Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Purview comparison

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4,772 views|2,393 comparisons
82% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Microsoft Purview based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is to stop shadow IT.""The most valuable feature is its policy implementation.""The ability to prevent users from using certain applications is one of the most valuable features. It doesn't require any configuration for implementation from the client perspective. It just works right away and gives you the information you need.""On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent.""It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good.""Better logging allows us to find problems and take appropriate steps to lock them out.""I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site.""The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."

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"My favorite features are eDiscovery and insider risk management, because these are the major threats to an organization that can't be easily traced.""I like Purview's data discovery features. It automatically scans and identifies all the fields. In the last project, the customer required us to have some of the codes we specified in this, and we had to structure the codes in a specific way. We can define the structure.""Microsoft Purview's primary benefit lies in safeguarding sensitive and confidential data, thereby mitigating the risk of internal data exfiltration.""Microsoft Purview is extremely stable.""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.""Purview helps mitigate risk and allows us to govern the information being shared among apps and devices.""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.""It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies."

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Cons
"I would like for it to be available on Mac and for it to support all of the features of Microsoft financing products. It is really for Windows.""I would like to see them include more features in the older licenses. There are some features that are not available, such as preventing or analyzing cloud attacks.""This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage.""The interface needs to be more user-friendly.""The technical support team has room for improvement.""They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing.""The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand.""Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."

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"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.""Non-Microsoft use cases are not very high. It's limited for now.""I would like to have AI functionality on the dashboard to help me analyze and report on the data that we capture using Purview on a daily basis.""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.""There are differences when looking at an incident in the M365 portal versus Purview, and the main one is the advanced hunting. In the M365 portal, you can write KQL queries and fetch data. If that was available in Purview, it would be very good.""We have had some issues automating our document management with Power Apps. I haven't been super-disappointed with anything except for Power Apps, which kinda drives me nuts. I think it's because I am a coder who can do things properly, and I keep trying to do things there, but it's not working out the way. The security team is pretty quick. I'm kind of a thorn in their side. I always try to get around stuff. They haven't come to me for anything saying, "Hey, I can't find this information." They're pretty good. Maybe, there's a lack of documentation, but that doesn't seem to be an issue for our team.""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.""Running eDiscovery once a day takes quite a long time because it has to fetch your data. I also want the eDiscovery results to be improved. At the same time, I would like to get a centralized page where I could see records management applied to my Office 365 tenant visualized instead of waiting for a custom script to run through the complete tenant."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
  • "This product is not expensive."
  • "Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."
  • "The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
  • "I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
  • "Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
  • "The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
  • "It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is moderate. It's not too expensive, but it's not the most competitive."
  • "Microsoft Purview is the best option I have encountered when it comes to price. Maybe some of my information is outdated, but Microsoft offered it so that you could use it almost without paying."
  • "There is some competition out there, but the other solutions are quite expensive. They are enterprise tools that are a bit more mature but the license costs $100,000 for some of them. Purview is pay-per-use and a lot of companies are interested in that."
  • "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."
  • "Its pricing is good in terms of the features that they are providing, but there are many competitors in the market who can easily provide you with similar services at a lesser cost."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "Some people find the tier licensing system complicated, but it offers a lot of value for money if we use the features."
  • More Microsoft Purview Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat… more »
    Top Answer:It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good.
    Top Answer:Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different… more »
    Top Answer:It is designed to seamlessly connect to various data sources, which is particularly beneficial for our customers who primarily use Microsoft technologies.
    Top Answer:Currently, the licensing differs for the governance side compared to the risk and compliance side. On the governance side, the charges are based on the usage of Purview, including the data map, data… more »
    Top Answer:Data quality has been a highly requested feature among customers. While it was initially scheduled for release in December last year, I anticipate that this feature will be available soon this year. I… more »
    Ranking
    10th
    Views
    1,026
    Comparisons
    840
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    965
    Rating
    8.5
    7th
    Views
    4,772
    Comparisons
    2,393
    Reviews
    45
    Average Words per Review
    1,368
    Rating
    7.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
    MS Azure Purview
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:
    • Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
    • Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
    • Easy to use and deploy
    • Provides real-time threat detection and response
    • Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
    • Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:
    • Governance, authentication, security, and compliance. 
    • Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
    • Controls access to applications
    • Provides auditing and filtering setups
    • Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
    • Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
    • Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
    • Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
    • Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

    Reviews from Real Users

    Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

    PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

    Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

    Microsoft Purview is a unified data governance solution that helps you understand all of your on-premises, multi cloud, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) data and maintain control over its usage. With the Microsoft Purview solution, you can create a detailed, up-to-date map of your data landscape with sensitive data classification, automated data discovery, and end-to-end data lineage. Not only does it enable data curators to easily secure your data, but it also allows data consumers to find valuable, trustworthy data.

    Microsoft Azure Purview is designed with:

    • Data Map: Microsoft Purview Data Map provides the foundation for data discovery and effective data governance. Azure Purview Data Map is a cloud-native PaaS service that captures metadata about enterprise data present in analytics and operation systems on premises and in the cloud.

    • Data Catalog: Microsoft Purview Data Catalog finds trusted data sources by browsing and searching your data assets. The data catalog aligns your assets with business terms and data classification to identify data sources.

    • Data Insights: Microsoft Purview Data Insights gives you an overview of your data estate to help you discover what kinds of data you have and where.

    Microsoft Purview Features

    Microsoft Purview has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Automated data discovery, lineage identification, and data classification
    • Insights into the location and movement of sensitive data across your entire data estate
    • Unified map of your data assets and their relationships for more effective data governance
    • Glossary with business and technical search terms to aid data discovery

    Microsoft Purview Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Purview include:

    • Automate and manage metadata from hybrid sources.
    • Classify data using built-in and custom classifiers and Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels.
    • Label sensitive data consistently across SQL Server, Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power BI.
    • Easily integrate all your data systems using Apache Atlas APIs.
    • Search for data using technical or business terms.
    • Easily understand data by browsing associated technical, business, semantic, and operational metadata.
    • Quickly identify the sensitivity level of data.
    • Scan your Power BI environment and Azure Synapse Analytics workspaces with a few clicks.
    • Automatically publish all discovered assets and lineage to the Purview Data Map.
    • Connect Microsoft Azure Purview to Azure Data Factory instances to automatically collect data integration lineage.
    • Quickly determine which analytics and reports already exist without reinventing the wheel.

    Reviews from Real Users

    PeerSpot reviewer Kelly B., Solution Specialist at LobsterPot Solutions, says, “We're building a new system from scratch for our clients and wanted to include data governance. Their solution is hosted in Azure and it seemed logical to go with something that fits with that. Purview has a pretty good interface and I'm satisfied with what the solution does and the price it's being sold at. It integrates well with Azure technologies.” She also adds, “The initial setup was very easy, that's part of the appeal.”

    Sample Customers
    Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government9%
    Engineering Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Computer Software Company11%
    University11%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business34%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise66%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 10th in Microsoft Security Suite with 30 reviews while Microsoft Purview is ranked 7th in Microsoft Security Suite with 48 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Purview is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Purview writes "User friendly with good documentation but needs to cover more non-Microsoft use cases". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Lookout, whereas Microsoft Purview is most compared with Collibra Governance, Alation Data Catalog, Varonis Platform, Informatica Axon and Microsoft Intune. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Microsoft Purview report.

    See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.

    We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.