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Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) vs Okta

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 8, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Entra ID reduces costs and enhances security by streamlining authentication and integrating seamlessly with Azure for improved efficiency.
Sentiment score
8.0
Okta Workforce Identity boosts productivity with enhanced security and automation, saving time but ROI varies with company size.
We leverage existing licensing, like Windows Server or SQL, and hybrid benefits, and our sales and marketing teams benefit from co-selling and partnership advantages.
We get a return from not needing to pay other vendors to do what we already had from Microsoft, which was better than the competition.
The return on investment comes from not needing as many IT staff to manage and verify user identity and ensuring seamless device connection without needing to administer device compliance manually.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Entra ID support varies, with mixed satisfaction due to expertise inconsistency, but premier support and response times praised.
Sentiment score
7.4
Okta Workforce Identity's support is generally praised as fast, effective, and reliable, despite occasional issues with responsiveness and clarity.
The actual support when you get to that level is a ten out of ten.
There are immediate answers to any issues that arise with great knowledge and a deep understanding of the product and business needs.
It's not timely or professional.
They are very supportive; they just open a ticket, and they support us very professionally.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID provides seamless scalability and reliability, effortlessly managing vast user numbers with flexible, automated resource adjustments.
Sentiment score
7.8
Okta Workforce Identity offers scalable solutions for large enterprises, ensuring ease of expansion and adaptability across cloud and on-premises environments.
We experienced no scalability issues with Microsoft Entra ID.
Its scalability is impressive, aided by Microsoft's efforts to expand its data centers.
When dealing with tens of thousands of objects, it requires proper management and best practices to retrieve only necessary data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID offers high reliability with minimal outages, swift issue resolution, and strong stability, earning user trust.
Sentiment score
8.2
Okta Workforce Identity offers reliable performance with 99.9% uptime, minor issues related to internet dependency, and responsive support.
It's a critical solution that we can't do without.
The stability of the solution is very high at 99.999%.
We rarely had significant problems or crashes.
 

Room For Improvement

Users urge improvements in Entra ID documentation, integration, price transparency, support, user interface, authentication, and licensing clarity.
Okta Workforce Identity needs better integration, usability, lifecycle management, support, pricing, and enhanced API capabilities for third-party tools.
A recent incident we dealt with took four months to resolve with a seven-day deadline, which was quite frustrating.
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.
Okta should have at least a local peering partner for countries that align with or comply with GDPR, so there are no compliance or audit questions.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Entra ID offers affordable tiered pricing with discounts, featuring user-based costs tailored for enterprises with various security levels.
Okta Workforce Identity's pricing is considered competitive yet costly, with scalability benefits but improvements needed for small and medium businesses.
We are getting our money's worth.
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.
Compared to other Microsoft products, the cost is not too expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Entra ID excels in user identity management with secure features, scalability, and seamless integration into the Microsoft ecosystem.
Okta Workforce Identity offers user-friendly identity management with seamless integration, robust security, and streamlined provisioning and deprovisioning.
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.
It's integrated with Microsoft technologies like Authenticator, SSO, and MFA, streamlining operations and creating a seamless environment.
The granular control, such as preventing logins from specific locations, enhances security significantly.
You can only log in if you have the access, which protects the applications by avoiding cross-site scripting.
Okta enables multi-factor authentication, which enhances security, especially for SaaS applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
1st
Ranking in Authentication Systems
1st
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (3rd)
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
4th
Ranking in Authentication Systems
6th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 29.3%, up from 29.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 13.5%, up from 13.5% 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

Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
We are an enterprise customer with an enterprise agreement in place with many of our partner companies, so there are no special questions or issues about pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
We are facing one issue with Cypress test cases. Whenever I write Cypress test cases, we encounter problems with logging in through Okta. There is no proper documentation on integrating test cases ...
 

Also Known As

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
838,737 professionals have used our research since 2012.