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Microsoft Entra ID vs Salesforce Identity 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Entra ID
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
219
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), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Salesforce Identity
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Identity (2nd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Identity and Access Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Microsoft Entra ID is designed for Single Sign-On (SSO) and holds a mindshare of 27.5%, up 26.4% compared to last year.
Salesforce Identity, on the other hand, focuses on Mobile Identity, holds 33.3% mindshare, up 15.5% since last year.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Mobile Identity
 

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.
Mitesh (Mitesh) Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Adheres to the data privacy regulations of each region, easy to learn and offers strong security features
The single sign-on feature of Salesforce Identity enhances our organization's security posture overall. For example, I recently implemented Identity for a fashion brand in Canada. They were using GitGuard before. From my experience, I saw a lot of complexities with GitGuard, especially when developing core integrations. Salesforce Identity was much easier. We replaced it in a month which took them six months to build. It saves time, and it's very secure. You need permissions for any operation, and data is protected when switching between apps. Salesforce Identity supports compliance with data protection and privacy regulations. Salesforce adheres to the data privacy regulations of each region. The data is always encrypted, and their security is very strong. Even with access, you can't break into the system due to their security settings. It definitely obeys regulations regarding data security.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration with all Microsoft services and external applications is crucial. Microsoft Entra ID has helped the company with user identities, user device management, and endpoint management. Integration capabilities are significant."
"The scalability is good now, and I find it to be more stable and faster since scaling up to ESX."
"The most valuable features of this solution are definitely the authorization and authentication, and the rule-based user validation."
"It has been stable, and we haven't had any issues since we started to use it."
"With Azure Active Directory we were able to manage with different options the access for different users."
"I find the conditional access policies to be the most valuable. They provide a lot of granularity in determining where the users can log in from, how they log in, and what they have access to."
"The most valuable features of Azure ID are the single sign-on and OpenID Connect authentication."
"We need something that makes an attacker's life harder."
"Salesforce Identity is a very user-friendly solution."
"The user experience was great because it had all the features that the client needed. It was fully customized for the client, and it was very simple. It was the best solution at that time."
"The solution is very easy to understand."
"The most valuable features are the pipeline management, being able to track the pipeline anytime, and the ability to get in touch with our high management team or board members."
"The single sign-on feature of Salesforce Identity enhances our organization's security posture overall."
 

Cons

"I think the solution can improve by making the consumption of that data easier for our customers."
"I would like to see improvements made when it comes to viewing audit logs, sign-in logs, and resource tags."
"The automation aspects of Entra ID could be improved, particularly when automating through different providers and SDKs. It's somewhat clunky to automate ID management, but it's great once it's set up. I would also like to see better Terraform support."
"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."
"Four years ago, we had an issue with Azure AD. We wanted to reverse sync from Azure AD to on-prem Active Directory, but we couldn't achieve this. Azure AD could connect only in one way, for example, from your site to Azure. If you needed to do the reverse and connect from Azure to on-prem, there was no way to achieve it. We asked Microsoft, and they told us that they don't support it."
"There are no specific areas where improvement is needed at the moment. Everything has been good so far."
"The only issue is the OU is not properly synced. Therefore, you have to do a manual sync sometimes or you might lose the connector due to AD Connect or sync servers."
"I hope, in the roadmap, Microsoft eventually offers the same features as Okta. It will take some more time to mature."
"Salesforce could make it more user-friendly and easier to implement. Currently, there's a lot of coding and technical work required. I would appreciate a more plug-and-play approach where you could set it up without needing a dedicated technical person."
"The product is slow."
"The interface should be simplified and the dashboard has a lot of options but could be improved."
"Salesforce Identity needs more expertise in the application."
"The most wanted feature on such platforms nowadays is artificial intelligence, especially for marketing activities. This is also my area of expertise, so it would be very interesting to see AI in these platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Authenticator is included in the package when we purchase a license from Microsoft."
"The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time."
"It comes free with the Microsoft account. We have a yearly agreement, and all products are covered under it."
"If you have a different IDP today, I would take a close look at what your licensing looks like, then reevaluate the licensing that you have with Microsoft 365, and see if you're covered for some of this other stuff. Folks sometimes don't realize that, "Oh, I'm licensed for that service in Azure." This becomes one of those situations where you have the "aha" moment, "Oh, I didn't know we can do that. Alright, let's go down this road." Then, they start to have conversations with Microsoft to see what they can gain. I would recommend that they work closely with their TAM, just to make sure that they are getting the right level of service. They may just not be aware of what is available to them."
"The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable."
"The price of Azure Active Directory and Amazon AWS, are almost the same, but most people prefer Amazon AWS because they find it's a little cheaper to some extent and an easier platform to use."
"It can be a bit expensive for organizations, but they do have different pricing models. Their free tier can be used on a personal level, but for an organization, the licenses might be a bit expensive. In general, the licenses can become cheaper, which will make it accessible for more people."
"I feel Microsoft is very costly compared to other products. That is also what management is thinking. But when we consider security and support, Microsoft is better than any other product."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a very low price and ten is a very high price, I rate Salesforce Identity's pricing a six out of ten."
"I'd recommend Salesforce for larger products where you really need a robust CRM. It's expensive, so for smaller websites or products, it might not be the most cost-effective solution."
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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
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
Microsoft Entra ID is reportedly quite expensive for each user regarding security features. The renewal cost is particularly high according to the teams managing purchases.
What do you like most about Salesforce Identity?
The single sign-on feature of Salesforce Identity enhances our organization's security posture overall.
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Identity?
We get network-related cases on Salesforce Identity and work on them.
 

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.
SAP, Microsoft, Workday, Servicenow, ADP, Google Apps, box, Oracle
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cisco, Okta and others in Single Sign-On (SSO). Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.