IBM Cloud Identity Service vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category. IBM is ranked #28, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. IBM holds a 0.3% mindshare in IAMS, compared to Microsoft’s 33.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Identity Service

Read 3 IBM Cloud Identity Service reviews

227 Views
148 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 218 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

12,415 Views
9,218 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Identity Service

Microsoft Entra ID

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 2, 2024

Microsoft Entra ID and IBM Cloud Identity Service are identity management products. Microsoft Entra ID leads in integration and security features, while IBM Cloud Identity Service is recognized for advanced analytics and identity governance.

Features:Microsoft Entra ID includes seamless integration with Microsoft ecosystems, multi-factor authentication, and access auditing. IBM Cloud Identity Service has robust identity governance, extensive analytics, and adaptive access capabilities. Microsoft Entra ID specializes in integrations, and IBM Cloud Identity Service in analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Microsoft Entra ID offers an intuitive deployment process within Microsoft environments, supported by online resources and training. IBM Cloud Identity Service provides a modular deployment approach for complex requirements with reliable support. Microsoft Entra ID is simple; IBM Cloud Identity Service suits complex deployments.

Pricing and ROI:Microsoft Entra ID is competitively priced, with licensing models offering favorable ROI, especially for enterprises integrated with Microsoft. IBM Cloud Identity Service has higher setup costs but provides significant ROI due to enhanced analytics and management. Microsoft Entra ID is cost-effective for integration-focused businesses, whereas IBM offers better returns for analytics and governance.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Microsoft Entra ID Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Microsoft Entra ID

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cloud Identity Service

Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

28th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Entra ID

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

Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Identity Service is 0.3%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 33.8%, up 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)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1054431

Chief Technology Officer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Excellent support, beneficial integration, and low maintenance

I have found IBM Cloud Identity Service to be highly scalable. It can handle thousands of users. IBM solutions are truly enterprise-grade. You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses. The implementation effort, it's hard to find that cost-benefit.

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Vinod Survase

M365 Senior Consultant at Capgemini

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is multiple identity and access management, so all of the applications are valuable. It's also part of the automated process."

"It is stable. We can automate many of our daily operations with it, and we don't have to manage many things manually."

"One of the most valuable features of IBM Cloud Identity Service is that it delivers integrations with the commercial SaaS software that's available."

"The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service."

"We need something that makes an attacker's life harder."

"I like Entra's ability to integrate the Active Directory with third-party solutions. It's straightforward. I like the ability to define third-party systems and make the AD the primary identity provider."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to establish resource groups and set permissions through RBAC across these groups."

"I like how Entra allows you to upload a CSV file with user details for bulk user creation. This is useful for automation. Entra has made it easy to manage identity and access by integrating with all Microsoft services. Everything is managed in a single place, eliminating the need for another application."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to deploy and make changes to every workstation that I need to. We use it to control policy and I can apply the right policies to all our 1,500 workstations, notebooks, et cetera."

"It has things like conditional access. For example, if someone is accessing sensitive information, then we could force them to do multi-factor authentication. Therefore, we can stop access if it is coming from a location that we did not expect."

"Don't delay implementing this solution, it's the best thing you can do for your identity protection."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

Cons

"The initial setup is complex, it's not straightforward. It takes months because it's not straightforward."

"Everything can be more stable and secure. There could also be more account features. I would like to be able to do more things through it to manage users' accounts."

"IBM Cloud Identity Service is going in the right direction with the product. They need to keep building out the integrations and having the library is very critical."

"For example, there were some authentication features that, for security purposes, had certain limitations. Those limitations still exist, but the portal now has options so that the customers can make custom features to manage their identity."

"The price has room for improvement."

"The response from actual support tickets is a bit laggy, and I would like them to be more responsive."

"There should be a clearer separation between objects held in Entra and Azure, so we don't need to approach the Entra ID team to create rules, policies, and app registrations. It would help if we could make independent IDs on the Azure side to go through that team to create a role, change permissions, or create something for a specific task."

"The synchronization between my AD and Azure AD needs improvement."

"The permission management is a mess."

"The downside is that we now have all our eggs in one basket with Microsoft. We have this great authentication and single sign-on, but if Microsoft has an outage in North America or globally, on Outlook or Teams, we're dead in the water... We get some type of hiccup once a quarter."

"The Cloud Provisioning Agent cannot provision a lot of the information that AD Connect does. For starters, the lightweight version cannot synchronize device information. If you have computers on-premises, the information about them will not be synchronized by the Cloud Provisioning Agent. In addition, if you have a user on the cloud and he changes his password, that information should be written back to the on-premises instance. But that workflow cannot be done with the lightweight agent. It can only be done with the more robust version."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive for non-enterprise companies. IBM's always going to be a little more expensive, you're going to be paying a premium. However, depending on the organization's needs, there's probably a benefit there to do even with the price being the way it is."

"Microsoft has a free version of Azure AD. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced features, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user."

"It is a packaged license. We have a Premium P1 subscription of Office 365, and it came with that."

"I'm not totally aware of the pricing and licensing, but I do know that the pricing and licensing must be quite balanced. We are a pretty old client of Microsoft, and MSA is just one of the services we use from Microsoft. There's a whole Microsoft 365 suite that's implemented as well. I'm sure it is something that is acceptable to both parties."

"It is in line. Because we are so early, we have not had to come back on a cycle where we are having to negotiate again."

"Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license."

"The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time."

"Microsoft Azure AD has P1 or P2 licensing options, and it depends on the customer's needs. To use Conditional Access, you need to have the P1 license, and to use the PIN features, you need the P2 license."

"The cost of Entra ID depends entirely on our organization's specific needs and use cases."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

32%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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.

See all answers

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.

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Comparisons

No data available

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

December 2024

Download IBM Cloud Identity Service product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

December 2024

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Also Known As

No data available

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator

Learn More

IBM

Microsoft

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

IBM

Microsoft

Overview

Whether your applications are custom, your business processes complex, or you're looking for world-class professional services and project management to coordinate each step of your project, IBM Cloud Identity Service is uniquely suited to serve organizations with out-of-the box challenges.

IBM Cloud Identity Service can be designed to help with the full lifecycle of implementation and operations, including discovery, planning, project management, integration engineering and more – expertly delivered by IBM's global staff of identity professionals.

Microsoft Entra ID is used for extending on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, managing application access, enabling multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on. It facilitates policy enforcement and secure access, ensuring centralized identity management across cloud and on-premises resources.

Organizations utilize Microsoft Entra ID for robust user and group management, identity synchronization, and conditional access. Its seamless integration with third-party apps, scalability, and support for remote work make it a preferred choice. The admin center streamlines identity and access tasks, enhancing efficiency and security with features like privileged identity management and audit logs.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Single Sign-On: Simplifies user access to multiple applications with one login.
Multifactor Authentication: Enhances security by requiring additional verification.
Conditional Access: Establishes policies that determine how users' access cloud apps.
Integration: Easily integrates with various third-party applications.
User Identity Protection: Safeguards user identities from threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Manages elevated access to sensitive resources.
Audit Logs: Provides thorough activity logs for oversight and compliance.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Entra ID reviews?

Enhanced Security: Offers strong multifactor authentication and identity protection.
Administrative Efficiency: Simplifies identity and access management tasks.
Scalability: Supports growing user bases and remote work environments.
Integration Capabilities: Compatible with numerous third-party applications.
User-Friendly Interface: Makes managing user identities straightforward.

Microsoft Entra ID implementation varies across industries. Tech firms leverage it for secure, scalable access management, while healthcare organizations utilize its identity protection features to safeguard patient data. Educational institutions adopt Entra ID for streamlined user management and policy enforcement, ensuring secure access for students and staff across on-premises and cloud resources.

Sample Customers

Baxter Healthcare,

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Microsoft Entra ID

December 2024

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