Atlassian Crowd vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

Atlassian and Microsoft are both solutions in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category. Atlassian is ranked #26, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Atlassian holds a 1.2% mindshare in SSO, compared to Microsoft’s 11.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Atlassian Crowd

Read 4 Atlassian Crowd reviews

525 Views
478 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 266 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

26,383 Views
6,860 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Atlassian Crowd

Microsoft Entra ID

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Atlassian Crowd and Microsoft Entra ID are both identity management solutions. Based on the comparisons, Microsoft Entra ID has the upper hand due to its comprehensive security features and advanced integrations.

Features: Atlassian Crowd offers powerful integration with other Atlassian products, ease of management, and simple centralized user management. Microsoft Entra ID provides advanced security features, seamless integration with Microsoft services, and robust single sign-on capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Atlassian Crowd could improve documentation, UI consistency, and reporting features. Microsoft Entra ID may benefit from more integration flexibility, quicker customer support, and fewer downtime issues.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Atlassian Crowd is noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Microsoft Entra ID has a smooth deployment experience but requires more comprehensive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Atlassian Crowd is cost-effective with clear ROI due to its integration capabilities. Microsoft Entra ID, though higher priced, justifies its cost with superior features and security benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID

March 2026

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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

Atlassian Crowd

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

26th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Entra ID

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

266

Ranking in other categories

Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Atlassian Crowd is 1.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 11.3%, down from 27.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID	11.3%
Atlassian Crowd	1.2%
Other	87.5%

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Featured Reviews

Grigoriy Kneller

General Manager at HDI Systeme AG

Enhanced user management offering seamless single sign-on, scalability for large enterprises, and improved configurability through integration with various user sources and directories

For organizations using various Atlassian products and dealing with multiple user sources or directories, implementing Atlassian Crowd for single sign-on proves highly beneficial. This is especially true for companies that have instances of Atlassian product installations across different entities, each with its own Active Directory and user directory. Crowd significantly streamlines user and directory management, making it more efficient for larger enterprises. It is particularly advisable and recommended for big companies, especially those that have undergone acquisitions or mergers, as it enhances user management, transparency, and configurability. While it's incredibly useful for enterprise-level businesses, it may also be suitable for mid-sized companies with a substantial user base. Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Read full review

Dewey Phillips

Senior Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Implementing seamless integration boosts secure access and supports Zero Trust

What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Entra ID is that it integrates seamlessly with all the Defender products and is easy to use. Microsoft Entra ID's integration capabilities influence our Zero Trust model by allowing us to enforce our Zero Trust model. Conditional access policies allow us to leverage Microsoft Entra ID to verify that devices signing in to our cloud services are coming from registered devices, and that people are passing all the other requirements we have in order to complete sign-on or conditional access policies. Since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, I've observed changes in the frequency and nature of identity-related security incidents. The organization already had it implemented when I arrived, and I've been working to enhance it. Better configuration of Microsoft Entra ID has allowed us to better protect our organization from threats. Having it alone isn't a solution, but ensuring proper configuration goes a long way in preventing future compromises. My company's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has evolved since implementing Microsoft Entra ID. We haven't experienced any known compromises from nation-state attacks, and implementing newer features gives me more confidence in our protection. Regarding device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator and our approach to phishing-resistant authentication, we are currently implementing Microsoft Entra ID certificate-based authentication. Adding a strong form of MFA is important as we found it to be the most cost-effective way. While other solutions might be equally or more secure, they are significantly more expensive. Having worked as an IT consultant mainly with the Microsoft stack across various industries, I have experience with different identity management solutions. Microsoft Entra ID remains the best option. The major advantages when comparing it to Okta include integration with Defender products, Defender for Identities' integration with conditional access policies, and insider threat management integration for blocking sign-ins based on risk factors. The enhancement of Microsoft Entra ID's implementation is relatively straightforward. My main concern is the occasional lack of documentation and the frequency of changes, which can make feature location challenging.

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 most valuable features are predominantly in the directory and development spaces."

"One standout feature is the capability to configure various authentication and authorization methods from diverse user directories."

"Privileged Identity Management (PIM), managed identities, dynamic groups, and extension and security attributes are all great features."

"The boards for task tracking are a valuable feature."

"Conditional access is a very important feature where a specific user can be restricted such that they cannot connect to the application if they travel outside of the US."

"We can centralize and manage everything much more effectively with this tool."

"The solution allows users to authenticate from home, and the Office 360 integration is advantageous."

"With Azure Conditional Access you can specify network locations where you want some of the services in the organization to be available to users, and where you don't want users to have access."

"The main valuable feature is the integration into a single console, which includes authentication service and endpoint security."

"The user functionality enables us to provide different levels of access, across many applications, for each user. We can customize the access level and set a security level in connection with that access. For instance, we can require MFA. That is a feature that helps enhance our security posture a lot."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

Cons

"It makes you more efficient, but you have to optimize what you're doing before you get into the software."

"There's a need for effective group membership management, especially for corporate programs."

"Azure Active Directory could benefit by adding the capability for identity life cycle for the on-premise solution. For example, an HR solution, which is built on-premise or, in general, better on-premise capable solutions."

"Microsoft needs to make improvements in this regard and extend its services to other operating systems as well, especially when considering their widespread usage."

"The solution has certain limitations. For example, it has very little governance functionality."

"I think sometimes Microsoft Entra ID provides a bit too much information from the start."

"Entra ID has limited integration with non-Microsoft solutions like iOS or Ubuntu. If it worked across different software and all kinds of devices could be managed under it, that would be great."

"I would appreciate seeing provisioning with HR systems improve in Microsoft Entra ID because they have capabilities out of the box for Workday and Bamboo, but we don't use those."

"The downside of using a single password to access the entire system is that if those credentials are compromised, the hacker will have full access."

"You can manage the users from the Office 365 administration center, and you can manage them from Azure Active Directory. Those are two different environments, but they do the same things. They can gather the features in one place, and it might be better if that place were Azure."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While it may seem affordable for larger enterprises, it tends to become more expensive as you move up the scale."

"It's pretty cheap. I would rate the price as three out of five."

"Entra has P1 and P2 licenses that are bundled with lots of applications."

"It's really affordable."

"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."

"It's relatively inexpensive in comparison with third-party solutions. It's highly available and supported by Microsoft Azure in our enterprise agreements. With the addition of their B2C tenants, it's hard to beat from a cost perspective now."

"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."

"From a pricing standpoint, with all the services that we get, we are okay. I do not see a problem with the pricing structure. We are getting our money's worth."

"It is a packaged license. We have a Premium P1 subscription of Office 365, and it came with that."

"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."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	85
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	155

Questions from the Community

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID is that it is decent.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?

I think Microsoft Entra ID could be improved by assigning permissions to nested groups in the next release.

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Comparisons

Okta Platform vs Atlassian Crowd

Compared 32% of the time

Keeper Enterprise Password Manager vs Atlassian Crowd

Compared 26% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs Atlassian Crowd

Compared 25% of the time

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Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 23% of the time

Okta Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Single Sign-On (SSO)

March 2026

Download Atlassian Crowd product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

February 2026

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Also Known As

Crowd

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Atlassian

Microsoft

Overview

Atlassian Crowd is a single sign-on and user identity tool that's easy to use, administer, and integrate. Users can come from anywhere: Active Directory, LDAP, Crowd itself, or any mix thereof. Control permissions to all your applications in one place Ð Atlassian, Subversion, Google Apps, or your own apps.

Atlassian

Microsoft Entra ID is an advanced identity and access management service offering seamless single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and centralized user access across applications, enhancing security and efficiency for organizations transitioning to cloud-based environments.

Recognized for its centralized management, Microsoft Entra ID significantly boosts organizational security by integrating features such as conditional access and identity protection. It supports a wide array of applications, facilitating a secure transition from on-premises to scalable cloud environments. By adopting robust security measures and flexible identity management, organizations can streamline operations and ensure consistent user experiences. However, challenges like confusing licensing costs, outdated documentation, and limited integration with non-Microsoft applications persist. Enhancements in technical support, interface design, and more granular permissions are needed to address these issues effectively.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Seamless Single Sign-On: Allows users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials.
Multifactor Authentication: Adds an extra layer of security by requiring multiple forms of verification.
Conditional Access: Provides adaptive policies to ensure the right access under the right conditions.
Identity Protection: Detects and responds to potential vulnerabilities and threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Controls and monitors access to critical resources.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Entra ID?

Enhanced Security: Protects against unauthorized access and data breaches.
Operational Efficiency: Centralizes identity management to reduce administrative tasks.
Scalability: Supports growth by accommodating evolving IT environments.
Cost Management: Facilitates cost control through centralized systems and automated processes.

In healthcare, Microsoft Entra ID facilitates secure patient record access and compliance with industry regulations. Financial institutions rely on it for robust security measures in safeguarding client data. In the education sector, it streamlines access to online resources for students and faculty. Global enterprises benefit from its ability to manage complex identity frameworks across multiple regions, ensuring reliable security amidst increasing cyber threats.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

NHL, Interspire, Appfire

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID

March 2026

Free Report: Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID

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