Microsoft Entra External ID vs Microsoft Purview Data Governance comparison

Microsoft Entra External ID vs. Microsoft Purview Data Governance

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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 Entra External ID

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (13th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (7th)

Microsoft Purview Data Gove...

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

8th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Governance (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra External ID is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Governance is 4.8%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Corrado Vigano

Sales Manager - Program Manger at Altitudo srl

Solution integrates well with existing systems while being easy to use

The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use. Furthermore, Microsoft's reliability in providing a clear roadmap for the solution is very important, especially at a time when cybersecurity is a risk in every company. The solution is easy to reuse and not difficult to find expertise for in the market because it is widespread. It is gaining attention even from partners and from the market on the offering side. This serves as a good starting point for customers who can develop internal competence on the solution. Additionally, the presence of reliable partners who know the solution and can provide internal knowledge is the best aspect for them.

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James McDowall

Senior Microsoft Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The sensitivity and retention options in Purview are excellent

Some of the menu headings may not be easy to understand for some people. For example, when I first used Purview, I noticed that one of the self-compliance centers had changed its name. Microsoft has done a huge amount of updates, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of what Purview can do. We almost constantly have to explore it. Maybe Microsoft could have a 365 roadmap where we can look at upcoming features, or some kind of bulletin announcement for Purview users that explains new features and what they can do in simple terms. We could also look at the menu settings. In my experience of using Purview, we've never used it as an exclusive system for IT professionals or technical staff. We were very keen that other specialists around the business made use of some of these features because we thought that some of what Purview could do was relevant to other departments as well as IT. For example, we have HR managers and financial staff who use it. I think that some of the terminology in Purview is pitched toward IT and tech professionals, and it may not be immediately understood by other specialists. This is something that could be improved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Entra External ID is more secure, offering a secure environment."

"The most valuable feature for me is the firewall capabilities."

"The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use."

"It's quite easy to manage and monitor."

"The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use."

"The most beneficial feature for us is the ease of setup. With about five clicks, we can generate unique IDs and keys and set up in less than 30 minutes. We can also generate these for multiple years simultaneously, which is convenient."

"The single sign-on access is the most useful feature we use."

More Microsoft Entra External ID pros

"The most valuable aspect of Purview is its PowerShell connectivity, enabling automation."

"It is critical that Purview delivers data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments. That is the number one reason that people are adopting hybrid and best-of-the-breed approaches. Especially in banking, it is critical because people want to protect, govern, and secure their data. This is one of the first conversations that happens with security and the architecture group on the client side."

"I use the tool in projects as a medium to provide information as reports to the stakeholders."

"I really like the entire system for auto-labeling content. It's a very refined system. I use the Keyword Query Language to define refined string-based metadata, and then I can really go deep into the specific data with the specific properties labeled in such and such a way."

"It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies."

"I think Purview does as good a job...I'll say that it is as stable as the data governance maturity that exists within an organization. It can't be more stable than that."

"Purview helped us automate and control our data without having to rely on people to manually tag documents with specific retention periods."

"The data protection feature is vital as it controls who can access data when it moves out of our protected boundary."

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance pros

Cons

"I generally find Microsoft solutions expensive, especially in specific offerings."

"The quality of Microsoft customer support varies. With an enterprise contract, good resources are usually provided, especially in regions like Saudi Arabia or UAE. However, we have faced challenges with support quality, especially in some subcontinent areas where the resources might not be as experienced."

"Single sign-on for external applications such as Oracle could be improved to be a little bit cheaper."

"The problem with Microsoft products is that they often cater to enterprise-level needs, which can be too costly for medium-sized businesses."

"The cost is very high."

"A common concern among the customers I visit is the unpredictability of Microsoft's costs at every renewal. This is really bothersome for the customer, and I would say it is the worst element I have seen in these years."

"There is room for improvement in AI technology for Microsoft Entra External ID, particularly in providing detailed alerts."

"Microsoft's pricing is complex and difficult to fathom due to a range of different licensing options."

More Microsoft Entra External ID cons

"One drawback of Microsoft Purview, though it's beneficial and easy to use, is that when you start plugging in connectors for third-party sources when setting the solution up for data collection, it becomes a bit more tricky."

"I lose a little bit of that control when we're talking about third-party connectors. Compliance-wise, I would like to see more ability to audit from a user perspective, where I could extrapolate what the user was thinking or trying to do."

"Licensing is frustrating due to multiple modules and licenses. The feature might be available in the console, but it won't work without the proper license, creating confusion."

"It supports only a limited number of tools and technologies that pertain to Microsoft products. If you want to leverage other solutions such as Workday or Oracle Fusion, features will be coming up, but as of now, it is for the Microsoft suite."

"I rate Microsoft support six out of 10. The standard support is acceptable, but sometimes it doesn't respond fast enough. Overall, it doesn't meet our expectations."

"Purview's data loss prevention for macOS endpoints has some limitations, and the end-user experience of recovering from a failure is lacking."

"Microsoft Purview's compliance processes for handling various Mac and iOS devices could be significantly improved."

"Two features are unsupported—custom insights and the DLP component—that would be beneficial to me as a consultant and for the customer in terms of security and monitoring. Regarding security, DLP would provide a more granular level of data masking. Custom insights would offer more detailed monitoring and alerts that can notify customers of failures or anything requiring urgent action."

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't pay separately for Microsoft Entra External ID as it's part of our Microsoft Exchange subscription."

"The pricing is moderate. It's not too expensive, but it's not the most competitive."

"We pay $15,000 per end user for the E5 license."

"Price-wise, I think it's very generous and accessible to not just enterprises but small to medium-sized companies as well. I think it's very fair in terms of how they break apart the storage and the actual computing, and that makes it very accessible. So, that is a very big plus for Purview."

"The price is a little bit high, but it's worth the money because it has a lot of features."

"Aside from the complexity of the pricing model, the price itself is realistic. Features like AI components and automatic classification require additional licenses. Still, anyone can start using Purview with a basic E3 license if they're using Microsoft 365 and grow with additional licenses as needed. Overall, we're satisfied with the price."

"The price is reasonable because most of our clients already have an E3 license, which makes implementation easy."

"The pricing is decent. It is neither too low nor too high. Given its capabilities, the pricing is justified."

"The categorization within the licensing could be improved. There are a lot of solutions within Microsoft Purview. If the licensing could be a bit clearer and the solutions could be better categorized according to function and across multiple environments, that would be excellent. The licensing is very confusing."

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra External ID?

The cost can be a factor for Microsoft Entra External ID, but in general, it offers a scalable and efficient solution compared to deploying individual solutions.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra External ID?

Some areas where Microsoft Entra External ID could improve include cost and enhanced security for integration with federated logins like LinkedIn and Gmail.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Entra External ID?

I am working on a project for a university where we are trying to create a digital twin of a coral reef restoration project in Saudi Arabia. This involves using a big data platform and developing a...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Purview?

It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Purview?

The auto-tagging feature should be available at a lower licensing level.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Purview?

Auto-tagging should be available at lower levels of licensing. Right now, a high level of licensing is needed for auto-tagging, and this feature should be made available at a lower license level.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Entra External ID

Download Microsoft Entra External ID product report

Microsoft Purview Data Governance

Download Microsoft Purview Data Governance product report

Microsoft Purview Data Governance report

Also Known As

Azure Active Directory External Identities

Microsoft Purview, MS Azure Purview

Overview

Microsoft Entra External ID, part of Microsoft Entra, provides highly secure digital experiences for partners, customers, citizens, patients, or any users outside your organization with customization controls. Combine external identities and user directories in one portal to seamlessly manage access across the organization.

Microsoft Entra External ID refers to all the ways you can securely interact with users outside of your organization. If you want to collaborate with partners, distributors, suppliers, or vendors, you can share your resources and define how your internal users can access external organizations. If you're a developer creating consumer-facing apps, you can manage your customers' identity experiences.

With External ID, external users can "bring their own identities." Whether they have a corporate or government-issued digital identity, or an unmanaged social identity like Google or Facebook, they can use their own credentials to sign in. The external user’s identity provider manages their identity, and you manage access to your apps with Entra ID or Entra External ID to keep your resources protected.

The following capabilities make up External ID:

B2B collaboration - Collaborate with external users by letting them use their preferred identity to sign in to your Microsoft applications or other enterprise applications (SaaS apps, custom-developed apps, etc.). B2B collaboration users are represented in your directory, typically as guest users.
B2B direct connect - Establish a mutual, two-way trust with another Azure AD organization for seamless collaboration. B2B direct connect currently supports Teams shared channels, enabling external users to access your resources from within their home instances of Teams. B2B direct connect users aren't represented in your directory, but they're visible from within the Teams shared channel and can be monitored in Teams admin center reports.
Azure AD B2C - Publish modern SaaS apps or custom-developed apps (excluding Microsoft apps) to consumers and customers, while using Azure AD B2C for identity and access management.

Microsoft

The new Microsoft Purview portal offers an enhanced governance experience, serving as a unified platform for managing and governing data across various sources, including Azure, Microsoft 365, on-premises, and multicloud environments. Designed to streamline governance, compliance, risk, and security efforts, the new portal provides a user-friendly interface and unlocks advanced features like live view and preset scans. Existing users of Microsoft Purview can upgrade to this enhanced experience, gaining access to improved user interface, enhanced capabilities, and consolidated management of data assets. Additionally, the upgrade sets the stage for future developments, including account consolidation and fine-grained access control.

Microsoft

Microsoft Entra External ID vs. Microsoft Purview Data Governance