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 8.9% mindshare in IAM, compared to SAP’s 2.2% 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

25,586 Views
5,629 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SAP Identity Management

Read 14 SAP Identity Management reviews

1,806 Views
1,373 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 February 2026, in the Identity Management (IM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 8.9%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Identity Management is 2.2%, down from 2.3% 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	8.9%
SAP Identity Management	2.2%
Other	88.9%

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

"The user functionality enables us to provide different levels of access, across many applications, for each user. We can customize the access level and set a security level in connection with that access. For instance, we can require MFA. That is a feature that helps enhance our security posture a lot."

"I'd rate Microsoft Entra ID a 10 out of 10 due to the extensive range and focus on security features."

"The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service."

"The single sign-on is very convenient for us."

"The solution has some great features, such as identity governance, and user self-service. The Outlook application is very good and is used by a lot of people even if they are using Google services."

"Microsoft Entra ID has helped the company with user identities, user device management, and endpoint management."

"The boards for task tracking are a valuable feature."

"Microsoft Entra ID has helped us defend against token theft and nation-state attacks."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

"The setup process is straightforward."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More SAP Identity Management pros

Cons

"There have been a couple of outages so that I would rate the stability around a seven out of 10."

"Azure AD provides two types of features. One is Azure AD Excel and is already B2C. Out of both versions, Azure B2C requires some improvement, in terms of user management and role management, et cetera."

"I would like to see some additional attributes for user objects in Microsoft Entra, especially for tasks such as users and account validation, including guest users and guest accounts."

"Whatever business requirements we needed in the past three years, users were created, with the name of the user and they were not connected with the Active Directory. We were trying to in house in three years and with directory, but we were not able to achieve it."

"There is no documentation about how Microsoft will scale Azure AD for customers. It only mentions that it will scale out if you have a lot of requests but does not mention how in detail."

"The conditional access rules are a little limiting. There's greater scope for the variety of rules and conditions you could put in that rules around a more factual authentication for other users. If you have an Azure AD setup, you can then connect to other people's Azure AD, but you don't have a huge amount of control in terms of what you can do. Greater control over guest users and guest access would be better. It's pretty good as it is but that could be improved."

"Microsoft's pricing and licensing are difficult to understand. We engage with Microsoft partners regularly, but Microsoft's frequent rebranding complicates the process for us in the industry."

"In terms of stability, sometimes the more applications you integrate, the more it becomes a little bit unstable."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

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

"The pricing could be better."

"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."

"One of the areas for improvement in the solution is its user interface which needs to be up-to-date and fancier, in particular, have better visualization in terms of the tabs and buttons. The user interface of SAP Identity Management should be improved based on the latest trends."

"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."

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

More SAP Identity Management cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We make sure that we only enable the licenses that are needed for the users, rather than enabling licenses in a blanket fashion."

"It is bundled with other services and the pricing is quite reasonable."

"The pricing depends on the use case and can be negotiated based on volume."

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis and the cost depends on the number of users."

"I'm not sure about the specific costs or how they're calculated, but essentially, the costs go up based on the level of security that is required by the organization."

"Microsoft has a free version of Azure AD. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced features, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user."

"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."

"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."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

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 23% 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

Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 22% of the time

Symantec Identity Governance and Administration vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 7% of the time

Saviynt Identity Cloud vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 7% of the time

EmpowerID vs SAP Identity Management

Compared 6% of the time

Omada Identity 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

January 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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