Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs Varonis Platform comparison

Microsoft and Varonis are both solutions in the Data Governance category. Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.7, while Varonis is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 2.4% mindshare in DG, compared to Varonis’s 9.1% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Varonis users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Purview Informati...

Read 7 Microsoft Purview Information Protection reviews

1,101 Views
828 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Varonis Platform

Read 13 Varonis Platform reviews

3,280 Views
2,811 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Microsoft Purview Informati...

Varonis Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Microsoft Purview Information Protection and Varonis Platform are products focused on data protection and management. Microsoft stands out for its integration with Microsoft services and affordability, while Varonis is noteworthy for advanced analytics justifying a higher cost.

Features: Microsoft Purview Information Protection offers features like seamless integration with Microsoft Office, automatic data classification, and labeling. Varonis Platform includes sophisticated data security analytics, deep data insight, and threat detection capabilities. While both aim for effective data protection, Varonis Platform's comprehensive analytics often provide a competitive edge.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Purview could enhance its data analytics capabilities, extend compatibility outside the Microsoft ecosystem, and improve threat detection features. Varonis Platform can work on simplifying its interface, reducing complexity in deployment, and offering more flexible pricing options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Purview is praised for smooth deployment due to integration with existing Microsoft environments. Varonis Platform, while potentially complex, offers extensive customer service and support, aiding in implementation challenges. Microsoft's alignment with its suite simplifies integration, whereas Varonis balances complexity with strong support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Purview Information Protection offers lower setup costs, appealing to budget-conscious businesses with predictable ROI through its integrated ecosystem. Varonis Platform requires a larger upfront investment, with many finding the ROI justified by its comprehensive features and advanced capabilities. Microsoft Purview is attractive to cost-sensitive enterprises, while Varonis draws those prioritizing expansive data protection and analysis.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform

October 2024

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Helped 815,854 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Purview Informati...

Ranking in Data Governance

9th

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Privacy Management Software (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (21st)

Varonis Platform

Ranking in Data Governance

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (13th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (8th), Compliance Management (8th), Ransomware Protection (9th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 9.1%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Nagendra Nekkala.

Senior Manager ICT & at Bangalore International Airport Limited

Dec 15, 2023

Effectively controls and classifies sensitive information, providing robust protection for our documents and emails

When implementing Microsoft Purview Information Protection, I aimed to automatically classify sensitive data and ensure its protection. The goal was to streamline the process of identifying and securing sensitive information to enhance overall data security measures. Microsoft Purview Information Protection has significantly improved our company by ensuring data security across all locations. I no longer worry about the safety of my data, especially sensitive information. Whether it is critical or not, the system reliably protects our information without any concerns. It has saved us time overall. We are looking at a time savings of around two to three hours a day. It also helped us save money, especially considering the high cost associated with data. Ensuring that our data is secure and not at risk has translated into significant internal cost savings.

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Frederic Delos

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

Mar 5, 2024

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

"I created training materials for end users on applying different labels, explaining their purposes, and providing examples. This was crucial since end users would apply the labels in different protection scenarios. The implementation helped the organization in several ways."

"Before using it, we had a lot of unlabeled data, and the tool helped us quickly and accurately label a large number of documents."

"We can restrict access or specify who can see sensitivity labels, which can be based on the classification level. We can encrypt restricted content and limit who can see that from an internal view, too, so Purview is a powerful tool."

"The UI is user-friendly, and I have observed that it improves further each year."

"It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device."

"We use the solution for our customers' services. It helps identify and protect sensitive data in documents, PDFs, emails, and Teams chats to prevent data leakage. It can detect and block emails containing credit card information sent outside the organization."

"Incorporating data loss prevention capabilities built into the Microsoft platform to endpoints, such as Windows 10 and Windows 11 computers, can also help prevent data loss and is highly advantageous."

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

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

"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 what's happening in our environment."

"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."

"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."

"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."

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

"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement with the policy tips feature."

"Microsoft Purview Information Protection can improve in terms of scan concurrency and scan processing time."

"Microsoft can improve the affordability of Purview Information Protection by offering it at a lower cost."

"I had experience with previous versions of Microsoft Purview Information Protection as well. The new version doesn't have all the features that were present in the previous native clients and functionalities. For example, the ability to track documents - knowing where your document is, who is accessing it, when and where. You could even revoke access to a particular document if needed, which was a cool feature. These aren't available right now, although Microsoft is working on bringing them back, which might take some time."

"I wouldn't recommend Microsoft Purview Information Protection for petabytes of documents as performance might be affected."

"Our primary concern is third-party application visibility. Many people choose other DLP tools, as they can search the Office 365 suite and detect sensitive information across thousands of other apps. The product is weak compared to the competitors on the DLP front, but the classification is good; the tool needs a bit more maturation."

"There is potential for more integration in the use of AI."

"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."

"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."

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

"It is significantly complex."

"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."

"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."

"The product is very complicated."

"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."

More Varonis Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is affordable, and our clients agree. Sensitivity labels come with the MIP license at an additional $2 a month per user, an excellent deal for auto-labeling capabilities."

"The tool's pricing is not a problem for customers because they often purchase it as part of a bundle. With an E5 license, for example, users get access to the entire functionality. This is one of the main reasons why many customers are choosing Microsoft."

"The price is determined by the enterprise licensing, either the E3 or E5 licensing or the EMS plus security and other feature licensing."

"The tool's pricing is fairly low, less than 100,000 for a year."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Retailer

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

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 Purview Information Protection?

It ensures that sensitive data is automatically safeguarded, even for email attachments, regardless of the user or device.

See all answers

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

The tool's pricing is not a problem for customers because they often purchase it as part of a bundle. With an E5 license, for example, users get access to the entire functionality. This is one of t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?

I had experience with previous versions of Microsoft Purview Information Protection as well. The new version doesn't have all the features that were present in the previous native clients and funct...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?

The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components. The interface has improved with the move to a SaaS model, but aspects could s...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?

Customers use the product to identify sensitive information, correlate it with access permissions, and utilize its automation engine for remediation. It includes fixing broken permissions and manag...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Compared 11% of the time

Securiti vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Compared 10% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Compared 10% of the time

BigID vs Microsoft Purview Information Protection

Compared 9% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform

Compared 16% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Cyera vs Varonis Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Lepide vs Varonis Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Varonis Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview Information Protection

November 2024

Microsoft Purview Information Protection report

Download Microsoft Purview Information Protection product report

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform

October 2024

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Information Protection

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Microsoft

Varonis

Overview

Implement Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) to help you discover, classify, and protect sensitive information wherever it lives or travels.

MIP capabilities are included with Microsoft 365 Compliance and give you the tools to know your data, protect your data, and prevent data loss.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

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.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Nottingham Building Society

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform

October 2024

Free Report: Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform

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