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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 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 Defender for Offi...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Email Archiving (1st), Email Security (1st), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (2nd), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
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 February 2026, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 3.6%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management is 2.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Office 3653.6%
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management2.4%
Other94.0%
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Emeka Ndulu - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Improves threat visibility and response while reducing manual tasks and training users against phishing
I appreciate the attack simulation feature whereby I get to train users and educate them on how to identify phishing emails and spam emails, as well as the anti-spam protection. It gives me visibility into my threat environment and threat landscape to ensure that I am one step ahead of any likelihood of threats within my environment. I get to detect it and respond, so the threat intelligence is very effective. Microsoft security solutions save my time. It saves money because once I protect my environment, I don't lose money. It has decreased my detection time and my time to respond.
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 most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"The feature I like the most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is that it typically runs in the background—you do not know it is there until you need to access it."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"The insights provided with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 are helpful because it comes with the E5 license, and by default, we can use a lot of capabilities."
"It’s easy to handle integrations, and we don't need a lot of people in our IT team."
"I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"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 scoring mechanism is exceptional because it eliminates the need to reinvent criteria for identifying risks, misconfigurations, or vulnerabilities."
"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."
"Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management was helpful in performing investigations after alerts were received."
"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

"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"There is a different console for different things; I just want one consolidated console."
"The changes to customer service, specifically the new model for support agreements, are not favorable."
"The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster."
"In some situations, it has not been able to pick impersonated emails having no attachments. Technical support definitely has a scope for improvement."
"The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year."
"Configuration at the mid-level could be improved for the support team."
"Microsoft's pricing is very expensive. The Business Premium offering should be extended to enterprise customers, as it's currently limited to 300 users."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is expensive because the cost is based on the number of users."
"The solution could be better by simplifying the business model of their licensing. It was hard to figure out how to get the licensing done for the environment, initially."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"The product is expensive."
"It's a user-base subscription."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The inbuilt analysis of false positives can be faster. It's not slow, but it can be faster.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
My use case for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is for email protection, safe links, protection of links, documents, protecting my documents, and protecting attachments. I also use it to conduct ...
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

MS Defender for Office 365
Microsoft Insider Risk Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.