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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)
26th
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
7.0
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
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID11.3%
Atlassian Crowd1.2%
Other87.5%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
JP
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.

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."
"Entra ID has helped us implement role-based authentication rather than conditional keys."
"The best thing about Active Directory is its compatibility. It works with lots of third-party vendors. We're using multiple products, and they're all integrated with our Active Directory."
"Entra ID's ability to sync with the local Active Directory provides redundancy, allowing authentication via cloud features even if the local Active Directory faces issues. The SSO features with app registrations are also crucial, as we use Azure globally, allowing role and permission assignments directly from Entra."
"The solution's ease of use is one of its most valuable features."
"Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has improved our customers' security posture. Multi-factor authentication has two layers of authentication, which helps in case you input your credentials into a phishing website and then it has access to your credentials. So if they use your credentials, then you have proof on your phone that was sent to the end user."
"It's very user-friendly for users."
"It has been stable, and we haven't had any issues since we started to use it."
"Microsoft Entra ID has provided my company with a centralized place to establish a source of truth for the attributes of our personnel."
 

Cons

"There's a need for effective group membership management, especially for corporate programs."
"It makes you more efficient, but you have to optimize what you're doing before you get into the software."
"I would rate their technical support a six out of ten. It requires starting at the bottom and working our way up, which is time-consuming."
"Over the past year, syncs have occasionally taken longer than expected to complete between on-premises and cloud environments."
"The monitoring dashboard could be a bit better."
"They have had a few outages, so stability is a little bit of an issue. It is global. That is the thing. I know some of the other competitors are regionalized ID platforms, but Entra ID is global, so when something goes wrong, it is a problem because it underpins everything, whether you are logging in to M365 or you have single sign-on to Azure, Autopilot, Intune, Exchange mailbox or another application. If there is a problem with Entra ID, all of that falls apart, so its great strength and weakness is the global single tenant for it. Stability is a key area for me. Otherwise, it is generally pretty good."
"I believe it can also be integrated into other Microsoft products, as well as more integrations with other solutions."
"I think the solution can improve by making the consumption of that data easier for our customers."
"Many of the features are outdated, so the UI and UX could be improved."
"They should put the features of P1 and P2 into a single license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's pretty cheap. I would rate the price as three out of five."
"While it may seem affordable for larger enterprises, it tends to become more expensive as you move up the scale."
"We are always looking for better pricing."
"The solution can be cheaper."
"The cost of Azure AD is one of the biggest benefits, as it is available for use free of charge when you start with Office 365."
"For a small business buying individual licenses, it is an affordable solution."
"Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license."
"It is not too expensive."
"The price is affordable, and we pay around $100 per month."
"It's pretty good. We're using the native features. It's bundled with our Office 365 licenses. We aren't paying anything extra for Azure Active Directory. It's pretty good for us because it's complementary to Office 365. We're only paying for Office 365."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business85
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise155
 

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...
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.
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.
 

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 2026.
884,122 professionals have used our research since 2012.