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Azure Front Door vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.6
Azure Front Door offers cost savings and efficient management, yielding a clear return on investment despite initial transition uncertainties.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Defender for Identity effectively prevents incidents, reduces administration time, is cost-effective, and helps satisfy client needs, despite mixed returns.
Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Front Door receives high marks for customer service, with users praising knowledgeable support staff and clear documentation.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender for Identity's support is effective yet inconsistent, with delays and variable service quality across subscription tiers.
I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable solutions for enterprises, enhancing performance and managing applications efficiently despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
8.8
Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable and adaptable, supporting diverse enterprises and seamlessly integrating within Microsoft infrastructures.
I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.
I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Azure Front Door is praised for high stability and reliability, though some DNS management issues are occasionally noted.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Defender for Identity is highly stable, credited to Azure's infrastructure, despite occasional regional incidents and initial issues.
I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Front Door requires enhancements in multi-cloud support, load balancing, IP support, latency, UI, pricing, rules, monitoring, and APIs.
Microsoft Defender for Identity requires enhancements in cloud security, SIEM integration, and user access controls, facing various operational challenges.
If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.
The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
There is room for improvement in delivering knowledge to technical users, especially regarding what we can gain from the solution and how to apply it.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Front Door's pay-as-you-go pricing offers flexibility, with costs and value balancing for various project needs.
Microsoft Defender for Identity, integrated with Microsoft 365 E5, is competitively priced, offering value for Azure and Office 365 users.
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
the Microsoft Defender Suite is quite expensive, especially when integrated into Sentinel.
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Front Door provides scalable, secure, and affordable solutions with advanced features like SSL offloading, load balancing, and DDoS protection.
Microsoft Defender for Identity excels in threat detection, offers customization, and enhances security across environments with synced capabilities and automation.
Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.
Azure Front Door includes a built-in web application firewall, which performs signature-based checks of the request payload, offering protection against common attacks or malicious requests.
The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks.
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Front Door
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 2.7%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 6.6%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides great security with a good application firewall
The initial setup is straightforward. If you want to use the portal, CLI, or PowerShare, or you want to use automation data for one month, it's straightforward. Even when it comes to operational maintenance, it's pretty easy and straightforward. Microsoft has done a great job on that front. Maintenance generally requires someone who is a cloud administrator or similar to maintain services in general, with Front Door a small piece of a larger maintenance requirement. There's not a lot to manage, the configuration is simple. I encourage people to document the configuration and infrastructure as well as disaster recovery in case anything happens.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily detects advanced attacks based on user behavior
The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud. Identity harvesting is the most common threat. Legacy Microsoft solutions and Amazon face the same issues in the cloud. Users don't implement other security mechanisms in the cloud. In an on-premise environment, we would have multiple security devices like firewalls and several layers of security. Cloud users are less bothered because cloud features are there and only need to be configured. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the best solution because all threats are completely visible, and it has a great dashboard. The dashboard displays each threat and score, so we can identify the threat rating and act efficiently to avoid compromising user identities. We have a single sign-on feature on the cloud. If we lose a single set of identities, it can compromise the entire organization, including cloud and on-premise. The same identities are being used everywhere. The user activity has to be completely visible on the dashboard, and it has to generate a pattern. It will notify us if there is any security breach. It is a complete monitoring set. Minor changes in the user identity can lead to data leakage. If a password is changed in the cloud, it will be reflected automatically in the on-premise. This minor change will trigger an alert in Microsoft Defender for Identity. It ensures that each cloud identity is well protected from spoofing. It has a comprehensive database of well-known spoofing techniques, enabling us to provide cloud identity protection completely. It has a vast scope because it is completely single sign-on. In the emerging industry, we use single sign-on because users need to authenticate, but it's challenging to remember multiple passwords. Once your user signs in, you can access all the data. An identity compromise would lead to various issues and affect the data on-premises. Defender maintains a constantly updated database with the latest signatures, attack models, and threats. If it detects one threat, it will monitor the suspicious event and give us frequent alerts. Identity protection is vital because we use an identity mechanism for everything, including firewall-related activities. The exact identity used in the cloud is used in the most complex firewalls. We require an excellent migration technique to regain this user credential if something gets compromised. Blocking this requires a massive set of procedures. Microsoft Defender comprehensively monitors identity and provides frequent alerts regarding any issue, so we don't need to think of anything else. Defender's bidirectional sync capabilities are helpful because we need to sync data from multiple directions, including tenant-to-tenant, on-premise-to-cloud, and cloud-to-cloud syncing. As a university, we have multiple tenants, so we need to sync or access data across platforms. That way, everything is more secure, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud also provides ample security for cloud transfers. The bidirectional sync capabilities are flawless—10 out of 10. Our on-premise Active Directory is perfectly synced with the Azure AD. Everything is synced with on-premise, and changes are reflected in minutes. If a problem with identity is addressed on the cloud, the fix will be mirrored on-premise and vice versa. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Identity are bundled. If we have these two solutions, we don't need to worry about anything else or third-party antivirus. Microsoft Defender for Identity acts as a link to all the Microsoft security features that require identity-based validation. Microsoft Defender instantly provides identity security for all our applications, and users need not worry about typing their passwords. Even in situations with less complex encryption mechanisms, users don't need to worry about typing in their passwords. Defender will check and monitor if there are any flaws in that, and it will let us know if there are any issues. We're a Microsoft shop, so everything works together. If one feature isn't working, everything will be affected. If Defender isn't working, half of our Microsoft security features will be dead. Without identity security, user data can easily be compromised, and data can fall into the hands of intruders or other hackers. The solutions have to complement each other. If anything got wrong, the entire setup would have flaws. Microsoft security has a legacy security mechanism. A while back, we might have gone with Defender for Endpoint, but Microsoft has also grown into the face of the cloud. The same Defender solution is completely maintaining cloud security. We can imagine Microsoft's vast scale and how Defender can protect the cloud environment from vulnerabilities and attacks. We are definitely delighted with Microsoft products. The dashboard features are fantastic because it provides a comprehensive overview. It has a great alert mechanism and log inspector that tracks when users access various servers. With this kind of identity validation, we can control which servers the users can access. We have total visibility from the dashboard. We can track identity usage even if there are no issues. That is an essential advantage.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
One area that needs improvement is the number of alerts generated, leading to alert fatigue. Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity ( /products/microsoft-defender-for-identity-reviews ) is used to protect our on-premises and hybrid Active Directory environment. Our organization has a hybrid infra...
 

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.