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Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

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

Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in Access Management
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (17th), ZTNA as a Service (21st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (26th)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 0.3%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 29.9%, up from 26.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Bill Lee - PeerSpot reviewer
Very scalable, convenient, and stable protection against attacks
Our company uses the solution as a cloud perimeter and VPN. We don't need to use on-premises devices to open firewalls to inbound or outbound traffic.  The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks.  The solution has two…
Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"The capability of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is what you're looking for, it's giving you the service that you're looking for. It's simple and doesn't use an agent. It uses LCSD responders, and they have a lot of services around the globe. That's the reason that we were very interested in using it because it has a lot of coverage. This is because it's under the GDS umbrella."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"Two very important features in terms of security are governance and compliance through the Conditional Access policies and Azure Log Analytics."
"The most valuable feature of Azure AD is its ability to connect with services outside of Microsoft, although documentation is necessary to properly implement these connections."
"It is great for mom-and-pop shops or small businesses that are truly coming into the enterprise ecosystem and that have not come from a legacy environment."
"The visibility and control for permission management are excellent."
"The ability to grant access to other organizations is helpful."
"Microsoft Entra ID Protection and Microsoft Sentinel are both excellent monitoring features for Microsoft Entra ID."
"Entra's conditional access policies allow us to fine-tune how we allow people into the environments and secure them."
"It can be used to grant access at a granular level. It provides secure access and many ways to offer security to your user resources. It provides a good level of security for any access on Azure. It gives you options like multi-factor authentication where apart from your password, you can use other factors for authentication, such as a code is sent to your phone or the authenticator app that you can use login."
 

Cons

"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent."
"We need another approach to bring the solution to the cloud. In addition to Access Management, we would like to see if we can jump into Directories. I think ADs are going to go away and everything is going to be cloud-based and minimize the use of ADs because of the cost and some other dependencies to the cloud. Every time you buy AD it is more hardware, and everything's changing to software. The network's changing, the applications are changing, and for IT it is hard to keep up with it."
"There are no specific areas where improvement is needed at the moment. Everything has been good so far."
"The support is a bit slow."
"Azure AD needs to be more in sync. The synchronization can be time-consuming."
"I want to be able to identify the audiences effectively and manage them."
"When you fix the rules and permissions, working directly on the manifest, you really need to have in-depth knowledge. If there were a graphical user interface to update the manifest, that would be good."
"The documentation could be better."
"From an admin perspective, I would like to see improvement in the Microsoft Graph API."
"Compatibility features for legacy system integration with new features will be challenging at times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is great it is all-inclusive, they use an enterprise cost model. That's what we like compared to other users. This is one of the main attractions of Akamai Enterprise Application Access. It's already an enterprise cost model established with us for services."
"Licensing is based on user count."
"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."
"The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time."
"Microsoft Azure AD has P1 or P2 licensing options, and it depends on the customer's needs. To use Conditional Access, you need to have the P1 license, and to use the PIN features, you need the P2 license."
"The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable."
"It's really affordable."
"We have various levels of their licensing, which includes users on different levels of their enterprise offering."
"The product is relatively affordable, especially compared to Okta, a pricey solution."
"Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license."
"Microsoft Entra ID service can be quite costly due to its hidden expenses linked to usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
5%
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The license can be shared based on the number of active users. If you have 5,000 users but only 1,000 active users at one time, then you buy a license for 1,000 users.
What needs improvement with Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent. It is more comfortable for users if they don't have to install two agents.
How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
We are an enterprise customer with an enterprise agreement in place with many of our partner companies, so there are no special questions or issues about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
 

Also Known As

Soha
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Learn More

 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bugcrowd, InPowered, Spirent Communications
Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.