Microsoft Entra ID vs SAP Identity Management comparison

Microsoft and SAP are both solutions in the Identity Management (IM) category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while SAP is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.5. Microsoft holds a 8.8% mindshare in IAM, compared to SAP’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 266 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

26,383 Views
5,277 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SAP Identity Management

Read 14 SAP Identity Management reviews

1,958 Views
1,429 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

SAP Identity Management

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

SAP Identity Management and Microsoft Entra ID are competing solutions in the identity management space. Microsoft Entra ID, with its comprehensive cloud-native approach and advanced security features, appears to have the upper hand for enterprises prioritizing these aspects.

Features: SAP Identity Management provides deep integration capabilities within the SAP ecosystem, offers flexible access policies, and supports custom logic development. Microsoft Entra ID is highlighted for its strong security protocols, seamless integration with Microsoft platforms, and extensive cloud capabilities for advanced threat protection.

Room for Improvement: SAP Identity Management could enhance its ease of deployment and simplify integration processes. Improved user interface design could also be beneficial. Microsoft Entra ID might work on refining legacy system integration and offering more flexible customization options. Enhancements in offline support and broader integration with non-Microsoft services could also be beneficial for some users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Entra ID offers a streamlined, cloud-based deployment model that simplifies installation with effective customer service. SAP Identity Management may involve a more complex deployment due to its customizability and integration needs, yet it is supported by detailed documentation and expert support.

Pricing and ROI: SAP Identity Management may require higher initial setup costs attributed to its extensive integrations and custom capabilities, promising substantial ROI over time. Microsoft Entra ID offers a cost-effective setup with attractive ROI through subscription models, especially favorable for organizations leveraging Microsoft's cloud services.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Entra ID vs. SAP Identity Management Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. SAP Identity Management

February 2026

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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

Ranking in Identity Management (IM)

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

266

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)

SAP Identity Management

Ranking in Identity Management (IM)

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

User Provisioning Software (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Identity Management (IM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 8.8%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Identity Management is 2.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID	8.8%
SAP Identity Management	2.6%
Other	88.6%

Identity Management (IM)

Featured Reviews

Dewey Phillips

Senior Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Implementing seamless integration boosts secure access and supports Zero Trust

What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Entra ID is that it integrates seamlessly with all the Defender products and is easy to use. Microsoft Entra ID's integration capabilities influence our Zero Trust model by allowing us to enforce our Zero Trust model. Conditional access policies allow us to leverage Microsoft Entra ID to verify that devices signing in to our cloud services are coming from registered devices, and that people are passing all the other requirements we have in order to complete sign-on or conditional access policies. Since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, I've observed changes in the frequency and nature of identity-related security incidents. The organization already had it implemented when I arrived, and I've been working to enhance it. Better configuration of Microsoft Entra ID has allowed us to better protect our organization from threats. Having it alone isn't a solution, but ensuring proper configuration goes a long way in preventing future compromises. My company's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has evolved since implementing Microsoft Entra ID. We haven't experienced any known compromises from nation-state attacks, and implementing newer features gives me more confidence in our protection. Regarding device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator and our approach to phishing-resistant authentication, we are currently implementing Microsoft Entra ID certificate-based authentication. Adding a strong form of MFA is important as we found it to be the most cost-effective way. While other solutions might be equally or more secure, they are significantly more expensive. Having worked as an IT consultant mainly with the Microsoft stack across various industries, I have experience with different identity management solutions. Microsoft Entra ID remains the best option. The major advantages when comparing it to Okta include integration with Defender products, Defender for Identities' integration with conditional access policies, and insider threat management integration for blocking sign-ins based on risk factors. The enhancement of Microsoft Entra ID's implementation is relatively straightforward. My main concern is the occasional lack of documentation and the frequency of changes, which can make feature location challenging.

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Fabiano Marques

Sales Executive at Minsait

Identity management enhances connectivity and productivity with streamlined access and robust security, offering time-saving processes and facilitating seamless integration with other BI tools

One area that could be improved with SAP Identity Management, other than support, is user engagement from an implementation perspective. It would be beneficial for SAP to extend their events and workshops that are currently performed for partners to their final customers, as many customers want to know what's new and what else they can do without solely depending on the partners. For SAP support in Brazil, everything is in English, which poses a difficulty for many customers. The support could be improved for the specific needs in Brazil, as many customers have difficulty accessing the support center due to the language barrier. This feedback is specific to Brazil, though it's unclear if SAP receives similar feedback from other countries. It could certainly be enhanced with Portuguese documents, among other improvements.

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

"Two very important features in terms of security are governance and compliance through the Conditional Access policies and Azure Log Analytics."

"From an administrative perspective, we can now manage users from a single pane of glass, which enhances efficiency."

"I would rate the solution as 9. It is a very good solution for unified management."

"It has given us the ability to be able to establish single sign-on identities in which we can establish credentials no matter where we are, whether it is on-premises or in the cloud, in a hybrid cloud, or in an additional connection from another cloud where we share equipment or host."

"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 user-friendliness of Microsoft Entra ID is what I appreciate the most; everything is organized, simple, and straightforward, and even new technicians can come into it and know what they're looking for, making it the main housing unit for everything that I do in my role."

"Multi-factor authentication really secures our environments and gives us the flexibility to use location-based policies. Azure AD also gives us a lot of flexibility in our scope of integration."

"It's pretty easy to implement."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

"The setup process is straightforward."

"The tool's most valuable features are its access control and approval of access requests. The self-service password reset feature is efficient. Role management capabilities streamline user access by assigning and revoking roles."

"Some processes that they used to perform in two to three days now take one to two hours, which has been really beneficial for them regarding the time saved."

"It provides basic automatic user administration and role provisioning to save time."

"What I found most valuable in SAP Identity Management is process automation. The solution also gives transparency about what is happening and why which I find beneficial. Another feature I found valuable in SAP Identity Management is integration. It has very good integration."

"The most valuable features of SAP Identity Management are business roles and automated user provisioning."

"What I like about SAP Identity Management is that it's stable for experienced users and suitable for access management, not just for SAP accounts, but for Active Directory, including file sharing and process sharing."

"Rather than implement a basic SSO, this solution assisted us with setting up two-factor authentication."

More SAP Identity Management pros

Cons

"Certain aspects of the user interface can be rather clunky and slow. It can sometimes be circular in terms of clicking a link for a risky user sign-in and seeing what the risky login attempts were. It takes you in a circle back to where you started, so drilling down into details, especially if you are not in it every day and it is one of many tools that you use, can be difficult. It can be difficult to track down the source of an issue."

"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."

"I give it a five because it depends on who you get; some people are awesome, and some people, I can find answers through Google before I get a response from them, so it just all depends on the engineer."

"There are some features, where if you want to access them, then you need to make use of PowerShell. If someone is not really versed in PowerShell scripting, then they would definitely have issues using some of those features in Azure Active Directory."

"The issue with Microsoft Customer Service is that we have many experts in our IT department, including myself as an Entra expert, Exchange experts, and other specialists. When we contact Microsoft Support, it does not matter that we are experts; we must start at the very bottom."

"The product takes at least ten minutes to activate privilege identity management roles."

"Initially, we wanted to exclude specific users from MSA. So, we had a condition policy, which forces MSA for all the users. So we wanted to exclude users who are using an NPS extension. So it was not listed, as a NPS extension was not listed outside an application, in actual, so, we go back and were not able to exclude users using NPS extension from MSA. So that was one limitation that we found and we had to work around that."

"The visibility in the GUI is not good for management. There are a lot of improvements that could make it better. It should be more user-friendly overall. It is not user-friendly because everything keeps changing on the platform. I can understand it because I know the platform, am familiar with it, and use it every day. However, for a lot of clients, they don't use it every day or are not familiar with it, so it should be more user friendly."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

"I have encountered issues with the host authentication feature."

"For SAP support in Brazil, everything is in English, which poses a difficulty for many customers."

"I find SAP Identity Management complicated to use. Maintaining it is also complex."

"A lack of startup connectors to different systems, and could have better connectors for SAP IDM."

"SAP Identity Management can improve risk analysis and authority checks."

"It needs to have the SSO for the HANA modules that SAP is releasing."

"What needs improvement in SAP Identity Management is its compatibility with third-party applications. We'd like to get connectors or plugin settings to make it easier to manage other applications, whether SAP or non SAP applications. As SAP Identity Management is not compatible with non SAP applications, some of the clients are looking for other IDM applications such as SalePoint and Saviynt, so this is an issue we've observed in the solution."

"Research and marketing need to be improved."

More SAP Identity Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a nonprofit, we have A5 licenses for nonprofits in education, so we at least have some reduced costs."

"We pay an annual subscription fee."

"For you to make use of some of the security features, you need to upgrade your licenses. If it is possible, could they just make some features free? For instance, for the Condition Access policy, you need to set that up and be on Azure AD P2 licensing. So if they could make it free or reduce the licensing for small businesses, that would be cool, as I believe security is for everyone."

"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."

"We are working with the Premium P2 licenses, which are reasonable. If you invest in the on-premises environment setup, then it costs so much. However, on-prem AD gives you the ability to manage your organization in a very organized manner, where you can create a group policy."

"Pricing-wise, they offer a stepladder approach. You can start with the lowest level features, then start increasing based on new requirements."

"It's really affordable."

"The pricing of Azure Active Directory is competitive. By default, the product exists in almost every Microsoft cloud product. But it then depends on the features that a customer really wants to make use of."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

"When evaluating the price of any product, I first look at how it meets my business requirements and if it meets requirements adequately and predictively. Currently, I don't see this from SAP Identity Management, so pricing for it is expensive, in my opinion."

"The licensing cost varies depending on the specific requirements and deployment size."

"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Energy/Utilities Company

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	85
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	155

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID is that it is decent.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?

I think Microsoft Entra ID could be improved by assigning permissions to nested groups in the next release.

See all answers

What do you like most about SAP Identity Management?

The tool's most valuable features are its access control and approval of access requests. The self-service password reset feature is efficient. Role management capabilities streamline user access b...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SAP Identity Management?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for SAP Identity Management?

The use cases for SAP Identity Management include the logistics company, and we also have a beverage company that is using SAP Identity Management. We did not make the migration for them, but we im...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 24% of the time

Okta Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 4% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 19% of the time

Symantec Identity Governance and Administration vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 8% of the time

Saviynt Identity Cloud vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 6% of the time

EmpowerID vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 5% of the time

One Identity Manager vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 5% of the time

More SAP Identity Management Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

February 2026

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Buyer's Guide

SAP Identity Management

February 2026

Download SAP Identity Management product report

Also Known As

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

SAP NetWeaver Identity Management, NetWeaver Identity Management

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

SAP

Overview

Microsoft Entra ID is an advanced identity and access management service offering seamless single sign-on, multifactor authentication, and centralized user access across applications, enhancing security and efficiency for organizations transitioning to cloud-based environments.

Recognized for its centralized management, Microsoft Entra ID significantly boosts organizational security by integrating features such as conditional access and identity protection. It supports a wide array of applications, facilitating a secure transition from on-premises to scalable cloud environments. By adopting robust security measures and flexible identity management, organizations can streamline operations and ensure consistent user experiences. However, challenges like confusing licensing costs, outdated documentation, and limited integration with non-Microsoft applications persist. Enhancements in technical support, interface design, and more granular permissions are needed to address these issues effectively.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Seamless Single Sign-On: Allows users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials.
Multifactor Authentication: Adds an extra layer of security by requiring multiple forms of verification.
Conditional Access: Provides adaptive policies to ensure the right access under the right conditions.
Identity Protection: Detects and responds to potential vulnerabilities and threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Controls and monitors access to critical resources.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Microsoft Entra ID?

Enhanced Security: Protects against unauthorized access and data breaches.
Operational Efficiency: Centralizes identity management to reduce administrative tasks.
Scalability: Supports growth by accommodating evolving IT environments.
Cost Management: Facilitates cost control through centralized systems and automated processes.

In healthcare, Microsoft Entra ID facilitates secure patient record access and compliance with industry regulations. Financial institutions rely on it for robust security measures in safeguarding client data. In the education sector, it streamlines access to online resources for students and faculty. Global enterprises benefit from its ability to manage complex identity frameworks across multiple regions, ensuring reliable security amidst increasing cyber threats.

Microsoft

Reduce risk and centrally manage user access across your enterprise – with SAP Identity Management. The software integrates with your business processes to provide robust data and application security. Keep your operations running smoothly – and boost productivity by providing role-based user access, self-service password reset, approval workflows, and more.

SAP

Sample Customers

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

State of Indiana, Automotive Resources International (ARI), Alliander N.V., Chemion Logistik GmbH, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH)

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. SAP Identity Management

February 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Entra ID vs. SAP Identity Management

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