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AWS IAM Identity Center vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 2, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.9
AWS IAM Identity Center enhances efficiency, security, and compliance while simplifying access management and improving operational reliability and cost tracking.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Entra ID reduces costs and enhances security by streamlining authentication and integrating seamlessly with Azure for improved efficiency.
The return on investment includes operational efficiency gains, security risk reduction, compliance with regulations, improved user experience, productivity benefits, reduced overhead, and better security posture.
We have achieved significant time efficiencies with AWS IAM Identity Center.
We leverage existing licensing, like Windows Server or SQL, and hybrid benefits, and our sales and marketing teams benefit from co-selling and partnership advantages.
We get a return from not needing to pay other vendors to do what we already had from Microsoft, which was better than the competition.
The return on investment comes from not needing as many IT staff to manage and verify user identity and ensuring seamless device connection without needing to administer device compliance manually.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
AWS IAM Identity Center documentation is detailed yet lengthy; AWS support is responsive with effective assistance and optimization tools.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Entra ID support varies, with mixed satisfaction due to expertise inconsistency, but premier support and response times praised.
AWS provides immediate solutions and assistance whenever needed, especially if issues arise that cannot be handled internally.
They are prompt, keep you updated, and provide excellent assistance.
AWS offers better assistance plans for their services.
The actual support when you get to that level is a ten out of ten.
There are immediate answers to any issues that arise with great knowledge and a deep understanding of the product and business needs.
It's not timely or professional.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
AWS IAM Identity Center excels in scalability and integration but could improve user group syncing and third-party tool integration.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID provides seamless scalability and reliability, effortlessly managing vast user numbers with flexible, automated resource adjustments.
AWS Identity Center successfully supports scalable deployments, allowing additional resources as the company grows.
The scalability of AWS IAM Identity Center is excellent.
It can handle both a small number of users and a bigger number of users efficiently.
We experienced no scalability issues with Microsoft Entra ID.
Its scalability is impressive, aided by Microsoft's efforts to expand its data centers.
When dealing with tens of thousands of objects, it requires proper management and best practices to retrieve only necessary data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
AWS IAM Identity Center is highly stable with 99.96% uptime, minimal downtime, and efficient handling of critical applications.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID offers high reliability with minimal outages, swift issue resolution, and strong stability, earning user trust.
There can be issues if there is an outage on AWS's side, which could prevent logging in because your region might be down, affecting the Identity Center's availability.
It offers 99.96% uptime.
Stability-wise, it is functioning well without any outages or crashes.
It's a critical solution that we can't do without.
The stability of the solution is very high at 99.999%.
We rarely had significant problems or crashes.
 

Room For Improvement

AWS IAM Identity Center should improve UI, integration, flexibility, automation, and temporary access for better user and security management.
Users urge improvements in Entra ID documentation, integration, price transparency, support, user interface, authentication, and licensing clarity.
Having a lot of users on one instance is hard to configure, so I hope for more flexibility and ease in configuration.
Enhancements could include automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts, simplifying the process.
When configuring it with third-party tools, like Active Directory, the naming convention of permission sets requires careful attention, which can be confusing.
A recent incident we dealt with took four months to resolve with a seven-day deadline, which was quite frustrating.
There is a need for better transformation support from on-premises Active Directory policies to the cloud, as Entra ID doesn't cover this sufficiently yet.
The frequent changes in branding cause confusion among customers who struggle to keep track of product names and functions.
 

Setup Cost

AWS IAM Identity Center is affordable, offering free core services; advanced features have additional charges, appealing to budget-conscious enterprises.
Microsoft Entra ID offers affordable tiered pricing with discounts, featuring user-based costs tailored for enterprises with various security levels.
AWS IAM Identity Center is available as a free service by default.
It is not that expensive, rated at three out of ten for costs.
Pricing for AWS IAM Identity Center is very affordable, rated at two out of ten with one being cheap.
We are getting our money's worth.
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.
Compared to other Microsoft products, the cost is not too expensive.
 

Valuable Features

AWS IAM Identity Center offers centralized access management with role-based permissions, automation, multifactor authentication, and comprehensive security controls.
Microsoft Entra ID excels in user identity management with secure features, scalability, and seamless integration into the Microsoft ecosystem.
It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.
These features allow for excellent micro-level control over resources, ensuring specific permissions are granted.
Its valuable features include granular access control, allowing precise control over who can access specific AWS resources and under what conditions using JSON-based policies.
We can secure the applications that we are building and make sure that if the application were to be compromised, there is no full access to a customer's environment causing issues and other security concerns.
It's integrated with Microsoft technologies like Authenticator, SSO, and MFA, streamlining operations and creating a seamless environment.
The granular control, such as preventing logins from specific locations, enhances security significantly.
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS IAM Identity Center
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
10th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
1st
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 1.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 29.7%, up from 28.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Vishal-Saxena - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing cloud security with robust access management and policy creation
The security perspective, especially role-based access control, is a significant strength. It enhances infrastructure on the cloud. The service's security aspects, including the creation of policies and role-based access controls, are incredibly beneficial. The inline policies feature ensures that even new users can understand complex security configurations, ensuring smooth cloud operations.
Vinod Survase - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS IAM Identity Center?
The product is easy for beginners to learn and use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS IAM Identity Center?
I recommend that others take advantage of AWS IAM's free tier for creating and managing users, groups, and roles, as it provides robust functionality without any additional cost. However, it's impo...
What needs improvement with AWS IAM Identity Center?
I would like to see an increase in available resources and custom features, as these could enhance the current capacity of operations without removing existing accesses.
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.
 

Also Known As

AWS Single Sign On, AWS SSO
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
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 AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.