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Atlassian Crowd vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Atlassian Crowd
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
15th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
4
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Atlassian Crowd is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 27.5%, up from 26.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"One standout feature is the capability to configure various authentication and authorization methods from diverse user directories."
"The most valuable features are predominantly in the directory and development spaces."
"The valuable features I use daily are enterprise application, conditional access, identity governance, password monitoring, and a password reset."
"Single sign-on is the reason we use AD."
"When logging on to Azure AD it's pretty quick."
"The two-step authentication is the most valuable."
"Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity."
"Microsoft Entra ID provides granular role assignments for Azure permissions or Azure AD roles. Using a privileged identity manager allows us to give specific access to certain groups of employees for a limited time. Entra's ability to integrate Azure Virtual Machines and security benefits has been exceptional, especially for managing infrastructure and applications."
"The most valuable feature is the single sign-on, which allows any application that is SAML or OAuth compatible to use Azure as an identity provider for seamless sign-in."
"The most valuable features are the Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA. Another good functionality is registering enterprise applications to provide access to external parties. These four features are precious and are the most used across different use cases for various clients and projects."
 

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."
"The management interface has some areas that need improvement."
"Microsoft Entra ID could benefit from more fine-tuned rights. It is necessary to prevent granting an application or user broad access rights."
"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."
"It would be ideal if the solution moved to a passwordless type of environment. It's the future of authentification. It's also more secure and convenient."
"The quality of support has declined in recent years."
"Microsoft has so many different requirements and priorities that sometimes they don't invest all their energy into the products that you have expectations to investigate."
"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."
"I want to be able to identify the audiences effectively and manage them."
 

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."
"We make sure that we only enable the licenses that are needed for the users, rather than enabling licenses in a blanket fashion."
"The price of Azure Active Directory and Amazon AWS, are almost the same, but most people prefer Amazon AWS because they find it's a little cheaper to some extent and an easier platform to use."
"The pricing for companies and businesses is okay, it's fair. But if you are trying to teach someone about Azure AD, there is no licensing option for that... It would be nice to have a 'learning' license, one that is cheaper for a single person."
"We are always looking for better pricing."
"The cost of Entra ID depends entirely on our organization's specific needs and use cases."
"The subscription should be categorized by business size. For example, small companies should have a discounted price, this would help small companies and the organization to be automated."
"It is not too expensive."
"We pay an annual subscription fee."
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845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 Atlassian Crowd?
One standout feature is the capability to configure various authentication and authorization methods from diverse user directories.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian Crowd?
The pricing ranges from low to medium. While it may seem affordable for larger enterprises, it tends to become more expensive as you move up the scale.
What is your primary use case for Atlassian Crowd?
Our main use case is for user management, especially in the context of developers. The focus is consolidating different user types, such as active and desktop users, and facilitating a unified user...
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?
Microsoft Entra ID is reportedly quite expensive for each user regarding security features. The renewal cost is particularly high according to the teams managing purchases.
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.