Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform comparison

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs. Varonis Platform

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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 Purview Data Gove...

Ranking in Data Governance

1st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Microsoft Security Suite (8th)

Varonis Platform

Ranking in Data Governance

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (8th), Compliance Management (8th), Ransomware Protection (8th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Data Governance is 23.9%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 10.2%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Q&A Highlights

Peter-Param

Manager Cyber Security at AnglicareSA

Feb 04, 2025

What are the main differences between Varonis and Microsoft Purview?

Microsoft Purview offers seamless integration with Azure and other Microsoft products, extensive data classification, and multi-cloud capabilities. Varonis Platform excels in detailed data access monitoring, comprehensive security features, and compliance management tools. Hope this helps.

The sensitivity and retention options in Purview are excellent

Featured Reviews

James McDowall

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

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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Frederic Delos

Senior Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

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.

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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

"It gives you the opportunity to know your data and apply policies around it. If those policies are flouted, you can always track what's happening. You have options such as alerting the person who is committing that action, or you can take automatic action by blocking, for example, an email that is been sent externally. It's very useful."

"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."

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

"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."

"Instead of having to manually write down which tables and columns exist and then describe them, you can do that process in one go, by simply connecting to a source. That's a huge time-saver and a great benefit of Purview."

"The most significant value lies in its seamless integration into the Azure ecosystem, automating various processes and reducing operational burdens."

"Microsoft Purview offers data protection across a multi-cloud and multi-platform environment."

"Data authentication enables us to classify documents based on whether they should be restricted for internal consumption or permitted for external sharing."

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance pros

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."

"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."

"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."

"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."

"Technical support from Varonis is rated as nine out of ten."

"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."

"The analytics would have to be our most valuable feature."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

"Support should be improved in the form of good documentation and video lessons where a person can check things out. There is a community, but it takes a lot of time if we want to get an answer to a question."

"Privacy features should be integrated into the core product rather than offered as optional add-ons, as privacy is not a luxury but a fundamental requirement."

"The product needs improvement to edit the number of assets. It needs to be more inuitive as well."

"The custom data classification for the African region needs to be improved."

"The product must provide better integrations with OS X and iOS."

"There are some limitations with regard to the lineage of data from different parts of the system."

"There are negatives to the compliance aspect of Purview in that you get a lot of false positives with some of the native scanning and rules in the platform. A lot of them need tweaking to get a more realistic handle on what data there is."

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

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance cons

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"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."

"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"

"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."

"I would like it to have cloud integration."

"There is one thing that if I add something manually, I get so many alerts. That's the biggest bad thing."

"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."

"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."

More Varonis Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Purview is expensive."

"To get the full features of Purview, we currently need E5 enterprise licenses, which are expensive."

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

"I consider it cost-efficient because of the metrics it provides."

"Purview is included in our Microsoft E5 licensing."

"Currently, the licensing differs for the governance side compared to the risk and compliance side."

More Microsoft Purview Data Governance pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."

"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."

"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

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?

Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area for improvement. Varonis requires more access permissions for its core function...

What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?

The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organization to protect it. We are looking for a solution that can scan our repositor...

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Product Reports

Microsoft Purview Data Governance

Download Microsoft Purview Data Governance product report

Microsoft Purview Data Governance report

Varonis Platform

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Purview, MS Azure Purview

No data available

Overview

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

Varonis Platform specializes in network security and data monitoring with modules for alerting, data classification, and access management, benefiting environments like Microsoft 365.

Varonis is designed to secure data by auditing and tracking data movement. It leverages data alert and classification modules to identify and manage sensitive information. The platform enhances network security by alerting users to unexpected data modifications and deletions, crucial for effective data loss prevention. It supports unstructured data management, ensuring proper data access and permission controls. Known for its 24/7 support, Varonis offers comprehensive analytics and unified reporting, helping prevent data overexposure and facilitating compliance efforts.

What are the key features of Varonis Platform?

24/7 Support: Provides round-the-clock assistance.
Data Monitoring: Tracks data activities efficiently.
Unified Reporting: Consolidates data access reports.
Data Classification: Identifies sensitive data effectively.
Permission Management: Simplifies managing access rights.
Behavior Analytics: Detects abnormal behavior patterns.

What benefits should be highlighted in user reviews?

Enhanced Security: Improves data protection measures.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting compliance standards.
Data Transparency: Offers clarity in data access activities.
Access Control: Ensures proper access to data.
Centralized Remediation: Eases remediation procedures.

Varonis Platform is widely utilized in industries needing stringent data confidentiality and management, such as finance and healthcare, for tracking data modifications and unauthorized access. Enterprises deploy it to manage permissions within large datasets, benefiting Microsoft 365 environments. While Varonis requires enhancements in cloud integration, the current deployment is often based on-premises, with attention to addressing the security needs and effective data handling for critical infrastructure.

Varonis

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Nottingham Building Society

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs. Varonis Platform