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 7.9, while Varonis is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft holds a 2.5% mindshare in DG, compared to Varonis’s 9.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Varonis users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Purview Informati...

Read 10 Microsoft Purview Information Protection reviews

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819 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Varonis Platform

Read 13 Varonis Platform reviews

3,261 Views
2,789 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: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Purview Information Protection vs. Varonis Platform

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Purview Informati...

Ranking in Data Governance

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Privacy Management Software (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (20th)

Varonis Platform

Ranking in Data Governance

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (13th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (8th), Compliance Management (8th), Ransomware Protection (9th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Data Governance category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Information Protection is 2.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 9.3%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Governance

Featured Reviews

JohnAssouline

Business Development Manager, Transformational Services at Dell Technologies

A single solution for information protection that offers enterprise-grade AI

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. Microsoft Copilot is an advantage because it's enterprise-grade AI. Customers can't use a generic AI and risk having their IP disseminated in the general public version of the AI engine. Purview's data classification features are excellent for Microsoft shops using SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft 365. It's a great tool to assess everything. It's more complicated if the customers are using third-party tools.

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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

"Purview is about auditing and discoverability. We need to ensure people aren't releasing information that they shouldn't and that they're doing multi-factor authentication or accessing it from the correct devices. It aids in reducing silos within organizations, enabling staff to easily find documents and contacts without exhausting human resources."

"The features my clients request most are sensitivity labels and data loss prevention. Additionally, I am trying to interest them in risk management and insider risk management, although those features are considered more advanced."

"Purview saves customers time by offering them a quick way to assess a situation and insights into how to improve."

"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."

"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."

"I think Purview is incredibly stable."

"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."

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

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."

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

"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."

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

"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."

"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."

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

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

More Varonis Platform pros

Cons

"There should be more training and communication regarding new features. I may be missing those communications, but it often seems like changes happen in the Purview portal without notice. Having a roadmap or updates about new releases would be helpful for demonstrating to clients. If things are constantly changing, I sometimes look silly when I log in, and things have moved or changed."

"I rate Microsoft support six out of 10. Response times are a challenge. It's hard to be an ambassador for a product when you know it will be hard to get support."

"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."

"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."

"The communication around Microsoft product names and functionalities can be confusing, like when they combined Office 365 Risk and Compliance with Azure Purview. Then, they added Purview Hub to Fabric, and people thought Purview Hub would do data lineages, but it didn't. It isn't full-fledged Purview. It's just one feature set."

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

"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."

More Microsoft Purview Information Protection cons

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

"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."

"It is significantly complex."

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

"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

"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 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."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Retailer

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?

As a service provider, we do not handle licensing directly. Our focus is on helping customers maximize their software investment. If the customer already has an E5 agreement, we help them get the m...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Information Protection?

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 usin...

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

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 14% of the time

Cyera vs Varonis Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 5% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Varonis Platform

Compared 2% of the time

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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

November 2024

Download Varonis Platform product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Information Protection

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Learn More

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

December 2024

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