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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Microsoft Defender is essential and affordable for users, offering cost advantages over AWS, despite unclear individual financial benefits.
Sentiment score
8.1
Microsoft Purview Information Protection enhances security, ensures compliance, reduces costs, and improves efficiency by automating data protection and governance.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
Purview can do a quick scan, and it doesn't use human resources, so it gets time to do things that we need humans to focus on.
The cost of data loss and your data going to a competitor is potentially massive.
Customers have seen a return on investment through quicker issue detection and cost savings due to automation.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's support is reliable yet inconsistent in communication and timeliness, praised for skills but needs improvement.
Sentiment score
5.3
Users report mixed customer service experiences with Microsoft Purview, noting slow response times and inadequate communication despite some improvements.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
Their response time and skill set are both good.
Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution.
It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support.
We generally receive good support from Microsoft for this solution.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Microsoft Defender is praised for its scalability and integration, efficiently managing vulnerabilities across various sectors and servers.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft Purview Information Protection is scalable for large workloads, but speed and policy update intervals could be improved.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
It can be scaled across different departments organization-wide very quickly and easily.
It can handle large collections of data without issues.
Scalability can be improved by reducing these intervals.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is stable and reliable, though it has minor compatibility issues and can be resource-intensive.
Sentiment score
7.4
Purview remains reliable and stable, performing well at scale with minor issues and continuous upgrades through its SaaS model.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
Once implemented, I haven't had issues with its consistency.
The solution is stable overall.
 

Room For Improvement

Improve efficiency by reducing false positives and enhancing integration, stability, and AI capabilities while considering cost and resource demands.
Microsoft Purview Information Protection needs enhancements in integration, affordability, reporting, AI, feature reintroduction, and comprehensive data protection.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
The automated remediations can be more specific.
Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients.
Clarifying product features and use cases would help avoid such confusion.
Purview could better integrate with third-party tools.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management has competitive pricing, requiring a license upgrade for additional features, often included in packages.
Microsoft Purview Information Protection offers competitive pricing, attractive bundling, and flexible licensing options, appealing to enterprise buyers.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started.
Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment.
The pricing is not very high and is considered fine.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management enhances security and efficiency through integration, accurate assessments, risk analysis, and management features.
Microsoft Purview excels in data protection with encryption, labeling, cross-platform security, and seamless integration, enhancing compliance and efficiency.
The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses.
Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI.
It's paramount to have a single solution for information protection.
Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Microsoft Purview Informati...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Data Governance (4th), Data Privacy Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 1.1%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
Heidi Hasting - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides an essential audit trail that helps prevent accidental exposure of sensitive data, but the changing product names are confusing
One of the key features of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is the auto-classification functionalities, although I have found them to be less effective in complex scenarios. The policy toggle, demanding justification for downgrading labels, provides an essential audit trail that helps prevent accidental exposure of sensitive data. The security tools integrate well. I like that you can scan several data or informational assets, such as your SharePoint list, Teams, etc., and bring them into Purview as a central repository. Partnering with other products, like Sentinel, for logging capability and inventory provides a service across the board. It's essential that Purview automatically prevents highly sensitive corporate secrets and data from being ingested into generative AI models, but the reality is that AI is a tool. It's problematic if consumers rely on a tool to protect them because they must be educated first. Regardless of the education, the employee might share the information anyway, so the AI shouldn't be the first point of failure. It should be a human making good decisions.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more advanced AI agent, possibly a large language model with better performance than...
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?
The pricing is not very high and is considered fine. Microsoft offers different licensing options. AIP Plan 2 is used for critical users. The AIP is included in the business standard license for cl...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?
The most difficult part in the labeling solution is the lack of direct PDF support on Macs, whereas on Windows, a Purview agent can label PDFs. This should be improved to support PDF protection on ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Information Protection
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Microsoft Purview Information Protection and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.