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Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Entra ID support is knowledgeable but inconsistent, with quicker responses for premier users and delays for others.
The actual support when you get to that level is a ten out of ten.
I would rate Microsoft technical support as a seven out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
5.4
Microsoft Entra ID requires improvements in marketing, licensing, documentation, integration, interface, security, stability, and training resources.
There is a need for better transformation support from on-premises Active Directory policies to the cloud, as Entra ID doesn't cover this sufficiently yet.
The frequent changes in branding cause confusion among customers who struggle to keep track of product names and functions.
 

Scalability Issues

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID offers scalable, flexible identity management, accommodating various organization sizes with reliable performance and user-friendly expansion.
 

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Entra ID offers flexible, tiered pricing with discounts for nonprofits, included in Microsoft service packages, but opinions on cost vary.
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.
 

Stability Issues

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Entra ID is praised for its reliability and performance, with improved stability and strong uptime despite occasional regional variation.
The stability of the solution is very high at 99.999%.
The stability of the solution is good with a rating of eight out of ten.
 

Valuable Features

No sentiment score available
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Entra ID enhances security and simplifies management with features like single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and role-based access.
We can secure the applications that we are building and make sure that if the application were to be compromised, there is no full access to a customer's environment causing issues and other security concerns.
The main valuable feature is the integration into a single console, which includes authentication service and endpoint security.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
197
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), Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 7.8%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 8.2%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily detects advanced attacks based on user behavior
The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud. Identity harvesting is the most common threat. Legacy Microsoft solutions and Amazon face the same issues in the cloud. Users don't implement other security mechanisms in the cloud. In an on-premise environment, we would have multiple security devices like firewalls and several layers of security. Cloud users are less bothered because cloud features are there and only need to be configured. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the best solution because all threats are completely visible, and it has a great dashboard. The dashboard displays each threat and score, so we can identify the threat rating and act efficiently to avoid compromising user identities. We have a single sign-on feature on the cloud. If we lose a single set of identities, it can compromise the entire organization, including cloud and on-premise. The same identities are being used everywhere. The user activity has to be completely visible on the dashboard, and it has to generate a pattern. It will notify us if there is any security breach. It is a complete monitoring set. Minor changes in the user identity can lead to data leakage. If a password is changed in the cloud, it will be reflected automatically in the on-premise. This minor change will trigger an alert in Microsoft Defender for Identity. It ensures that each cloud identity is well protected from spoofing. It has a comprehensive database of well-known spoofing techniques, enabling us to provide cloud identity protection completely. It has a vast scope because it is completely single sign-on. In the emerging industry, we use single sign-on because users need to authenticate, but it's challenging to remember multiple passwords. Once your user signs in, you can access all the data. An identity compromise would lead to various issues and affect the data on-premises. Defender maintains a constantly updated database with the latest signatures, attack models, and threats. If it detects one threat, it will monitor the suspicious event and give us frequent alerts. Identity protection is vital because we use an identity mechanism for everything, including firewall-related activities. The exact identity used in the cloud is used in the most complex firewalls. We require an excellent migration technique to regain this user credential if something gets compromised. Blocking this requires a massive set of procedures. Microsoft Defender comprehensively monitors identity and provides frequent alerts regarding any issue, so we don't need to think of anything else. Defender's bidirectional sync capabilities are helpful because we need to sync data from multiple directions, including tenant-to-tenant, on-premise-to-cloud, and cloud-to-cloud syncing. As a university, we have multiple tenants, so we need to sync or access data across platforms. That way, everything is more secure, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud also provides ample security for cloud transfers. The bidirectional sync capabilities are flawless—10 out of 10. Our on-premise Active Directory is perfectly synced with the Azure AD. Everything is synced with on-premise, and changes are reflected in minutes. If a problem with identity is addressed on the cloud, the fix will be mirrored on-premise and vice versa. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Identity are bundled. If we have these two solutions, we don't need to worry about anything else or third-party antivirus. Microsoft Defender for Identity acts as a link to all the Microsoft security features that require identity-based validation. Microsoft Defender instantly provides identity security for all our applications, and users need not worry about typing their passwords. Even in situations with less complex encryption mechanisms, users don't need to worry about typing in their passwords. Defender will check and monitor if there are any flaws in that, and it will let us know if there are any issues. We're a Microsoft shop, so everything works together. If one feature isn't working, everything will be affected. If Defender isn't working, half of our Microsoft security features will be dead. Without identity security, user data can easily be compromised, and data can fall into the hands of intruders or other hackers. The solutions have to complement each other. If anything got wrong, the entire setup would have flaws. Microsoft security has a legacy security mechanism. A while back, we might have gone with Defender for Endpoint, but Microsoft has also grown into the face of the cloud. The same Defender solution is completely maintaining cloud security. We can imagine Microsoft's vast scale and how Defender can protect the cloud environment from vulnerabilities and attacks. We are definitely delighted with Microsoft products. The dashboard features are fantastic because it provides a comprehensive overview. It has a great alert mechanism and log inspector that tracks when users access various servers. With this kind of identity validation, we can control which servers the users can access. We have total visibility from the dashboard. We can track identity usage even if there are no issues. That is an essential advantage.
Vinod Survase - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
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 Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
The solution could improve how it handles on-premises Android-related attacks. Without Microsoft Defender, it can be challenging to check which accounts are compromised and to analyze activities on...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
We use Microsoft Defender for Identity to prevent user account-level attacks such as lateral move attacks and pass-the-hash attacks on our on-premises servers. We leverage its features to mitigate ...
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?
Initially, customers can get good prices for a three-year package, but renewal prices tend to increase significantly. If a customer looks for an alternative solution after three years, we often fin...
 

Also Known As

Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
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 Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.