Microsoft Entra ID Reviews

We sync up our on-premise Active Directory with Azure AD and use it for app registration. All of our cloud-based DevOps activities use Azure Active Directory.

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. We've likely saved some money, but I don't know how much. 

The solution has made our environment more controlled and robust. At the same time, functions become more challenging for users when you add more controls and multi-factor authentication. However, these measures are essential when you're dealing with a complex environment that crosses multiple regions and cloud platforms. 

I like Azure Active Directory's integration with GT Nexus, and it improves our overall security. Azure AD enables us to manage user access from a single pane of glass. We use single sign-on and multifactor authentication. Teams are required to have Authenticator downloaded on their devices. 

We use Azure AD's conditional access feature to fine-tune access controls and implement a zero-trust policy using authentication tokens. The calling application needs to verify those tokens. The tokens contain information that the application needs to verify. Every application or user needs to be registered in the system to access it.

In Azure AD, applications either use the managed identity or ARBAC for permission control, and we use SaaS on top of that. Policies can be used if there is anything else infrastructure or access-related. 

Permission management works the same way across all cloud platforms. You can have granular or course-grade permissions. It depends on what you want to use and how you want to use it. I'm on Azure, so I know how they use it. 

Azure AD could be more robust and adopt a saturated model, where they can offer unlimited support for a multi-cloud environment.

I have used Azure AD for two years. 

I rate Microsoft's support a nine out of ten. We are preferred partners, so we get high-priority support. 

I rate Azure Active Directory an eight out of ten.

I am using Azure AD to assist a client with COCC level one and level two certifications. The primary use of the solution is its conditional access feature to enforce fine-tuned and adaptive access controls. The robustness of a zero-trust strategy to verify users has helped in implementing zero trust right now.

The client has to have a clone network storage and manage the services it provides to the handful of people he works for. The control and identify data do what it is supposed to do, as advertised, but the client is not utilizing those features.

The security and compliance features are very helpful. The online information on the site is well documented.

One thing I would like to see is when you're doing control measures if you could globally apply them instead of going through every user individually. I looked at this problem twenty years ago, and it has stayed the same. In twenty years, it's still the same one by one. The default is whether you get group permissions or role-based assignments, you still have to go in individually to everyone every time, which is cumbersome to me. My problem with Azure AD is that it's designed for medium to large systems, and we're not that large.

I rate it an eight out of ten.

I have been using the solution for less than a year, and the client that I'm consulting with has been using it for about four and a half, five years.

It is a stable solution.

Since we're starting with three people, it's probably not going to grow to more than ten people in the next five years. So the scalability is fine for my client's needs.

We have not contacted Azure's technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward. The client has got three people working for him.

For a small business buying individual licenses, it is an affordable solution.

We use Azure AD to implement conditional access when using Microsoft Network (MSN) services. Our infrastructure is primarily on-prem, and we operate our email in a hybrid environment and use the solution for continuity between our on-prem and cloud landscapes.

The solution improved our organization, especially in terms of security control. Overall, we're 65-70% satisfied with the product.

The most valuable feature is Conditional Access, and we use it extensively.

Azure AD provides a single pane of glass for managing user access; we integrated multiple APIs and use single sign-on for all of our Microsoft products. I can't speak in universal terms, but we had some positive feedback from our users regarding user experience.  

We use the Conditional Access feature to enforce fine-tuned and adaptive access controls, an excellent feature we use to enhance the security of all the machines connected to our domain. Users cannot access long-term data, data from untrusted devices, or data on connected personal devices.  

We use Azure AD Verified ID, which is a good feature for privacy and control of identity data; it offers a good level of secrecy. 

We've been using the solution for over six years now. 

The product is stable. 

The scalability isn't an issue; it depends on our license.

We previously used Microsoft's technical support, which was excellent; they were very responsive. Now, we use a CSP, and their support is lacking, so I rate them five out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup was straightforward, and a partner was present to assist us during the implementation. We have around 250 users, and the solution doesn't require any maintenance.

The product's price is in the midrange. 

I rate the solution eight out of ten. 

Azure AD helped to save some time for our IT admins but not for our HR department, as they don't currently have access to the tool.

I recommend the product to those considering it, though it depends on the use case and requirements. If Azure AD has featured you don't need, then going with one of the cheaper competitors could be a better option.   

We use Office 365 for our emails and Office. As part of that, we have Active Directory on the cloud. We want to safeguard things, keeping in mind the recent upsurge in cyber attacks.

I get a single pane of glass view of all the users. I know who has been registered, who has joined, what their last activity was, and when they logged in. If I extend it, I can purchase Intune from Microsoft and I'll be able to do mobile data management.

Single sign-on is the reason we use AD.

I would like to see a better user interface. Right now, it's not that great. Maybe there could be a dashboard view for Active Directory with some pie or bar charts on who is logged in, who is not logged in, and on the activity of each user for the past few days: whether they're active or not active.

I have been using Azure Active Directory for about a year.

It's definitely stable, a 10 out of 10.

We are a small company so it is scalable, seamlessly. We don't even have 100 users, so we don't have any issues with scalability.

We were previously using Gmail, which didn't have anything of this sort, so we moved to Office 365 which has Azure AD. We have joined the domain controller using Azure AD now.

We were not involved in any deployment. It was automatic. The moment we signed in, we were part of Azure. It was straightforward. We just purchased our license, logged in, and we were automatically onboarded to Active Directory seamlessly.

It doesn't require any maintenance. It's managed by Microsoft.

There is a return on investment for us with Azure AD.

Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license.

We did not evaluate other options because Azure AD seems to be the market leader.

Azure AD is one place where you can manage all users and devices and it's safe and secure.

I have come to depend upon Azure AD as my go-to identity management tool. Almost all businesses today use a Microsoft cloud-based product in some form or another, and integration in Azure AD ensures consistency, compliance, and simplified integration across the enterprise.

Additionally, we use many of the built-in security enhancements and features offered by the solution. Single sign-on and other integrations into a range of line-of-business software applications add to the many use cases available through Azure AD. Along with securely extending the on-premises environment to the hybrid state.

The key improvements to our organization are:

1. A singular control plane is enabling a more efficient administrative process.
2. RBAC simplifies role access providing a simpler approach to zero trust.
3. Onboarding and offboarding extend to every integrated application meaning that compliance is maintained.
4. PIM and PAM: Privileged Identity Management and Privileged Identity Management make controlling access considerably easier and ensure that authorized access is achieved.

With so many features available out of the box, it is difficult to adequately summarise in the space provided here.

I find that integration of enterprise applications outside of Microsoft via OATH and SAML is by far one of the most valuable features as it makes software distribution and access simpler and, with SSO enablement, ensures a lower threat surface from end users.

Azure boasts 90 compliance certifications, and this exceeds that of its competitors. With the compliance manager resource, you can control the company’s compliance tasks from one place.

The tool helps you meet complex compliance obligations. For example, you can undertake continuous risk examinations, provide an outlook on your company’s status and provide opportunities for improvement as needed.

With Azure Advisor and the Secure Score continually assessing your security and compliance posture, there is less need for highly paid security engineers. Especially when considering the size of the Microsoft security operations team also monitoring significant portions of the client environment.

It's really difficult to speak to this. The product is constantly undergoing feature enhancement and enrichment, and anything I would like to see coming is already available for public review.

Azure Active Directory is an easy-to-deploy, robust unified identity and access solution that securely extends your existing on-premise infrastructure to the cloud and provides seamless integration for in-house applications and 3rd party SaaS platforms. Granular policy-driven access controls ensure that access is granted only to authorized identities and devices and from approved locations. Azure AD includes an array of security and compliance options to ensure your business governance is adhered to without impacting productivity.

If I had to pick one, it would be to put the features of P1 and P2 into a single license.

I have been using Azure AD for approximately seven years.

The platform is not without its occasional hiccups, however, in general, it is stable and issue-free.

There are few other identity options available with the scale made available by Azure AD.

Support is hit-and-miss. Some days you'll get someone amazing who has the right knowledge and is willing to go beyond to help. And then there are the other times when help isn't forthcoming.

Neutral

The initial configuration is simple. The configuration process is guided so that even a non-technical person can successfully complete the onboarding.

We use it for the single sign-on to different products that we have, and it works pretty well.

In general terms, we use it as an admin tool. If we want to set up accounts for people, it's easier for us to do it like this because everything is connected to different groups.

It's a very intuitive platform. It's easy to create groups and add people.

I have used Okta in the past. Okta is easy to use, and it's also very friendly. Even users who have no tech experience would be able to use Okta.

When it comes to Azure, creating certain things or getting different resources isn't very clear. You need a certain level of knowledge of the system. It could be a little bit more friendly so that some of the things can be done easily, but after everything is created, it's easy to use.

I've been using this solution for five years. In this company, I've been using it for two years, and before that, I used it for about three years.

It's good. It has never hung up.

They're good. We don't have issues with scalability because we are not like Amazon or other companies that are super huge and have got tons of traffic.

I don't handle it directly now, but based on my previous experience, they're pretty fast. I'd rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

There was probably the Google management system, but it works similarly to Azure AD. 

I was not involved in its deployment.

In terms of our environment, it's a private cloud. We have the infrastructure within the platform, but all the software, all the usage, and other things are handled by us. We're private because we're a big company, so we're able to afford it. We're not an IT company, so we don't need so much processing power. So, we use Azure as a PaaS solution.

We use it as a connector for different applications. We have Adobe Sign and applications on AWS. AWS has a translation solution, and people have accounts over there. They have their translations of different products and things like that. That's how we use it.

In terms of maintenance, everything is done by Microsoft. We are just the end users.

The return on investment is easier to calculate with Okta. It's a bit complicated to calculate in the case of Azure. Of course, Azure is already a trusted platform. It's pretty big, and it's handled by Microsoft, so there are no issues with that, but it's easier to check the return on investment with Okta.

I'd recommend Azure Active Directory if you are a big company. For small or medium companies, it's probably not the best idea in the world because of the pricing. If you are a small company, you can probably deploy your own solutions because you're not handling a website with tons of traffic. If you are not like Adidas, Nike, or Walmart, you can do it in a way that is more localized than handling everything through a big price solution. However, Azure tends to provide you with solutions that are easier to use. If it was cheaper, I'd definitely recommend going for it.

I didn't evaluate any other solution. 

I'd rate Azure Active Directory a 10 out of 10.

We use Azure AD to manage users in terms of user accounts and profiles. We also use it to manage applications, access control, and application management.

Azure AD has helped improve the onboarding and offboarding process, especially with the user provisioning and SSO. With Azure AD, once a user account is created, the user automatically gets synced across all of our applications without the admin having to touch each application once at a time.

The solution helped improve our onboarding process by saving us a lot of time.

The feature I have found the most valuable is user provisioning (SSO). Azure Active Directory provides a single pane of glass for managing use cases. 

How it works is once it has all been set up, it allows the user to use the same credential – the username and password – across multiple applications. It creates ease of use for the user as they don't have to keep entering a username and password across multiple applications.

Azure AD allows us to manage the users' access from a single point. In a typical environment, if, for example, a user exits the company and the account needs to be disabled, you would have to go across each application to disable that access. With the Microsoft experience, you just have to disable it from the Azure Active Directory, and then it syncs across all of the applications. Once the account is disabled on the Azure, the accounts are disabled on all applications. The user instantly loses access across all applications without the admin having to go to each application one at a time. When you are offboarding an exited user or an employee that leaves the organization, there's no room for error in terms of missing out or forgetting to revoke an access for a particular application.

I would like to see Microsoft communicate how they intend to manage legacy applications. Right now, you still have to deploy a hosted domain server (which comes at an extra cost) if you have a legacy application that cannot sync properly with the enterprise applications and the modern applications.

I have been using Azure Active Directory for about five years now. 

Azure is stable. 

Azure is scalable. 

Microsoft's tech support is very responsive and really supportive. They will work with you if you have any concerns or if you have any issues. They have experts that will be able to jump on a call with you and assist you in making sure that whatever your concerns are, they all get resolved.

Positive

I did not previously use a different solution. 

The initial deployment was straightforward for me because I already had a pretty good experience managing the on-prem Active Directory. The deployment of the directory itself does not take long. However, it took us about a couple of months to carry out the user creation, create the Conditional Access policies, and to test. You have to test your policies before you go live. We had a lot of design to do in terms of setup, testing, rollout, and setup for each feature that we needed to implement. We had more of a test phase before the go-live phase. That's why it took quite a while. 

We did our deployment in-house. We had three people on the deployment. 

We have seen a return on investment from Azure AD because, first of all, we have been able to use the Cloud infrastructure to bring in more response. Also, it has high availability. We can easily scale it up or down, thereby managing costs. Now, in terms of the Azure Active Directory Office 365, we also have scale licenses where we get to manage the licenses across multiple users, thereby reducing costs of having to purchase one per user.

I would say that Azure AD's pricing is very reasonable because of the structure and in terms of the solution. I can offer this tip for the licensing: if you plan on going to a CSV, you can get a certain level of discounts.

We looked at Google Workspace when we were trying to migrate from on-prem to the cloud. At the end of the day, after analyzing and comparing most of the features that we are going to go with and how it will integrate with our existing system, we found the Microsoft Azure Active Directory to be more effective and better suited to our requirements.

This is how Azure AD stacks up against Okta. Okta is a third-party application for syncing user profiles from on-prem to cloud. However, Microsoft already has a pretty good application for that, which is Azure's AD Connect. It's more or less the same thing as Okta and more effective in the sense that with AD Connect we can actually get to query the user objects in terms of all the attributes to work on-prem and on the Cloud, just the same way you probably do it if you run an LDAP query. This is something you might not get with Okta because of the integration with the Active Directory.

My advice to someone looking to implement the solution is: your in-house technical support needs to understand the technology and your requirements as an organization because Azure is very robust. You need to know exactly what you intend to deploy and the requirements you intend or need. If you have that covered, Azure AD will be simple and straightforward to use. If you are able to plan and manage the users and services, it is really cost-effective.

I have identified that Azure Active Directory has a lot of features that are handy and useful. Microsoft is also constantly improving on it and it has all the required features that my organization requires. 

Azure AD is helpful and user friendly when it comes to managing identity and access tasks. It helps you manage that effectively because you have all the clouds, you have profile creation, you have all the features. Everything is easy to locate and simple to navigate.

Azure AD allows us to improve compliance for enforcing fine-tuned and adaptive access controls. It also allows us to manage access to all the applications in our environment. With it, we can create design policies that either the leader or the identify side from HR has to comply with before a particular user gains access into our environment or into a particular service within our environment.

We use Entra's Conditional Access feature in conjunction with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. We do so because one part allows for full control in the endpoint for managing access on the user and that user as an object, and then the other manages the device as an object.

This combination has the ability to reduce the risk of unpatched devices connecting to your corporate network. It will prevent a user from accessing an environment or a service space via a compromised device. If a user, for example, tries to access our network, service, or environment, via a compromised personal device, this combination will help prevent that kind of intrusion. Also, if a corporate authorized device gets compromised, that's when we find out the device is authorized to access that environment. It also helps to manage and restrict access.

Entra has helped our IT administrators and HR department save time. As a rough estimate, I would say it has cut our costs down by 20 hours per week.

Microsoft Entra has affected our employee user experience by helping to manage the end-to-end communication between user, device, and services by creating a very similar communication and very similar to the experience, which allows the user to be able to connect seamlessly to services and also to the device itself.

We use Azure AD to implement Conditional Access policies and privileged access management.

There are plenty of benefits. First, as we had Microsoft AD on-premises, it was very easy to configure Azure AD. We are using the password hash sync for authentication, so authentication on the cloud is very seamless when users use applications on the cloud. That is very important.

Also, with the help of sign-in logs, we are getting information about every application, such as where a user is trying to log in and from which device, making things very crystal clear. We only get this type of transparency and accuracy only from Azure AD.

We use the Conditional Access feature to fine-tune access. We implement a lot of access policies. For example, we want to get rid of client machines with Windows XP and some legacy applications, so we created access policies to prevent logins from those devices and those applications. We have also created policies to prevent logins from certain areas around the world. These abilities are very helpful in preventing phishing and scams.

In addition, there are so many tasks and activities that are automated in Azure AD. For example, we have enabled the password reset self-service so that users can reset a password themselves and log in to their accounts. That is one way it saves time for our help desk team. It no longer requires the help desk. From an administrative perspective, it's very convenient for us to manage and maintain the users of the organization. Azure AD is saving us 10 to 12 hours per week, and that's for just one person who would otherwise be responsible for resetting passwords.

The solution has also prevented so many potential cyber attacks, and that has saved us money. And by saving man-hours, we have saved money. Thirdly, we have been able to reduce manpower. I would estimate it has saved us 20 percent in terms of costs.

Another benefit is that, from a user perspective, it is very smooth and easy to sign in to all the Microsoft applications with the Azure AD sign-in. The UI is very intuitive for Microsoft accounts, so it's very easy for them to log in. We also have single sign-on enabled for desktops, so whenever a user signs in to an application on their machine, they don't need to sign in again and again. With the help of the same token, all other applications can be opened easily.

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

Also, Azure AD provides a single pane of glass for managing user access.

I mainly work with the Microsoft Security portal so I can get access and privileges to maintain all the security policies, including Conditional Access policies and privilege access management for just-in-time access, as well as Azure AD sign-in logs. These factors are very important.

When it comes to managing identity, we have E5 licenses. We are using every application from Office 365, so it is very easy for us to manage identity with the help of all those applications. We are also using third-party applications that are integrated with Azure AD and that makes access management easy.

From an admin perspective, I would like to see improvement in the Microsoft Graph API.

I have been using Azure Active Directory for six to seven years.

There are some bugs that we find monthly or quarterly, but all the bugs are fixed by Microsoft.

It is scalable.

We have it deployed in Europe and there are about 15,000 users.

I received good technical support when syncing on-premises users to Azure AD. It was very smooth. But for help with Conditional Access, I got poor support.

Neutral

We had on-premises AD and then we introduced Azure AD. We synced all the users from on-premises to Azure AD. Then, with Office 365, we installed Exchange Online and Teams. For single sign-on we have ADFS [Active Directory Federation Services] on-premises, but now we are migrating our applications to Azure AD SSO for single sign-on.

The initial deployment was very straightforward. It only took a day to deploy. The plan was first to get information about our on-premises Active Directory users, computers, and groups, and then we had to determine how many licenses and which types of licenses we needed for those. We also had to think about which type of authentication method we were going to use.

Our deployment involved three to four people.

Maintenance is just checking for updates.

Personally, 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. It is somehow justified, but I feel it is costly.

I have worked with Okta but for single sign-on only. It does not provide all the features or meet all our demands.

If you want secure data and secure identities, go for Microsoft Azure AD.