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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 April 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

"Cloud Identity is scalable enough for our needs, and it's serving more than 3,000 users in our organization."
"I think the first thing that is great is that it gives you a lot of features, like login, and then vaulted passwords and secure LDAP, and it becomes easier for the end customer to leverage all those features without going to a higher SKU of G Suite."
"It is a very stable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"I have not experienced any serious problem with stability."
"It's easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature of Google Cloud Identity is group access. You are able to assign policies to groups instead of users individually."
"The best features of Google Cloud Identity are that it's free and works with modern applications, meaning if it's OAuth or using the OAuth protocol, it's very easy to integrate with those applications."
"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."
"Having the single sign-on or the multi-factor way with just allowing the application with one tap to authenticate is really smart."
"It provides an organization flexibility to move towards the public cloud, so their workload can be upstream, and they can see that they don't have to come down to their on-premises for any authorization authentications."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Entra ID are the login and the conditional access pieces."
"The features of Microsoft Entra ID benefit my organization by streamlining everything for the customers that use Entra or the whole Microsoft platform."
"A use case that we did for an end user in a manufacturing organization: We used WVD with biometric authentication because 1,500 processes need to happen in a process. The user didn't want to use a login using their credentials. They wanted to use fingerprinting or tap their ID. That is where we integrated with the authentication. Now, they can process in a couple of hours, and they run those 1,500 processes every day. This changed their login process, which improved the manufacturing process. This helped a lot for their high deployment."
"Using Azure AD has improved our security posture overall, more than anything I've ever worked with."
"Azure Active Directory has useful policy assigning and management."
"The scalability of the product is decent."
 

Cons

"To improve the product, the integration with third-party products could always be smoother."
"To improve the product, the integration with third-party products could always be smoother."
"Technical support is slow."
"Overall, I would give a zero out of 10 for Google's support. There is no easy way to navigate issues without paid consultation, making it quite frustrating."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration with different systems, mainly wireless SIEMS and other analytical systems that we want to introduce."
"When referring to the help articles I found them not helpful. Support themselves understood my query but the resolution was not satisfactory."
"They are going ahead and adding a few more things to the Google Cloud premium edition. Their stock management and remote computer management can be improved."
"Their stock management and remote computer management can be improved."
"Azure AD provides two types of features. One is Azure AD Excel and is already B2C. Out of both versions, Azure B2C requires some improvement, in terms of user management and role management, et cetera."
"We did experience downtime tied to Microsoft when there was an issue with Front Door. All external identity platform services were down for more than 8 hours, which was a critical incident from a couple of months back."
"The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do."
"I think something can be improved, but it's working."
"We have just recently started implementing write-back caching. We were able to go from AD to cloud, but we were not going from cloud back down to AD."
"If any service is down, it can affect a whole region. We would need to wait on a ticket and get word from Microsoft to understand the issues. If it takes longer to resolve the issue on Microsoft's side, all we can do is wait for them to fix it."
"Active Directory could always be more secure. Right now, we've got two-factor authentications. All services based on Active Directory have a username and password. If somebody hacked our username, they could easily get all the data from our side. So I want two-factor authentication and a stronger password policy from Active Directory. The domain controllers should be more secure as well."
"Sometimes, users are not happy, but at the organizational level, it is good. It is costly, but the improvement is good in terms of performance and security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The fees are paid monthly and there are no additional costs other than the licensing fees."
"Licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"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."
"There are four different levels of subscription including the free level, one that includes the Office 365 applications, the Premium 1 (P1) level, and the Premium 2 (P2) level."
"The pricing for companies and businesses is okay, it's fair. But if you are trying to teach someone about Azure AD, there is no licensing option for that... It would be nice to have a 'learning' license, one that is cheaper for a single person."
"If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated."
"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."
"I think we're on the E3 — I think it was about 35 dollars per user."
"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."
"It is bundled with other services and the pricing is quite reasonable."
"Be sure: You know your userbase, e.g., how many users you have. You choose the right license and model that suit your business requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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.
885,880 professionals have used our research since 2012.