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Privacy analytics tightening its API and moving IP blocking off the CDN
A side-by-side editorial comparison of ManageEngine M365 Security Plus and Holistics — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
An on-prem M365 auditing tool whose releases are mostly dependency hygiene.
M365 Security Plus is an on-premises Java application for auditing and alerting on Microsoft 365 activity, shipped as numbered builds a few times a year. The last two builds are typical of the pattern: 4821 upgrades the bundled JRE from Java 8 to 11 and refreshes 7-Zip and Jackson libraries, while 4820 carries the only real functional work in the window — mailbox backups to local, shared, or NAS repositories, PST splitting for large exports, bulk mailbox selection from CSV, and audit logs that show object names instead of GUIDs. Security fixes appear in nearly every build.
A BI tool extending analytics-as-code to charts while smoothing the point-and-click path
Holistics is pushing on both of its surfaces at once. Custom charts now live in AML, definable as code, buildable through a GUI, and previewable against real data. Alongside that, Chart Suggestions recommends up to three chart types from selected fields in Explore, date range selection gained presets and typed shorthands, and theming picked up palette assignment at the theme level plus KPI metric styling. Dark mode landed in July. Entry titles arrive with mangled leading characters from the feed encoding.
M365 Security Plus is an on-premises Java application for auditing and alerting on Microsoft 365 activity, shipped as numbered builds a few times a year. The last two builds are typical of the pattern: 4821 upgrades the bundled JRE from Java 8 to 11 and refreshes 7-Zip and Jackson libraries, while 4820 carries the only real functional work in the window — mailbox backups to local, shared, or NAS repositories, PST splitting for large exports, bulk mailbox selection from CSV, and audit logs that show object names instead of GUIDs. Security fixes appear in nearly every build.
Two forces set the release agenda, and neither is a roadmap. The first is Microsoft: deprecated cmdlets forced an audit rewrite onto Get-MessageTraceV2, and a tenant configuration change broke onboarding until build 4817 patched around it. The second is the supply chain — Log4j, Tomcat, Bouncy Castle, Zulu JRE, and now the Java 8 to 11 jump, all tracked build by build because on-premises customers inherit whatever the vendor bundles. The product work that does land clusters around the Backup module, which is the one area growing rather than being maintained.
With the JRE finally past Java 8, Tomcat 9 is the next end-of-life dependency in the bundle, and the Backup module's steady additions suggest export and retention options continue there.
Holistics is pushing on both of its surfaces at once. Custom charts now live in AML, definable as code, buildable through a GUI, and previewable against real data. Alongside that, Chart Suggestions recommends up to three chart types from selected fields in Explore, date range selection gained presets and typed shorthands, and theming picked up palette assignment at the theme level plus KPI metric styling. Dark mode landed in July. Entry titles arrive with mangled leading characters from the feed encoding.
The code-first modeling layer is being extended upward into visualization, which is where most analytics-as-code tools stop and hand off to a GUI. Doing both — code definition with a GUI editor over the same object — is the distinctive bet. The rest of the window removes friction from the exploration path, which is what makes a governed semantic layer usable by people who did not write it.
Expect more dashboard objects to follow charts into AML, since the pattern of code definition plus GUI editing plus live preview is now established and themes and KPIs are the obvious remaining candidates.
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either ManageEngine M365 Security Plus or Holistics.
Privacy analytics tightening its API and moving IP blocking off the CDN
Dashboard analytics in slow maintenance, with admin controls the only moving part
An AI BI tool turning itself into an API other products can build analytics on
Umami spent late 2025 patching Next.js CVEs, then shipped Boards and Session Replay in v3.1.0.
ADManager Plus opened to third-party identity apps in January, then shipped six months of fixes.
Five of six VictoriaMetrics entries are scraped GitHub page furniture; one is a real LTS patch.
See all ManageEngine M365 Security Plus alternatives → · See all Holistics alternatives →
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. ManageEngine M365 Security Plus and Holistics are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. ManageEngine M365 Security Plus and Holistics are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 5.0 vs 5.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
Top ManageEngine M365 Security Plus alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "ManageEngine M365 Security Plus alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/manageengine-m365-security-plus for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top Holistics alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Holistics alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/holistics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.