JumpCloud vs Microsoft Entra External ID comparison

JumpCloud and Microsoft are both solutions in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category. JumpCloud is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.4, while Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.8. Additionally, 100% of JumpCloud users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

JumpCloud and Microsoft Entra External ID are robust players in the identity management and IT control arena. JumpCloud appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive device management and focus on IT control, giving it an edge for organizations with diverse IT needs.

Features: JumpCloud excels in device management, providing single sign-on capabilities and seamless integration with applications like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. It also supports SAML authentication and extensive application integrations. Microsoft Entra External ID focuses on strong single sign-on and integration capabilities, particularly excelling with federated identities and compatibility across various platforms, ideal for hybrid and cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: JumpCloud could improve mobile device management, enhance Microsoft 365 synchronization, and offer more integration features. Users suggest better mobile device management for Apple devices and expanded cloud storage options. Microsoft Entra External ID could work on improving synchronization speed and simplifying its complex licensing model, aiming for better cost transparency and customization options for single sign-on.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: JumpCloud uses a predominantly public cloud deployment with strong technical support that's appreciated for responsiveness and helpful forums. However, there's room for speeding up customer support response. Microsoft Entra External ID, offering hybrid and on-premises deployment models, faces challenges with user-friendliness and complex licensing, despite providing solid customer support.

Pricing and ROI: JumpCloud offers a straightforward, competitively priced model, aiming to reduce identity management costs by up to 60% and offering different feature tiers. Microsoft Entra External ID's pricing is tied to Microsoft licensing, which can be complex and potentially costly, although it is well-integrated into broader Microsoft solutions, making it more expensive for extensive use.

To learn more, read our detailed JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 885,376 peers since 2012

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

iboss

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701851

Managing Director

Enhances web security with a single pane of glass and flexible deployment

I don't see any need for improvement; one of the really good things about iboss as a company is that they listen to customer feedback. I have suggested enhancements, and they are responsive, making changes for the better, and they do a lot of testing. To improve iboss, although we haven't used it, we considered the VPN solution that comes with the highest tier licensing, which includes DLP and various other add-ons. We prefer using another product which automatically logs you back onto your network when turning on your PC. With iboss, the connection is manual, which doesn't meet our needs. Additionally, sizing can be tricky because, although the initial recommendations may seem adequate, actual usage may require more gateways than anticipated.

Read full review

Arun Jose

System Administrator at Mensa Brands

Unified directory and device management has streamlined remote workforce security and onboarding

JumpCloud can be improved in several areas. Some users feel the initial configuration can be complex, especially for larger organizations, and better guided onboarding could be helpful. Additionally, while its reporting and integrations are strong, more granular and customizable metrics and real-time alerts would be beneficial for advanced use cases. From my team's perspective, there is often a desire for even more intuitive administrative controls, particularly when managing complex policy sets. Enhanced integrations with specific industry-specific applications could provide even greater efficiency. It is about refining the user experience and expanding compatibility. Another area for potential enhancement could be customer support and resources. While generally good, faster response times and more comprehensive or specialized documentation could further improve the user experience, especially during complex deployments.

Read full review

F. Seki

Consultant at Artifield

Offers strong identity unification but needs better customization

Microsoft Entra External ID can be improved with additional features, specifically customizable flexibility and a customizable user interface for the login dialog. Currently, the login dialog has very limited customization options, which only include font styles, colors, text messages, or brand icons. Last month, Entra ID introduced some customizable features in their login dialog, but this does not apply to Microsoft Entra External ID, indicating a significant gap between the two. In theory, Entra External ID can support many external identity providers where custom login dialogs could be integrated, potentially via SSO feature coordination, although I have not yet confirmed this. Hence, enhanced customizable login options and the ability to use attribute password logins are critical features that are required for Microsoft Entra External ID to gain dominance in the authentication market.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."

"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."

"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."

More iboss pros

"The most valuable feature is the ability of the product to integrate all applications."

"The most valuable features of JumpCloud are flexibility, policy management for devices, and device patch management. For example, we can limit access to devices only in Chile or send a number of commands to the devices to manage them."

"My advice for others looking into using JumpCloud is that if a person is looking for a directory solution that combines single sign-on identity and password management, this will be the best option."

"The most impactful feature of JumpCloud is that it allows me to use one credential for all platforms or accounts, reducing the need to remember multiple credentials."

"The cross-platform support and easy policy deployment from JumpCloud have greatly assisted my team, especially since it is typically difficult to deploy services across various directory services on Linux."

"The whole product is great. The device management is amazing. The fact that you can basically set up an entire machine without having the machine in front of you is most valuable."

"JumpCloud has given us a much more secure environment, and as we move toward a SOC 2 Type 2, having JumpCloud in place made it very easy to gather the evidence we needed to prove that we were doing what we should be doing."

"The most valuable feature of JumpCloud, it provides a convenient and streamlined solution for me to access and manage all of the features I require in one centralized location. This eliminates the need for me to worry about hiring individuals to manage these tasks, as well as eliminating concerns surrounding hardware, updates, and licenses. With JumpCloud, I am able to receive the services I need in a timely and efficient manner, which has significantly reduced my stress and alleviated a great deal of the issues I once faced. This is especially important as I am often bound by laws, regulations, contracts, and customer demands to keep up with various tasks. With JumpCloud, I am able to manage everything I need in one place, giving me visibility and control over aspects that I previously had to manage through multiple systems."

More JumpCloud pros

"The positive impact of Microsoft Entra External ID on my organization is that it enhances ease of use for the administrative side."

"The single sign-on access is the most useful feature we use."

"The most beneficial feature for us is the ease of setup. With about five clicks, we can generate unique IDs and keys and set up in less than 30 minutes. We can also generate these for multiple years simultaneously, which is convenient."

"The most valuable feature for me is the firewall capabilities."

"The experience has been rather good; there are other possibilities, but we made the choice to go with Microsoft, and we have a good experience with that."

"The most valuable feature for me is the firewall capabilities."

"The times that I have gone into it, I found it easy to use and I haven't had any issues with it."

"I have not encountered any stability issues with Microsoft Entra External ID."

More Microsoft Entra External ID pros

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability within the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing."

"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."

"The dashboards for local use could be better."

"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."

"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."

More iboss cons

"They went through a tough year this year with infrastructure and having some large outages."

"Customer service is fairly good, and sometimes it takes a little time to hear back."

"It could dip into CI/CD tooling as well. That would be a very interesting part to see."

"Lacks the ability to have various VPN applications."

"Support is not good enough."

"The visual tool and interface must be more fine-tuned."

"For improvement, the tool should introduce more customization options."

"There are a few aspects that could be improved. Their API was a little spotty when I last used it, and some of those use cases were around removing systems from our environment."

More JumpCloud cons

"The cost is very high."

"Microsoft Entra External ID isn't a complete cloud-based account solution, as it must handle internal employees and collaborate with internal Active Directory."

"Single sign-on for external applications such as Oracle could be improved to be a little bit cheaper."

"I would like to see faster synchronization."

"The authentication methods available are very limited, and this presents a weak point."

"The support engineers are not as skilled as our engineers. When they say something would not work, or there is no solution, we usually hear that Microsoft would not support this."

"The training generally is complicated to understand, leading us to often go through a managed service provider."

"There is room for improvement in AI technology for Microsoft Entra External ID, particularly in providing detailed alerts."

More Microsoft Entra External ID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"The cost of the solution is approximately $12 per user. However, the cost depends on what modules you're using. They have an all-in-one package and they do have tiers. For example, the more users you have, the cheaper it ends up being in the end too. I know they've done some changes to the pricing model and I haven't been involved in a lot of the licensing lately. I don't know the exact cost at this time."

"JumpCloud offers several subscription plans as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. The pricing is based on the number of users and the services that are required, meaning that you only pay for what you consume and don't have to pay for services that you don't need. When compared to other solutions, JumpCloud can actually be more cost-effective, as it eliminates the need to hire a team, purchase hardware, pay for licenses and software, and worry about updates, security, and backups. Thus, it offers a more efficient and cost-effective solution for managing your needs."

"The cost was around $5 per user per month."

"The solution is pretty expensive."

"We are using an enterprise license for JumpCloud. We have purchased a license for approximately $3,000 a year, but we are charged more than $135,000 annually."

"The pricing model changed about 18 months ago. It used to be that you got 10 users free, and then you paid for any user above 10 users. Now, when you go above 10 users, you pay for every user. It has become a bit more expensive, but it's such a good product. When you take into account Microsoft licenses, if you were to run Active Directory, you'd need a server to put it on, or you would need a couple of servers, backup, etc. It's a no-brainer. JumpCloud is so much easier to manage from my perspective, regardless of the cost increase. It's just brilliant."

"Licensing cost can be anywhere between $2 and $18 a month depending on what you want to do."

"I am pretty sure that the cost to acquire JumpCloud is less. They have à la carte or per-user pricing. The pricing is there on their webpage. I am not sure if they have any enterprise pricing or discounts if you have more users. But the overall pricing is less than Okta."

More JumpCloud pricing and cost advice

"We don't pay separately for Microsoft Entra External ID as it's part of our Microsoft Exchange subscription."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

17%

Computer Software Company

10%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for iboss?

Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...

See all answers

What do you like most about JumpCloud?

The product enables device management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JumpCloud?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for JumpCloud has been positive; we got a good deal for the set...

See all answers

What needs improvement with JumpCloud?

We started using JumpCloud Password Manager more than a year ago, and I feel some improvements are needed on this pas...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Entra External ID?

Microsoft is flexible in the pricing for the product, so I cannot say that it is expensive, but definitely they are f...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Entra External ID?

Not really at the moment, but perhaps when we go deeper into using Microsoft Entra External ID, we may experience som...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Entra External ID?

When I say identity, I mean Microsoft Entra External ID. We have been using Microsoft Entra External ID since the beg...

See all answers

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Okta Platform vs JumpCloud

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs JumpCloud

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Active Directory vs JumpCloud

Compared 5% of the time

Teleport vs JumpCloud

Compared 5% of the time

Jamf Pro vs JumpCloud

Compared 4% of the time

More JumpCloud Competitors

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Compared 16% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Compared 15% of the time

Okta Platform vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Compared 13% of the time

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Compared 5% of the time

SAP Customer Identity and Access Management vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Entra External ID Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

March 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

JumpCloud

March 2026

Download JumpCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra External ID

March 2026

Download Microsoft Entra External ID product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Resmo

Azure Active Directory External Identities

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

JumpCloud offers efficient device management, single sign-on, and integration capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, streamlining user management across diverse environments.

JumpCloud delivers device, user, and application management across platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, and cloud services such as AWS and Azure. Acting as a cloud-based directory, it facilitates single sign-on and identity access management, making it an attractive replacement for Active Directory and LDAP directories. Its policy management and centralized directory simplify user and device administration, offering a user-friendly interface with flexible access control and remote management. Organizations can experience streamlined onboarding and offboarding processes, robust authentication, and scalability. Despite being powerful, room for improvement is noted in alert capabilities, comprehensive MDM for Windows, multi-tenant features, and API reliability.

What are the key features of JumpCloud?

Device Management: Manage Windows, Mac, and Linux devices efficiently.
Single Sign-on: Seamlessly integrate with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Centralized Directory: Simplifies administration by consolidating user credentials.
Policy Management: Enforce policies and provide VPN access.
Remote Management: Provides flexible access control.

Why should users consider JumpCloud?

Streamlined Onboarding/Offboarding: Efficient user management saves time.
Robust Authentication: Enhances security through strong credential management.
Scalability: Adapts well to growing business needs.
Integration Capabilities: Supports seamless connections with cloud applications.

Companies across industries utilize JumpCloud for comprehensive management of devices and user identities. It is especially beneficial in technology-driven sectors where centralized directory services replace traditional Active Directory and LDAP models. Organizations employing platforms like AWS and Azure find it essential for maintaining efficient and secure access management.

JumpCloud

Microsoft Entra External ID, part of Microsoft Entra, provides highly secure digital experiences for partners, customers, citizens, patients, or any users outside your organization with customization controls. Combine external identities and user directories in one portal to seamlessly manage access across the organization.

Microsoft Entra External ID refers to all the ways you can securely interact with users outside of your organization. If you want to collaborate with partners, distributors, suppliers, or vendors, you can share your resources and define how your internal users can access external organizations. If you're a developer creating consumer-facing apps, you can manage your customers' identity experiences.

With External ID, external users can "bring their own identities." Whether they have a corporate or government-issued digital identity, or an unmanaged social identity like Google or Facebook, they can use their own credentials to sign in. The external user’s identity provider manages their identity, and you manage access to your apps with Entra ID or Entra External ID to keep your resources protected.

The following capabilities make up External ID:

B2B collaboration - Collaborate with external users by letting them use their preferred identity to sign in to your Microsoft applications or other enterprise applications (SaaS apps, custom-developed apps, etc.). B2B collaboration users are represented in your directory, typically as guest users.
B2B direct connect - Establish a mutual, two-way trust with another Azure AD organization for seamless collaboration. B2B direct connect currently supports Teams shared channels, enabling external users to access your resources from within their home instances of Teams. B2B direct connect users aren't represented in your directory, but they're visible from within the Teams shared channel and can be monitored in Teams admin center reports.
Azure AD B2C - Publish modern SaaS apps or custom-developed apps (excluding Microsoft apps) to consumers and customers, while using Azure AD B2C for identity and access management.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

Cars.com, GoFundMe, Grab, ClassPass, Uplight, Beyond Finance, Foursquare

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID

March 2026

Free Report: JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID

Find out what your peers are saying about JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Entra External ID report.

See our list of best Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) vendors and best ZTNA as a Service vendors.

We monitor all Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.