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Microsoft Entra External ID pros and cons

Vendor: Microsoft

3.8 out of 5

15 reviews
78% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Microsoft Entra External ID offers swift setup, enabling completion within 30 minutes. Users benefit from effective monitoring, single sign-on, and firewall capabilities. Integration with Microsoft enhances B2C/B2E security. However, tech support and subscription costs pose challenges. Complex pricing leads to confusion, and synchronization needs improvement. There's scope for enhancing AI alerts.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Microsoft Entra External ID is easy to manage and monitor, benefiting from integration within the Microsoft environment.

The single sign-on access offers valuable utility through seamless integration.

The ease of setup allows for generating unique IDs and keys in minutes.

It enhances security with comprehensive firewall capabilities.

Microsoft Entra External ID unifies B2C and B2E functionalities effectively.

CONS

Technical support needs improvement.

Microsoft Entra External ID is often expensive, especially for medium-sized businesses.

Syncing needs to be faster, and pricing is complex with unpredictable costs at renewal.

Authentication methods are limited, and pricing for external application integration like Oracle should be cheaper.

Quality of support can vary widely depending on the region, with some areas facing challenges due to less experienced resources.

Microsoft Entra External ID Pros review quotes

FS

Consultant at Artifield

Jun 23, 2025

The best features of Microsoft Entra External ID include its unification of B2C functionality and B2E features.

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CT

Chris Tailowright

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Jun 17, 2025

The positive impact of Microsoft Entra External ID on my organization is that it enhances ease of use for the administrative side.

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SS

Software Architect at Velsera

May 16, 2025

Primarily Microsoft Entra External ID SSO is valuable as it works with everything when it comes to integration.

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Microsoft Entra External ID

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Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Entra External ID. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.

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Suresh Kumar Subramaniyan

Manager, Identity & Access Management at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Sep 17, 2025

The impact of having multiple authentication types available significantly helps with security practices using Microsoft Entra External ID.

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SK

Lead Enterprise Architect at DigyCorp

Mar 14, 2025

I have not encountered any stability issues with Microsoft Entra External ID.

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Service Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Sep 10, 2025

The experience has been rather good; there are other possibilities, but we made the choice to go with Microsoft, and we have a good experience with that.

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Sales Manager - Program Manger at Altitudo srl

Jan 28, 2025

The fact that it is quite integrated into the entire Microsoft environment makes it quite easy to use.

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Oluwakorede Oladipo

Lead, Product Manager (Applications & Services) at FMDQ

Aug 20, 2024

The most beneficial feature for us is the ease of setup. With about five clicks, we can generate unique IDs and keys and set up in less than 30 minutes. We can also generate these for multiple years simultaneously, which is convenient.

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BV

IT Manager at Vertical Garden

Aug 28, 2024

It's similar to using a Microsoft account to create accounts on other websites. We are also using Microsoft Entra to monitor which applications our guests are using. This allows us to filter, block, or adjust permissions for these applications as needed for our collaborators.

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AR

Adepu Ram Mohan

Senior Manager at Viatris

Jul 14, 2025

When it comes to Microsoft Entra External ID, Microsoft itself is the best distributor.

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Show 4 more reviews (out of 14)

Microsoft Entra External ID Cons review quotes

FS

Consultant at Artifield

Jun 23, 2025

The authentication methods available are very limited, and this presents a weak point.

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CT

Chris Tailowright

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Jun 17, 2025

The training generally is complicated to understand, leading us to often go through a managed service provider.

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SS

Software Architect at Velsera

May 16, 2025

The support engineers are not as skilled as our engineers. When they say something would not work, or there is no solution, we usually hear that Microsoft would not support this.

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Microsoft Entra External ID

Free Report: Microsoft Entra External ID Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Entra External ID. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Suresh Kumar Subramaniyan

Manager, Identity & Access Management at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Sep 17, 2025

Microsoft Entra External ID isn't a complete cloud-based account solution, as it must handle internal employees and collaborate with internal Active Directory.

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SK

Lead Enterprise Architect at DigyCorp

Mar 14, 2025

The quality of Microsoft customer support varies. With an enterprise contract, good resources are usually provided, especially in regions like Saudi Arabia or UAE. However, we have faced challenges with support quality, especially in some subcontinent areas where the resources might not be as experienced.

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Service Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Sep 10, 2025

The only problem that you might face with Microsoft now is their complex licensing model.

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KW

Director of Technology at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees

Jul 30, 2025

There have been a couple of times when it was unavailable because of Microsoft issues, but other than that, I don't remember any problems.

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Sales Manager - Program Manger at Altitudo srl

Jan 28, 2025

I generally find Microsoft solutions expensive, especially in specific offerings.

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Oluwakorede Oladipo

Lead, Product Manager (Applications & Services) at FMDQ

Aug 20, 2024

Technical support needs improvement.

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BV

IT Manager at Vertical Garden

Aug 28, 2024

The problem with Microsoft products is that they often cater to enterprise-level needs, which can be too costly for medium-sized businesses.

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Show 4 more reviews (out of 14)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)

Microsoft Security Suite

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)

Microsoft Security Suite

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Entra External ID

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Azure Front Door vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Okta Workforce Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Ping Identity Platform vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Auth0 vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

ForgeRock vs Microsoft Entra External ID

CyberArk Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

JumpCloud vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Azure DDoS Protection vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Netwrix Auditor vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Microsoft Entra Verified ID vs Microsoft Entra External ID

Okta Customer Identity vs Microsoft Entra External ID

See all alternatives

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