Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs Varonis Platform comparison

Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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 Informati...

Ranking in Data Governance

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Privacy Management Software (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (13th)

Varonis Platform

Ranking in Data Governance

4th

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) (4th), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (11th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 10.8%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

Abhi T

Associate Director at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Achieve comprehensive data protection with reliable performance and room for enhanced discovery accuracy

The product is still in a growing phase. I could see that many use cases in their product are not capable enough in terms of detecting or protecting. Compared to other products, they are in the middle of bringing their solution up to the mark, so it is not a full-grown solution. They have to get more accurate results in terms of data discovery and classification. The second thing is their support; support from Microsoft takes a lot of time to get a response from their support team. The third thing is their OCR capability is not that great in terms of identifying the documents. We would love to see response times of less than 24 hours. Additionally, there is no way to check the policy's current status in terms of whether it got synced or not. You have to wait and test the use cases after 24 hours or after 48 hours, and once it starts working, then it appears the policy got implemented.

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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

"The reporting capabilities of Microsoft Purview are crucial. They provide insights into potentially non-compliant situations and suggest ways to rectify them. The solution helps to automate many tasks, allowing human operators to focus on areas where they offer the most value."

"The simplicity of the way we can configure the DLP rules in Microsoft Purview Information Protection is good."

"Microsoft Purview Information Protection integrates with the productivity and security tools that my customers use regularly, allowing them to avoid using multiple information protection solutions."

"Microsoft Purview Information Protection supports data classification, sensitivity labels, and data loss prevention."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is its ability to respond to sensitive data shared on Teams chat by deleting the message, not just monitoring or logging."

"The user interface is nice and it's very user-friendly on that front."

"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 scalability of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is excellent."

More Microsoft Purview Information Protection pros

"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."

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

"There's also a 90-day policy where if a user is not using the warehouse, it will automatically delete that username."

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

"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."

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

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

"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."

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

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

"I would like the time it takes to update a DLP policy on an endpoint to be reduced."

"The most concerning thing is that most of the capabilities they mention are not working as expected."

"Purview could better integrate with third-party tools, but I don't have a specific use case for that because It's currently integrated into the managed services we offer to Microsoft customers using E5 licenses."

"I would evaluate Microsoft's customer support for Microsoft Purview Information Protection as not satisfactory. I'm not happy with Microsoft's customer support."

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

"During the initial setup, I found the lack of policy segregation at the sub-site level for DLP policies to be a challenge."

"Microsoft customer service is hit or miss. Sometimes, I get a fast and knowledgeable response, while other times, I've experienced delays and received no resolution."

More Microsoft Purview Information Protection 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."

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

"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."

"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."

"The product is very complicated."

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

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

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."

"Initially, Purview's cost seemed quite high because it was for personal use. I was scanning a tiny tenant and thinking, "If I extrapolate this to an enterprise-scale tenant, it will be quite costly." However, I talked to people who had compared it to other products on the market, and they're spending five figures to get started. At least, Purview has a free trial, so you can try some of the features early on."

"The pricing and setup costs are transferred to my clients, who find it affordable and are satisfied with what they receive."

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

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

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

"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."

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

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861,524 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

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare 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.

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?

I am concerned about its accuracy levels. Sometimes it throws a lot of false positives. Microsoft Purview Information Protection needs to increase effectiveness and ensure compatibility. Effectiven...

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 Information Protection

Download Microsoft Purview Information Protection product report

Microsoft Purview Information Protection report

Varonis Platform

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Information Protection

No data available

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.

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 Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform