review."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users."
"The sorting and filtering of the result data need improvement, and the interface for writing queries is not user-friendly for business users. We still need all the backend stuff. We have to use Graph API to interface with everything and create custom interfaces on the front end to make it easier for the end users, which is costly. The reporting, sorting, and filtering capabilities that other products have aren't available natively in Purview."
"Purview Data Loss Protection for remediating policy violations needs refinement, for example, in defining what constitutes a credit card because that is where I get the most false positives."
"The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially."
"I would suggest adding more platforms."
"Purview eDiscovery works, but it's not entirely perfect. There were times when search results would get hung up or error codes would be presented and we'd have to contact Microsoft to get that sorted out."
"We find that many critical functions are available only to E5 license holders. It would be beneficial to have more options available for E3 customers. Enhanced Teams functionalities and better capture of text message data, both SMS and MMS, would also be improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have Google Enterprise, then Google Vault is free to use."
"Last year, the price was randomly increased and our customers were really facing a challenge around this. Google launched new pricing under different plans, where formerly there were only three plans, and now there are four, each with their own separate usage allowances. I think it's good, though. The basic plan is now the Business Starter plan, and many customers find this plan very convenient and minimal in price. Overall, the pricing for all the plans is good."
"The pricing is fairly cheap."
"Google Vault comes as part of a package deal for us."
"The solution is expensive."
"Google Vault is a cheaply priced product. Monthly payments are to be made towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no extra costs apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The costs associated with E5 licensing are currently expensive for us, so we use the E3 license, which comes with fewer features and functionalities."
"Microsoft Purview eDiscovery comes as part of Microsoft 365 licenses."
"In the positions that I've had through contracting over the years, I've heard talk of it being overpriced and underperforming compared to its competitors."
"The pricing and licensing with Microsoft can be complex, and licensing is known to be a challenge because it changes frequently. While the licensing for Purview is not as tricky as other Microsoft products, navigating licenses since the shift to E3 and E5 plans has been a task, as individual licenses must now be purchased separately."
"With the full bundle, pricing is not a significant concern. As an M3, I find the Purview pricing of 1250 per user worthwhile."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
4%
University
4%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Vault?
It is a very stable solution...It is a very scalable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Vault?
Pricing for Google Vault is very reasonable. We have a package, so I'm not sure of the exact cost. That said, it is considered reasonable.
What needs improvement with Google Vault?
For us, Google Vault does what we need it to do. I haven't had really any complaints about it, so I can't pinpoint areas for improvement.
What do you like most about Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The tool has been beneficial. Some of our previous users left the organization without sharing the information they had at a personal level. This information was related to the organization, and th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The setup process was very straightforward. We acquired pricing through our reseller in NASDAQ, eliminating the need to search for prices ourselves.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview eDiscovery?
The query language can be time-consuming to figure out if you don't know it initially. While there are options with dropdowns to select criteria, having a natural language feature would be benefici...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Broadcom, Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Globeflight, Maven Wave, McClatchy, NII Holdings, Safetec, Sheboygan County
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Vault vs. Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.