Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Microsoft Entra ID

Download the complete report

Helped 824,053 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Akamai Enterprise Applicati...

Ranking in Access Management

21st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

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 December 2024, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 0.3%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 29.9%, up from 26.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Access Management

Featured Reviews

Bill Lee

Cloud Architecture Consultant at Metaage

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…

Read full review

Vinod Survase

M365 Senior Consultant at Capgemini

Saves us time and money and features Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA

I want better integration between Azure AD and the on-prem environment because there are currently limitations that can hamper employee experience. We use a feature called password writeback, that can be challenging to implement in a hybrid environment. Employees can change their passwords using a self-service password reset (SSPR) feature, which reflects from the cloud to the on-prem identity, but not the other way around. Currently, there is no way to reflect passwords from on-prem identities to the cloud. There are other similar limitations, such as a cap on the number of identities that can be synchronized in a particular time frame, which can be an issue for large enterprises with 300,000 employees or more.

Read full review

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."

"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."

"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."

"Multi-factor authentication is one of the most important features of my work. Verified ID is another feature that is becoming significant."

"It offers features that improve our security posture such as multifactor authentication, which is the second layer of protection that is used when we log into the cloud."

"The best thing about Microsoft Entra ID is the ease of setup."

"It's very user-friendly for users."

"The solution has come a long way. Now, with the Azure AD B2C offering integrated as well, we've got a full IAM-type solution for our customer-facing identity management. In addition, when it comes to user journeys we now can hook in custom flows for different credential checking and authorizations for specific conditional access."

"Scalability has been the biggest benefit."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Entra ID is its security options, where we can provide highly effective security for user accounts during authentication."

"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."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Its area of improvement is more about the synchronization of accounts and the intervals for that. Sometimes, there're customers with other network challenges, and it takes a while for synchronization to happen to the cloud. There is some component of their on-prem that is delaying things getting to the cloud. The turnaround time for these requests is very time-sensitive. I don't mean this as derogatory for this service, but in my experience, that happens a lot."

"Better user sign-in logging is needed. We work with Okta, and the two of them do not always work well together. We can have more insight into some of the user information and how it interacts."

"They can combine conditional access for user actions and application filtering. Currently, they are separated, and we cannot mix the two. I do not know how it would be possible, but it would be interesting."

"The transition from on-prem Active Directory to the Azure Cloud was difficult because there aren't group policy objectives."

"Microsoft support has some room for improvement. I avoid contacting them because it can be time-consuming."

"In terms of stability, sometimes the more applications you integrate, the more it becomes a little bit unstable."

"The downside is that we now have all our eggs in one basket with Microsoft. We have this great authentication and single sign-on, but if Microsoft has an outage in North America or globally, on Outlook or Teams, we're dead in the water... We get some type of hiccup once a quarter."

"We have a lot of freedom in using the Group Policy Objects and, although Group Policy Objects are part of Azure Active Directory, there are still a lot of things that can be improved, such as providing local admin rights to a user. There are various, easy ways that I can do that in the on-premises version, but in the cloud version, it is a bit difficult. You have to create a bunch of policies to make it work."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."

"Licensing is based on user count."

"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."

"I'd recommend Azure Active Directory if you are a big company. For small or medium companies, it's probably not the best idea in the world because of the pricing. If you are a small company, you can probably deploy your own solutions because you're not handling a website with tons of traffic. If you are not like Adidas, Nike, or Walmart, you can do it in a way that is more localized than handling everything through a big price solution. However, Azure tends to provide you with solutions that are easier to use. If it was cheaper, I'd definitely recommend going for it."

"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."

"Its price is per user. It is also based on the type of user that you're synchronizing up there."

"I would advise implementing the solution to VIPs and admins; it's affordable, effective, and efficient. I would say training staff on properly using the tool is also essential."

"Azure AD has four licensing options- Free, Office 365 apps, Premium P1, and Premium P2. The free option has a limited number of identities and features, and the Office 365 version comes included in several Office 365 subscriptions. With the P1 and P2 licenses, we get all the freeware features plus additional security features, but these come at a higher price. The base price for P1 and P2 is $6 and $9 per user per month, respectively."

"I'm not totally aware of the pricing and licensing, but I do know that the pricing and licensing must be quite balanced. We are a pretty old client of Microsoft, and MSA is just one of the services we use from Microsoft. There's a whole Microsoft 365 suite that's implemented as well. I'm sure it is something that is acceptable to both parties."

"Azure AD's pricing is comprehensive and affordable. The prices are easy to understand, and the licenses include a variety of security monitoring and additional features."

"MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Access Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

32%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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?

Most features of Entra ID are part of Microsoft's ecosystem and included in Microsoft 365 bundles, which means there are no additional costs associated with pricing and licensing.

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Akamai Enterprise Application Access

Comparisons

Compared 25% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Akamai Enterprise Application Access

Compared 15% of the time

Appgate SDP vs Akamai Enterprise Application Access

Compared 11% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Akamai Enterprise Application Access

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Akamai Enterprise Application Access

Compared 10% of the time

More Akamai Enterprise Application Access Competitors

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 11% of the time

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 10% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 8% of the time

Auth0 vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

Product Reports

ZTNA as a Service

Download Akamai Enterprise Application Access product report

Akamai Enterprise Application Access report

Microsoft Entra ID

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Also Known As

Soha

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

Learn More

Akamai

Microsoft

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Akamai

Microsoft

Overview

Akamai Enterprise Application Access is a cloud-based solution that provides secure access to enterprise applications and data from any device, anywhere. It eliminates the need for traditional VPNs and allows organizations to easily manage access to applications and data for employees, partners, and customers. With its zero-trust approach, it ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive information, reducing the risk of data breaches.

Microsoft Entra ID is used for extending on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, managing application access, enabling multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on. It facilitates policy enforcement and secure access, ensuring centralized identity management across cloud and on-premises resources.

Organizations utilize Microsoft Entra ID for robust user and group management, identity synchronization, and conditional access. Its seamless integration with third-party apps, scalability, and support for remote work make it a preferred choice. The admin center streamlines identity and access tasks, enhancing efficiency and security with features like privileged identity management and audit logs.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Single Sign-On: Simplifies user access to multiple applications with one login.
Multifactor Authentication: Enhances security by requiring additional verification.
Conditional Access: Establishes policies that determine how users' access cloud apps.
Integration: Easily integrates with various third-party applications.
User Identity Protection: Safeguards user identities from threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Manages elevated access to sensitive resources.
Audit Logs: Provides thorough activity logs for oversight and compliance.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Entra ID reviews?

Enhanced Security: Offers strong multifactor authentication and identity protection.
Administrative Efficiency: Simplifies identity and access management tasks.
Scalability: Supports growing user bases and remote work environments.
Integration Capabilities: Compatible with numerous third-party applications.
User-Friendly Interface: Makes managing user identities straightforward.

Microsoft Entra ID implementation varies across industries. Tech firms leverage it for secure, scalable access management, while healthcare organizations utilize its identity protection features to safeguard patient data. Educational institutions adopt Entra ID for streamlined user management and policy enforcement, ensuring secure access for students and staff across on-premises and cloud resources.

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.

Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Microsoft Entra ID