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Cloudflare One vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 12, 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

Cloudflare One
Ranking in Access Management
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (12th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (7th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (5th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 3.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 27.3%, up from 24.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution enables seamless security management and fosters a learning environment
Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions. For the solution stopping us for e-learning, I appreciate the concept yet need more resources or courses in Mexico, preferably in Spanish. Certifications are easy, however, I require more real-world environments and instructors.
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

"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare Access is part of the Zero Trust philosophy."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"The tool's most valuable feature is auto logs. It helps with user activity and monitoring. It also assists us with GLBA policies and procedures. Microsoft Entra ID gives a 360 view of what the user has access to, what applications are available to them, when they are logging in and out, etc. It makes knowing what is happening to our tenants incredibly powerful."
"I like that you can run it on-premises. I also like that I can use Azure at any time as the main one."
"User and device management is the most valuable feature."
"This solution is less time-consuming. We don't have to hire as many resources to give permissions to a particular user or group for any application."
"It's a quite comprehensive solution and it scales quite well within our required scale as well, which is very useful."
"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."
"For some applications, it's not only working for authentication but it's also being used to apply roles for users. From the management perspective, it's much better to have this because in the past we constantly needed to go into the console of the different solutions and create or delete users or modify their roles and permissions. Now, with Azure Active Directory, we can do that from a single point. That makes our management model much easier."
"My two preferred features are conditional access and privileged identity management."
 

Cons

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Lacks a VPN feature to provide a secure connection to the data center."
"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The free plan has limitations. For example, I can only set up three rules, and the application firewall is unavailable."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"It could be better if a simple member could understand more easily the prices of the products and packages offered by Microsoft."
"The support could be better. Lately, they sort of dropped off a bit in terms of quality."
"Azure Active Directory could improve by having an authentication service for laptops or desktop computers running Mac and Linux operating systems. They currently have authentication capabilities for Microsoft Windows. Having this capability would benefit people because in today's world everybody is working from the home environment."
"Entra ID needs to improve its application credentials and use of ID permissions. There are challenges with the management layer."
"The quality of support has declined in recent years."
"The integration between the Azure active directory and the traditional active directory could be improved upon."
"There is no documentation about how Microsoft will scale Azure AD for customers. It only mentions that it will scale out if you have a lot of requests but does not mention how in detail."
"The main issue is that because Active Directory is in the cloud, it will inevitably be dependent on internet connectivity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The solution was fairly priced the last time I checked the costs."
"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."
"We are always looking for better pricing."
"If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated."
"It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."
"Azure Active Directory is expensive."
"We pay a yearly license. Licenses are very expensive."
"The pricing of Azure Active Directory is competitive. By default, the product exists in almost every Microsoft cloud product. But it then depends on the features that a customer really wants to make use of."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
33%
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 Cloudflare Access?
The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Access?
The price of Cloudflare Access is the same as compared to Akamai, but I get better performance from Cloudflare. My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the so...
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, we have clients who typically encounter challenges. The usual setup involves con...
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?
We are an enterprise customer with an enterprise agreement in place with many of our partner companies, so there are no special questions or issues about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
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 Cloudflare One vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.