Microsoft Entra ID vs UserLock comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Microsoft and IS Decisions are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while IS Decisions is ranked #29. Microsoft holds a 5.6% mindshare in AS, compared to IS Decisions’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IS Decisions users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

UserLock and Microsoft Entra ID provide identity and access management solutions. Microsoft Entra ID appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive features, making it more suitable for large-scale implementations.

Features: UserLock is valued for its ease of use, seamless integration with existing systems, and affordability. Microsoft Entra ID offers advanced security protocols, a broader functionality, and a comprehensive feature set, making it robust and versatile.

Room for Improvement: UserLock could enhance its detailed reporting, advanced customization, and scalability. Microsoft Entra ID could improve by simplifying certain features, offering clearer documentation, and enhancing its user interface. Both products have specific areas for refinement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: UserLock is praised for quick, hassle-free deployment and responsive customer service. Microsoft Entra ID, though more complex to deploy, benefits from extensive Microsoft support services, providing users with an array of support resources.

Pricing and ROI: UserLock is cost-effective and provides a quick return on investment. Microsoft Entra ID, while more expensive, justifies its higher cost with a comprehensive features set, providing a worthwhile ROI for many users.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,338 peers since 2012

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

Cisco Duo

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Cisco Duo is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 5.6%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID	5.6%
Cisco Duo	3.7%
UserLock	1.1%
Other	89.6%

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Charles Slaustas

Information Technology Contractor at Insight global

Supports seamless authentication for users across multiple organizations and personal portals

The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter. I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.

Read full review

Stafin Jacob

Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke

Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users

Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.

Read full review

it_user1816350

IT Manager at Xcel Mechanical Systems

The user login insights are helpful

We needed a simple solution to enable admin multi-factor authentication on our internal Windows network, and a consultant recommended UserLock because he had previously implemented it at another company. UserLock also monitors logins on all tracked devices, telling you if the sign-in was successful…

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

"Cisco Duo's dashboards are highly effective in identifying security vulnerabilities, as they provide a single dashboard where users can monitor every threat or alarm."

"Duo Security improved my organization by helping us secure all access points within the company infrastructure."

"Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency and reduced costs in areas such as authentication, IT support, and security operations, as the ability to use App Push eliminated the need for text messages and additional costs for messaging, also lowering IT support costs because of the simplicity for the end-user experience."

"Cisco Duo has strengthened the ability to defend against both phishing and identity-based attacks."

"I am happy that we went with Cisco Duo because it is just easier to use."

"Cisco Duo benefits my organization by making it easy for me to reach out to customers using Cisco Duo so they can integrate on my platform using their credentials."

"Clients I implemented Cisco Duo at immediately feel more confident in their security environment, and we can see a lot of illegal attempts to get in, giving me faith in the product."

"At the moment, the ease of use is what is the best feature for me. Once it has been set up and the security can hoc to my mobile device, it's very simple to use my single sign-on, get prompted for a Duo Security, push, go to my phone, accept the push, and I'm done. It's a very simple process."

More Cisco Duo pros

"The scalability capabilities are quite high."

"The solution's ease of use is one of its most valuable features."

"Entra ID provides an excellent overview of the applications and the options applied to them."

"It enhanced our end user experience quite a bit. Instead of the days of having to contact the service desk with challenges for choosing their password, users can go in and do it themselves locally, regardless of where they are in the world. This has certainly made it a better experience accessing their applications. Previously, a lot of times, they had to remember multiple usernames and passwords for different systems. This solution brings it all together, using a single sign-on experience."

"The product is easy to install and quick to deploy."

"This is the kind of solution that I feel you cannot run an organization without using."

"The passwordless feature of Microsoft Entra ID is the most valued feature, and its implementation has had an impact on secure app access to resources in the environment, particularly in security and compliance."

"Azure Active Directory has many automation capabilities, and you can apply policies on top. You can do a lot of things with these combinations and integrate other tools like PingFederate."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

"UserLock was pretty easy to set up and simple to use, and the documentation covered everything."

"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."

"It is affordable, integrates easily with Active Directory, and is simple to install and maintain."

"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."

Cons

"We have had instances where Duo Security stops working on a user's device, which we have fixed by uninstalling and then reinstalling it."

"The deployment experience was more difficult than we expected because we had some problems with the version of the OS that we have in our servers."

"The only issue I encountered was related to the expiration of Duo Unix versions below 2.0.3 on February 3rd."

"On a scale from one being the worst to ten being the best, I would rate my customer service and technical support experience as a seven."

"Cisco can further enhance the integrations, as they possess exceptional integrations with various providers' products and feature sets."

"It is good on the functionality side, but their pricing model is a little bit weird."

"The only issue is the price is too high when compared to other products; Cisco Duo's pricing is high."

"We were considering purchasing other products, like AMP for Endpoints, and it was not properly integrated with the firewall function. It might be better now with SecureX."

More Cisco Duo cons

"Sometimes, users are not happy, but at the organizational level, it is good. It is costly, but the improvement is good in terms of performance and security."

"Microsoft Entra ID can be improved through better lifecycle management of the Azure App Registrations."

"The solution has not saved costs. While we’ve eliminated some tools, there are some other features that we are dependent on as admin, which are not yet integrated with Azure AD."

"Overall, it's not a very intuitive solution."

"The cost is one area that needs improvement."

"I have experienced downtime. We've had instances of downtime."

"There is a feature that we have been waiting for regarding Bicep templates. The option to use Bicep templates to deploy Microsoft Entra ID objects from the Azure Portal is needed."

"There should be guidance on features, especially security features, in Entra ID and whether they are sufficient on their own. The solution could become expensive when paying extra for enhanced security features, so Microsoft needs to offer better clarity on this matter."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."

"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Duo Security's pricing is good, fair, and very comparable to today's market."

"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."

"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."

"Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs."

"It was very reasonable."

"Price-wise, the solution has been very, very reasonable...Licensing is the last thing I think about Duo Security because it's so easy, and I had no problems with it."

"It has a fair pricing model. I know they have different tiers, but it would be nice to have different types of licenses for certain groups of users in our organization. That way, we wouldn't have to lump everybody into one group. That would be also one complaint."

"From a reseller perspective, it's still challenging to explain the whole license strategy to a client, so we really have to be ahead of that for all the true forward conversations."

More Cisco Duo pricing and cost advice

"Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license."

"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."

"The E5 plan we are using contains the premium plans for Azure Active Directory. We are not paying only for the Azure Active Directory Premium licenses. We have it already included within our E5 plan."

"It is costly."

"Expensive solution, but if you look at the technical benefits it provides, the price for it is decent."

"Azure Active Directory has a very extensive licensing model. Most of the features are available in the free and basic version, and then there are premium P1 and P2 editions. The licensing model is based on how many users you have per month. In Australia, for a P1 license, the cost is 8 dollars. With P1 and P2 licenses, you get a lot of goodies around the security side of things. For example, User Identity Protection is available only in P2. These are extra features that allow you to have a pretty good security posture, but most of the required things are available in the free and basic version."

"The licensing is really not clear unless you are a premium client."

"We have a yearly license."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Authentication Systems solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

19%

Construction Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	66
Midsize Enterprise	29
Large Enterprise	92

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	91
Midsize Enterprise	42
Large Enterprise	162

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 Du...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?

Regarding the pricing, what actually happened was that we got the product purchased through our HQ, so the costing as...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Duo Security?

I do not have a straight answer for how Cisco Duo can be improved at this time. With the implementation that we are g...

See all answers

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

I primarily use Microsoft Entra ID's free tier, so I have not faced any issues with pricing; I hope this free tier re...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?

To improve Microsoft Entra ID, I believe it should be openable with third-party applications to use Microsoft Authent...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Azure Active Directory?

My main use case for Microsoft Entra ID is the authentication of M365, Azure, and third-party applications like Sales...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Duo

Compared 6% of the time

Okta Platform vs Cisco Duo

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Duo

Compared 3% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs Cisco Duo

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Cisco Duo

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco Duo Competitors

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 23% of the time

Okta Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 3% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 2% of the time

Auth0 Platform vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 1% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

Idira Privileged Access Manager vs UserLock

Compared 7% of the time

Aruba ClearPass vs UserLock

Compared 4% of the time

Identity Manager by One Identity vs UserLock

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs UserLock

Compared 4% of the time

Idira Identity vs UserLock

Compared 4% of the time

More UserLock Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Duo

November 2026

Download Cisco Duo product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

October 2026

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

October 2026

Download UserLock product report

Also Known As

Duo Security

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

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Cisco

Microsoft

Demo not available

IS Decisions

Overview

Cisco Duo is a cloud-based identity security platform safeguarding critical resources for any user and device worldwide. Known for its ease of use, Duo offers seamless protection across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.

Cisco Duo is designed to secure access with identity-first protection and provides extensive visibility throughout an organization's identity ecosystem. Offering multi-factor authentication, Duo facilitates easy integration and management, allowing teams to protect data effectively on VPNs, applications, and networks. Its single-pane management improves security processes while enhancing trust, making it suitable for diverse IT infrastructures.

What are the key features of Cisco Duo?

Multi-factor Authentication: Strengthens user verification with multiple methods.
Push Notifications: Simplifies authentication with quick approvals.
Single Sign-On: Enhances convenience by allowing one set of credentials.
VPN Access: Secures remote connections with reliable authentication.
User Activity Visibility: Offers comprehensive insights into access patterns.

Which benefits and ROI should users consider?

Quick Deployment: Facilitates rapid integration within existing systems.
Effective Management: Streamlines IT operations with centralized control.
Regulatory Compliance: Aids in meeting industry standards for data protection.
Enhanced Trust: Strengthens security posture across networks.
User-friendly Approach: Simplifies authentication for non-technical users.

In industries like education and finance, Cisco Duo is widely employed to secure multi-factor authentication across platforms such as email, databases, and servers. Its integration capabilities with Microsoft 365, Active Directory, and VPNs like AnyConnect are instrumental in verifying user identities using mobile apps or OTPs, catering effectively to both remote and on-premise environments.

Cisco

Microsoft Entra ID offers advanced identity management capabilities, ensuring security and efficiency with features like single sign-on and multifactor authentication.

Designed for hybrid environments, Microsoft Entra ID provides seamless synchronization between on-premises Active Directory and Azure Active Directory, enhancing security with multifactor authentication and conditional access. By integrating with a broad spectrum of cloud services, it supports user authentication and mobile device management, facilitating streamlined application registration and secure API access.

What are the most notable features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Robust Security Measures: Implements strong security protocols to protect identities.
Single Sign-On: Enables users to access multiple applications with one set of credentials.
Conditional Access Policies: Provides a framework to control access based on predefined conditions.
Third-Party Integration: Ensures compatibility with external applications for comprehensive use.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Improved Security Posture: Enhances protection against unauthorized access through advanced security features.
Simplified Onboarding: Streamlines the process of integrating new users and systems.
Operational Efficiency: Reduces identity and access management workload, boosting productivity.

In finance and healthcare, Microsoft Entra ID plays a crucial role in managing access to sensitive information while maintaining compliance with industry regulations. Retail and manufacturing sectors leverage its capabilities for secure supply chain operations and partner collaboration.

Microsoft

UserLock provides advanced IAM for Microsoft Active Directory environments, ensuring secure logins for corporate networks and SaaS applications across various environments, including offline or remote settings.

UserLock enhances security by integrating multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and context-aware access controls without disrupting existing Active Directory structures. Administrators enjoy real-time visibility and control, preventing account misuse, managing user sessions effectively, and maintaining security standards for compliance requirements like ISO 27001, HIPAA, and NIS2.

What are the most important features of UserLock?

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Enhances security by requiring additional verification methods.
Single Sign-On (SSO): Simplifies access across multiple applications with a single login credential.
Context-Aware Access Controls: Provides security measures based on user behavior and context.
Real-Time Monitoring: Offers live insights into user sessions to prevent unauthorized access.
Detailed Auditing and Reporting: Helps meet compliance standards with comprehensive data reports.

Which benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Security: Safeguards against unauthorized access through advanced access controls.
Operational Efficiency: Streamlines IT operations by reducing the complexity of user management.
Compliance Support: Aids organizations in meeting regulatory standards seamlessly.
Adaptability: Functions effectively across hybrid and remote environments.

UserLock's implementation proves advantageous in sectors such as healthcare and finance, where strict compliance and data security are critical. Industries demanding robust access management find UserLock valuable for its ability to function seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure and protocols.

IS Decisions

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock

October 2026

Free Report: Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

921,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Microsoft Entra ID vs. UserLock report.

See our list of best Authentication Systems vendors and best Access Management vendors.

We monitor all Authentication Systems reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.