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Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Google Cloud Identity
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (10th), Cloud Resource Access Management (5th)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Identity is 10.7%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 18.5%, down from 29.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID18.5%
Google Cloud Identity10.7%
Other70.8%
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Q&A Highlights

ID
Owner at Brains
May 12, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

BL
Head - Work Transformation at Econz
User lifecycle management becomes streamlined with unified access and context-aware policies
If applications support SAML protocols, integration is always an easy task. However, there are difficulties with form-based applications or LDAP-based applications, particularly traditional applications. We need more flexibility not only with SAML but also with LDAP-based and form-based applications. Context-aware access currently only works with SAML-based applications. If other application integrations could support context-aware access, that would be helpful, as companies are in a transition mode with various traditional, form-based, and LDAP-based applications. Mobile device management could be improved. Through Google Cloud Identity, we can manage Android applications and have control over iOS devices, but container functionality is missing. This is particularly important for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scenarios, especially in India where the market is now split equally between iOS and Android users. Improvements in this area and integration capabilities would be beneficial.
Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Google Cloud Identity is group access. You are able to assign policies to groups instead of users individually."
"It's easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature is the performance."
"It is a very stable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"I used it as an administrator without implementing it myself. As for valuable aspects or benefits, the significant point is that it's a straightforward, single solution that just works."
"The most valuable feature of Google Cloud Identity is its stability."
"Cloud Identity is scalable enough for our needs, and it's serving more than 3,000 users in our organization."
"One of the most useful features was the single sign-on. You can use it as an identity provider or service provider. And you can use their organization unit feature to enable or disable some of the features for a specific group of users."
"Entra ID can be deployed using a hybrid model for organizations with a significant on-premises presence, or in a fully cloud-based setup for those that do not."
"It offers features that improve our security posture such as multifactor authentication, which is the second layer of protection that is used when we log into the cloud."
"I would highly recommend this solution."
"The beauty of Secure Score is that it gives you something of a benchmark, saying what percentage of organizations have a particular level of security score and telling you how you can upgrade your security."
"Azure AD makes our work a lot easier."
"Microsoft Authenticator is highly secure."
"The solution has come a long way. Now, with the Azure AD B2C offering integrated as well, we've got a full IAM-type solution for our customer-facing identity management. In addition, when it comes to user journeys we now can hook in custom flows for different credential checking and authorizations for specific conditional access."
"I would rate Microsoft Entra ID a solid 10 out of 10."
 

Cons

"If you want to set up some alerts, you don't have much control over the configuration. You have to use their default alerts. And they only provide alerts for certain activities, so you cannot customize those. Monitoring isn't very helpful either."
"I would like to see more integration in future releases."
"The management of external users needs to be introduced in the tool as it is an area of concern in the tool presently."
"If I were to suggest enhancements, it would mainly revolve around ensuring compatibility and maximizing integration options with various services."
"To improve the product, the integration with third-party products could always be smoother."
"In Google, if we want support they are very slow to respond."
"The customer service and support team is not so good."
"When referring to the help articles I found them not helpful. Support themselves understood my query but the resolution was not satisfactory."
"Microsoft could improve by stabilizing its branding. I still call it Azure AD. Some of the customers I work with call it Azure AD. Branding makes you stand out in the market, but it is something that also confuses people."
"Generally, everything works pretty well, but sometimes, Azure Active Directory has outages on the Microsoft side of things. These outages really have a very big impact on the users, applications, and everything else because they are closely tied to the Azure AD ecosystem. So, whenever there is an outage, it is really difficult because all things start failing. This happens very rarely, but when it happens, there is a big impact."
"The area that needs improvement is integrating IDs between multiple environments and forests. In our case, it's hard to get the identities from multiple forests into one location. This is probably our biggest challenge."
"The visibility in the GUI is not good for management. There are a lot of improvements that could make it better."
"The product could be more cost-effective."
"I think the documentation and configuration are both areas that need improvement. The product changes and gets updated, but the documentation doesn't keep pace."
"Azure Active Directory could benefit by adding the capability for identity life cycle for the on-premise solution. For example, an HR solution, which is built on-premise or, in general, better on-premise capable solutions."
"In my opinion, the on-premises deployment is still king with respect to stability. We are able to control what's happening there, unlike the cloud instances when the service is down."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive."
"The licensing cost depends on the partners and the relationship between the company and the partners."
"The product is billed on a monthly basis depending on the number of users."
"Licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"We probably spend about $50,000 a year on licensing."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"The fees are paid monthly and there are no additional costs other than the licensing fees."
"Its price is per user. It is also based on the type of user that you're synchronizing up there."
"We pay about $35 per user."
"Microsoft Entra ID's pricing is reasonable."
"It is good. We have Office 365 E3, and then that is tied in with Azure Active Directory. I believe that we only have to pay for our technician-level access or IT department access for Azure Active Directory Premium, which I am sure they call Entra Premium P2 licensing, so it is not a very large cost. We just adopted that, and that gives us a lot of insights into user security that we would not otherwise have."
"We have a yearly license."
"It is a packaged license. We have a Premium P1 subscription of Office 365, and it came with that."
"Licensing fees are paid monthly."
"Licenses are based on the usage. There is no cap. It's based on the number of users we provision."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise160
 

Questions from the Community

How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also access to both Microsoft’s user community as well as around-the-clock customer s...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Identity?
It's crucial to monitor costs carefully, as there can be unexpected charges. I have been charged even when there was supposed to be free credit.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Identity?
If you are asking about room for improvement with Google Cloud Identity, whatever is there already, cost is the only problem. If you are comparing with GCP, OCI, the cost will be a little bit highe...
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

Cloud Identity, Cloud Identity Premium
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ExtraHop Networks, HealthChannels
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 Google Cloud Identity vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.