Varonis alternative for Microsoft 365
Varonis knows your data. Does it know your devices, places and licences too?
Varonis is the data security platform many large tenants already run: deep classification, least-privilege automation, behaviour analytics with a 24x7 service behind it. 1Security covers the rest of the Microsoft 365 tenant from one read-only connection, on the licences you already have: the devices and places reaching your data, the licences nobody uses, compliance mapped to requirements, what every AI agent can read. It runs as SaaS, in your own Azure or on-premise, at any tenant size, and sits next to Varonis without touching a single setting.
- Verified 25 Oct 2026
- Keep both or switch
- Free side-by-side POC
- Every claim sourced below
Fair first
What Varonis does well.
Written so a Varonis customer nods. Varonis is a data security platform for a hybrid estate, file shares, cloud storage, Salesforce and databases included, and on Microsoft 365 it is strong in exactly the places a DSPM buyer looks first.
Classification with label write-back
Pattern matching and AI with out-of-the-box policies, exact data match on tables, incremental scans that touch only changed files, and a labelling engine that applies missing Purview labels and corrects wrong ones as data changes.
Least-privilege automation at scale
Policies that remove sharing links based on how they are used, right-size org-wide permissions, retire stale users and limit who may change permissions at all, run continuously and cloned across data stores.
Behaviour analytics with a service behind it
Alerts built on a baseline per tenant rather than static rules, a natural-language assistant for investigations, and a managed detection and response team with 30-minute and 120-minute response commitments.
Copilot and AI assets
Copilot prompts and responses captured and enriched, labels applied to what Copilot creates, and an AI security product with an inventory of AI assets, the data each can reach, an inline gateway and agent guardrails with quarantine.
What it does not touch
Four questions a data platform was not built to answer.
Varonis starts from the file and works outwards. The questions below start from the tenant: which device, which place, which licence, which requirement. None of them is on the Varonis feature list, and most come up in the first week of a Microsoft 365 review.
- 01
Devices and places, on the licences you already have
1Security lists every device that touched your data, flags the ones nobody manages, and puts each sign-in and download on a map: country, city, VPN, Tor and datacenter networks, read from the unified audit log on Business Basic. Varonis enriches alerts with device and geolocation context and reads VPN, DNS and proxy telemetry through its Edge product; an inventory of unmanaged devices reaching Microsoft 365 data is not described in its documentation.
- 02
What you pay for and nobody uses
Unused licences, licences on guests, dead apps, orphaned sites and mailboxes, each with its idle time and a reclaim action waiting in the review queue. A data security platform is not built for that question: Varonis flags stale users and stale data, and we found no licence or spend view anywhere in its public documentation.
- 03
Compliance as requirements, not classification policies
Eleven frameworks on shared requirements: one control counted everywhere it applies, weekly snapshots, a dated evidence pack for the auditor. Varonis ships pre-built classification policies for NIST, HIPAA, SOX and GDPR and on-demand compliance reports; a requirement-level map across frameworks, or NIS2, DORA and the AI Act, is not on its compliance page.
- 04
Entry size, price list and where it runs
1Security starts with read-only consent, shows first findings in one to two hours on a small tenant, and runs as SaaS, in your own Azure or on-premise with no minimum user count. Varonis publishes no price list and sells a quote-based platform licence; the one public list we found starts at a 150 to 250 user band and prices Exchange Online, perimeter telemetry and longer event retention as separate items, and its self-hosted platform reaches end of life on 31 December 2026.
Side by side
1Security vs Varonis, row by row.
Three states, not two: where Varonis has the fuller version of something, the row says "covered" for them as well. Every Varonis cell carries a number that resolves to a public source below the table.
- 16Covered
- 0Partial or lighter
- 0Not covered
- 6Covered
- 10Partial or lighter
- 0Not covered
| Capability | 1Security | Varonis |
|---|---|---|
| Gaps and incidents | ||
| Sensitive data in content | 1SecurityCovered Own engine with 300+ detectors and OCR for scans and photos, on any licence; content streamed and never stored; Purview detections as a second opinion | VaronisCovered Pattern matching plus AI with a 98% accuracy claim, exact data match, incremental scans; applies and corrects Purview labels2 |
| Devices touching data | 1SecurityCovered Every device seen on your data, unmanaged ones flagged, disable action, all from the audit log | VaronisPartial or lighter Device details enrich alerts; an inventory of unmanaged devices reaching Microsoft 365 data is not documented13 |
| Locations and networks | 1SecurityCovered Country, city, VPN, Tor and datacenter classification, map and per-user travel, without premium sign-in logs | VaronisPartial or lighter Geolocation on events and alerts on logins from unusual locations; VPN, DNS and proxy telemetry through the separate Edge product20 |
| Activity history | 1SecurityCovered 3 years as standard, each event carrying the user, file, device, location, app and the sensitivity of what was touched | VaronisPartial or lighter A complete audit trail of data activity; longer event retention sold as 1-year and 2-year add-ons, the default period is not published17 |
| Anomaly detection | 1SecurityCovered Learns what is normal per user, app and agent; threshold you set and re-apply to history | VaronisCovered Data-centric UEBA with a baseline per tenant, "not simply based on static rules", with a 24x7 response team available4 |
| Sign-ins and Conditional Access | 1SecurityCovered Per-user sign-ins with network and device, and whether Conditional Access covered each one | VaronisPartial or lighter Failed logins, password resets, MFA policy changes and brute-force alerts from Entra ID; Conditional Access coverage is not documented5 |
| Email and mailboxes | 1SecurityCovered Outbound sensitive content, delegated sending, shared mailboxes, actions on messages | VaronisCovered Mailbox and calendar permissions, sensitive data in body and attachments, non-owner access, abnormal send and receive, auto-forwarding7 |
| Administration, compliance, AI | ||
| Remediation with review | 1SecurityCovered 40+ actions across users, sites, files, apps, licences, devices, agents and email; review queue, grace period, revert, read-back confirmation | VaronisPartial or lighter Automation-first by design, "rather than generating tasks or tickets"; an approval step and revert of an applied change are not documented6 |
| Compliance mapping | 1SecurityCovered 11 frameworks on shared requirements, weekly snapshots, dated evidence packs | VaronisPartial or lighter Pre-built classification policies for NIST, HIPAA, SOX and GDPR and on-demand reports; no requirement-level map across frameworks8 |
| Unused licences and spend | 1SecurityCovered Unused and guest licences, dead apps, orphaned sites and mailboxes ranked by idle time, each with a reclaim action | VaronisPartial or lighter Stale users and stale data are flagged; Microsoft licence usage and spend are not documented6 |
| AI agents | 1SecurityCovered What each agent can reach across files, sites and email, who deployed it, its activity and anomalies, quarantine and identity actions, on the standard licence | VaronisCovered Atlas: inventory of AI assets including shadow AI, the data each can access, an inline AI gateway and agent guardrails with quarantine9 |
| Copilot readiness | 1SecurityCovered Dedicated screen: what Copilot reaches today, fix list, per-site indexing block, progress since the first assessment | VaronisCovered Free security scan, exposure dashboards, prompt monitoring, labels applied to Copilot output, alerts on spikes in sensitive access via Copilot3 |
| Fit and deployment | ||
| Microsoft licence needed | 1SecurityCovered Nearly everything on Business Basic, E1 or E3; no E5 or Purview for content scanning, no premium logs for locations | VaronisPartial or lighter Required Microsoft plans are not stated; the label write-back is described for E3 and E51 |
| Deployment and residency | 1SecurityCovered SaaS, your own Azure (BYOC) or on-premise at any size; a dedicated database per tenant | VaronisPartial or lighter SaaS only; the self-hosted platform reaches end of life on 31 December 2026; hosting regions are not listed on the trust pages14 |
| Getting started | 1SecurityCovered Read-only consent, first findings in 1 to 2 hours on a small tenant, nothing changed during the POC, no minimum user count | VaronisCovered Free assessment that installs in minutes with findings within 24 hours and a dedicated analyst; quote-based pricing15 |
| Public API and MCP | 1SecurityCovered REST for logs, detections, alerts, users, compliance, readiness; MCP server with the same reads | VaronisPartial or lighter Search, Export and lookup APIs; MCP server announced in private preview in June 2025, later status not documented11 |
- Covered
- Partial or lighter
- Not covered
Sources for every Varonis claim
Verified 2026-10-25- 1.Varonis for Microsoft 365 (coverage page: workloads, Purview labels "in E3 and E5", automation, UEBA) - www.varonis.com/coverage/microsoft-365
- 2.Varonis data discovery and classification (pattern matching plus AI, 98% accuracy claim, incremental scans) - www.varonis.com/products/data-classification
- 3.Varonis for Microsoft 365 Copilot (free security scan, prompt monitoring, labels on Copilot output) - www.varonis.com/coverage/microsoft-365-copilot
- 4.Overview of Varonis for Microsoft 365 Copilot (prompts and responses captured, baseline alerts, geolocation) - www.varonis.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-security-product
- 5.Varonis Identity Protection (Entra ID integration, login and MFA policy events, brute force, group revocation) - www.varonis.com/blog/varonis-identity-protection
- 6.Varonis Identity Posture ("Automate remediations rather than generating tasks or tickets", stale users) - www.varonis.com/platform/identity-posture
- 7.Varonis for Exchange Online (mailbox permissions, sensitive content in body and attachments, non-owner access) - www.varonis.com/integrations/exchange
- 8.Varonis compliance management (classification policies for NIST, HIPAA, SOX and GDPR; on-demand reports) - www.varonis.com/solutions/compliance-management
- 9.Varonis Atlas AI security (AI inventory, data each AI asset can access, AI Gateway) - www.varonis.com/platform/ai-security
- 10.Least privilege for AI agents (Agent IBAC: intent drift detection, quarantine, runtime guardrails) - www.varonis.com/blog/least-privilege-for-ai-agents
- 11.Introducing the Varonis MCP Server (private preview, June 2025) - www.varonis.com/blog/mcp-server
- 12.Varonis changelog (October 2026: Export API with CSV, Entity ID Lookup API, Microsoft Main links) - www.varonis.com/platform/changelog
- 13.Varonis + Microsoft Sentinel datasheet (alerts enriched with user, sensitivity, permissions and device; API, syslog, webhooks) - info.varonis.com/hubfs/Web%20Assets/Website_Reboot/Third_Party_Applications/Integration%20datasheet%20-%20Varonis%20%2B%20Microsoft%20Sentinel.pdf
- 14.Why we're going all in on SaaS (self-hosted platform end of life 31 December 2026) - www.varonis.com/blog/why-were-going-all-in-on-saas
- 15.Varonis Data Risk Assessment (installs in minutes, findings within 24 hours, full platform access) - www.varonis.com/solutions/data-risk-assessment
- 16.Varonis MDDR (24x7, 30-minute ransomware and 120-minute response SLAs, EDR integration) - www.varonis.com/products/mddr
- 17.UK G-Cloud 15 price list for Varonis SaaS, Somerford Associates (user bands from 150-250, separate Exchange Online and Edge SKUs, extended event retention add-ons) - assets.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud-15/documents/584424/654201025427585-pricing-document-2026-01-29-1150.pdf
- 18.UK G-Cloud 15 service listing for Varonis SaaS (UK South region, metadata only stored) - www.applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/services/654201025427585
- 19.Varonis pricing page (no published prices; marketplaces and free assessment) - www.varonis.com/pricing
- 20.Announcing Varonis Edge (VPN, DNS and web proxy telemetry, geolocation) - www.varonis.com/blog/announcing-varonis-edge-to-the-perimeter-and-beyond
- 21.Varonis is joining Proofpoint (15 October 2026, closing expected in the first half of 2027) - www.varonis.com/blog/proofpoint
- 22.Varonis Microsoft 365 Copilot Security Scan sample (access paths, labels, 24-hour assessment) - info.varonis.com/hubfs/Security%20Scan/Varonis%20M365%20Copilot%20Security%20Scan%20Sample.pdf
Varonis is a trademark of its owner. This comparison was written by 1Security from public documentation and was not reviewed by Varonis. If a row is out of date, write to us and we will fix it.
Richer administration
Beyond the gaps: the same questions, answered from the tenant.
Where both tools have a feature, the difference is where the answer starts and whether a person approves the change before it lands.
Who can reach what, and through which path
One graph across direct permissions, sharing links, group membership, site roles, inheritance, apps, agents and guests. Every external organisation that touches your tenant resolved to a real company and reconciled with your trusted-domain settings.
Remediation you approve, not only automate
More than 40 actions on users, sites, files, apps, licences, devices, agents and messages. Each one is staged in a review queue with a grace period, can be reverted, and is read back from Microsoft to prove the change landed. Automation is a choice per policy, not the default.
Compliance without manual mapping
Eleven frameworks today, more arriving: GDPR, NIS2, DORA, the EU AI Act, ISO 27001 and 42001, SOC 2, NIST CSF, HIPAA and the Polish KSC and KRiBSI acts. One requirement counted everywhere it applies, weekly snapshots, a dated evidence pack for the auditor or the investor.
Signals a data platform does not collect
Devices and their management state, Secure Score history, domains and the companies behind every guest, mailboxes and who may send as whom, licences and their idle time. All from the same read-only connection, on the plan you already pay for.
The rest of the tenant
Beyond the comparison: the whole Microsoft 365 stack, from one read-only connection.
The table covers what a Varonis buyer asks about. The same connection opens every screen below on day one, each answering a question your tenant cannot answer about itself today.
- Microsoft 365 Alerts ToolOne alert model across policies, activity and anomalies - with the evidence attached and the alert threshold in your hands.
- Microsoft 365 Monitoring ToolReal-time monitoring that catches a mass download while it is unfolding - across users, files, apps, AI agents and devices.
- Copilot Security ToolEvery AI agent's real blast radius - quantified before rollout, watched and constrained after.
- Shadow Device DetectionEvery device touching your data, reconstructed from real activity - including the machines that never enrolled anywhere.
- Impossible Travel DetectionLocations as identities, not IPs: country, city and network for every action, first-seen origins, travel timelines with verdicts - no E5, no P2.
- Conditional Access MonitoringDeclared Conditional Access compared against observed sign-ins: coverage verdicts, ungoverned traffic share, and the ranges your offices outgrew.
- Office 365 Access ManagementEffective access, resolved - who can reach what, through which grant, and one place to take it away.
- SharePoint Governance ToolEvery site ranked by exposure and abandonment - links, guests and Copilot access under control.
- Office 365 User ProvisioningLifecycle access from day one to offboarding - reach, dormant accounts and license reclaim in one flow.
- Microsoft 365 Audit ToolUp to three years of searchable activity history - every action tied to an actor, device and location.
- Microsoft 365 Inventory ToolEight live inventories on one permission graph - including the sites, devices and AI agents that were never registered anywhere.
- Office 365 ReportingAnswers, not exports - regulator-grade numbers, saved views and a read-only API for your SOC.
- Microsoft 365 File PermissionsWho has access to any file, and why - people, links, apps and AI agents on one map, with the fix in the same place.
- Sensitive Data DiscoveryWhere regulated data lives and everything that can reach it - two detection engines, no premium licence required.
- Office 365 Email MonitoringOutbound sensitive content, delegated-send abuse and whole-thread evidence that survives deletion.
- Purview Label CoverageWhat your sensitivity labels actually cover, and which of them protect anything at all.
- AI Agent InventoryEvery agent in the tenant with its real reach counted, its blueprint reviewed, and guardrails you can verify.
- AI Data RestrictionDeclare a data type off-limits to AI and every agent, app and user still reaching it becomes a live violation - recorded for the auditor.
- AI Spend TrackingInteractions, Copilot credits and Azure tokens in one ledger per agent - with the spend column next to what each agent can reach.
- Microsoft 365 User Access ReviewEvery identity with what it can reach, what it did, and whether it should still exist - including SharePoint-only guests that live outside the directory.
- Group Access AnalysisWhat membership in a group actually unlocks - nesting resolved, external members surfaced, blast radius counted.
- App and OAuth Consent GovernanceEvery app with a foothold in the tenant: how it got in, who let it in, and what it can actually read.
- Remediation AutomationFindings become fixes at tenant scale, counted before you enable them and staged behind a review window.
- Microsoft 365 Licence OptimizationThe seats you pay for and nobody uses - unassigned units, licences on guests, and dormant accounts still billing.
- Microsoft 365 Anomaly DetectionEvery policy, user, app and agent measured against its own baseline - with an alert line you move and see the answer to at once.
- Office 365 Sign-in LocationsEvery place your tenant is reached from, with your Conditional Access configuration laid over observed reality.
- Microsoft 365 Unified Audit LogWho did what, when, from where and on which device - retained up to three years on a standard licence.
- SharePoint Site InventoryEvery site, channel site and OneDrive in one list, ranked by external reach, abandonment and what Copilot can read.
- Microsoft 365 Activity AnalyticsThe extremes rather than the averages - a mass download inside the hour, and everything nobody has touched in a year.
- Microsoft 365 Trend TrackingAny number in the tenant followed over time, with the change and the deviation attached - and alerting on the same object.
- Microsoft 365 Compliance MonitoringReadiness for eleven regulations measured from live tenant data - with weekly snapshots and a dated evidence pack per framework.
- Microsoft 365 Security ScoreMicrosoft Secure Score beside the score measured from what actually happens - one worklist ranked by points still on the table.
- External Domain MonitoringEvery organisation your tenant exchanges data with, resolved to a real company - with drift flags and an enforceable verdict per domain.
- All featuresEvery screen in one list
Fits what you run
Native to Microsoft 365, open to the rest of your stack.
Every action runs through Microsoft Graph, roles sync from Entra, setup takes minutes, and the platform stays read-only until you decide to enable writes. There is no collector to size, no agent to install and no mailbox to re-route.
A public REST API and an MCP server expose logs, detections, alerts, users and compliance status, so your SIEM, SOC or MSSP receives events that already carry the user, the file, the device, the location and who could reach what, instead of raw audit rows.
Run it as SaaS, in your own Azure subscription with our container images, or on-premise, air-gapped if needed. Each tenant gets its own database, and disconnecting removes the data within seven days.
Savings, last and measured
It runs on the licences you already have, and finds the ones you do not use.
Most of what 1Security does needs no premium Microsoft plan and no add-on: content scanning without E5 or Purview, locations without premium sign-in logs or a perimeter feed, three years of history without a retention extension. On top of that it ranks what you pay for and nobody uses, each item with its idle time and a reclaim action waiting in the review queue.
- Business Basicthe plan most features run on
- 3 yearsof activity history as standard, no retention add-on
- 0E5 or Purview add-ons needed for content scanning
- 1 queueunused licences, dead apps, orphaned sites and mailboxes, reclaimed from one place
Keep both or switch
You do not have to choose on day one.
If Varonis already classifies your data and runs the least-privilege policies your team trusts, keep it, together with its managed response and everything it covers outside Microsoft 365. 1Security adds the layers a data platform does not collect: devices, locations, licences, Secure Score history, domains, compliance mapped to requirements and what each agent can reach inside the tenant. The two never fight over the same setting: 1Security is read-only until you enable actions, and when you do, every change waits in a review queue, so permission automation can stay with Varonis for as long as you want.
The free proof of concept runs side by side on your own tenant: read-only consent in the morning, first findings the same day on a small tenant, and one meeting to compare what each tool showed.
What the side-by-side POC compares
- Devices that touched sensitive data in the last 90 days, and which of them nobody manages
- Sign-ins and downloads from places nobody in the company works from, without premium sign-in logs
- Licences, apps, sites and mailboxes you pay for and nobody uses
- Compliance posture across 11 frameworks from one scan, with the evidence pack
- AI agents and apps in the tenant and what each can reach, next to the Varonis view
- Sensitive content found by both engines, and what each one missed
FAQ
Questions buyers ask when they already run Varonis.
Do I have to remove Varonis to use 1Security?
No. 1Security reads your tenant through its own Entra app with read-only consent and changes nothing until you enable actions. Varonis keeps working as before. Teams that keep both usually leave classification, label write-back, permission automation and managed response with Varonis and add devices, locations, licences, compliance mapping and agent reach from 1Security.
Which Microsoft licence do I need?
Nearly everything works on Business Basic, Office 365 E1 or Microsoft 365 E3. Content scanning, locations and three-year history need no premium plan. The few features that read premium Microsoft data, such as Purview detections or per-sign-in detail, are listed on the requirements page with what you get without them, and the free licence checker tells you before you connect.
Does 1Security store my file or email content?
No. Content is streamed into the sensitivity scan and discarded when it finishes. What persists is the detection type, the match count and a confidence bucket linked to the file, never the matched values. The data handling page lists exactly what is read and what is stored.
Can 1Security and Varonis both run automations in the same tenant?
Yes, and most teams keep it simple: Varonis policies keep changing permissions and labels, 1Security stays read-only or stages its proposals in the review queue, where you see what would change, approve it or let the grace period run, and can revert it later. If you move an action to 1Security, switch the matching Varonis policy off first so one tool owns one setting.
Varonis is being acquired by Proofpoint. Does that change this comparison?
Not today. Varonis announced the agreement on 15 October 2026 and expects it to close in the first half of 2027; until then both companies operate separately and Varonis says existing contracts do not change. We re-verify this page quarterly and will update the rows if the product or its packaging changes.
How do you know what Varonis does and does not do?
From Varonis' public product and coverage pages, blog posts and changelog, its datasheets, its trust center and a public-sector price list for its SaaS, each linked under the table with the date we last checked. Where Varonis does not publish something, such as the required Microsoft plans or the default event retention, the row says "not documented" rather than "no". If something has changed or we got a row wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
What does the free POC include, and how long does it take?
A read-only connection to your tenant, a full scan, and a comparison meeting. A small tenant shows first results within one to two hours; a tenant with around a million files takes six to twelve hours for the first full map. Nothing is changed in your tenant during the POC, and there is no minimum user count.
See both on your own tenant.
Book a demo, then a free side-by-side proof of concept next to Varonis. Read-only consent, first findings the same day, nothing changed in your tenant.
Or know every sensitive file and keep guessing which device opened it.