We performed a comparison between Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Azure Active Directory is the preferred solution over F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager due to its advanced security features, customizable options, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. While F5 BIG-IP APM is noted for its reliability and stability, it is considered complex and costly, with room for improvement in reporting and management. Azure AD offers a more feature-rich solution with better integration options and a user-friendly management interface, along with a free basic tier and flexible pricing options, making it a better value for the money compared to F5 BIG-IP APM.
"We have seen a return on investment from F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager. It provided access at a time when we didn't have it."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"F5 BIG-IP APM is relatively easy to use."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"The load balancing features are valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual IP creation. It's our most frequently used feature."
"Stickiness is the most valuable feature of the product."
"The portal access was very good."
"Azure Active Directory provides us with identity-based authentication, which secures access at the user level and also integrates with conditional access policies and multi-factor authentication helping to increase the identity security for that person. So, the hacking and leaking of passwords is a secondary problem because you will not authenticate a person with one factor. There is a second factor of authentication available to increase the security premise for your company."
"With Azure Active Directory we were able to manage with different options the access for different users."
"It enhances security, especially for unregistered devices. It 1000% has security features that help to improve our security posture. It could be irritating at times, but improving the security posture is exactly what the Authenticator app does."
"The best thing about Microsoft Entra ID is the ease of setup."
"It has been very instrumental towards a lot of services we run, especially on the single sign-on side. For example, we have 160 countries that all run their own IT but we still are able to provide users with a single sign-on experience towards global applications. So, they have a certain set of accounts that they get from their local IT department, then they use exactly the same account and credentials to sign into global services. For the user, it has been quite instrumental in that space. It is about efficiency, but also about users not having to remember multiple accounts and passwords since it is all single sign-on. Therefore, the single sign-on experience for us has been the most instrumental for the end user experience."
"Overall the solution functions very well, such as the ability to access it from the cloud."
"It is great for mom-and-pop shops or small businesses that are truly coming into the enterprise ecosystem and that have not come from a legacy environment."
"The most valuable feature is the factor identification. I find that it is natural integration, and it is just a natural step. I do not need to do anything else."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager has room for improvement in integration with other products."
"The price of this product can be improved."
"In my opinion, the GUI side needs some improvement based on my usage. Sometimes, it doesn't work as efficiently as the CLI side."
"The technical support’s response time must be improved."
"Integrating identity providers and single sign-on solutions can simplify user authentication and access control."
"Cloud services are something that F5 Access Policy Manager could do better"
"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."
"The solution is quite costly."
"Microsoft needs to add a single setup, so whenever resources join the company or are leaving the company, all of the changes can be made with a single click."
"On-premise capabilities for information and identity management need improvement."
"Adding a new account can be tricky."
"I believe it can also be integrated into other Microsoft products, as well as more integrations with other solutions."
"The support could be better. Lately, they sort of dropped off a bit in terms of quality."
"Some of the features that they offer, e.g., customized emails, are not available with B2C. You are stuck with whatever email template they give you, and it is not the best user experience. For B2C, that is a bit of a negative thing."
"If any service is down, it can affect a whole region. We would need to wait on a ticket and get word from Microsoft to understand the issues. If it takes longer to resolve the issue on Microsoft's side, all we can do is wait for them to fix it."
"We have a custom solution now running to tie all those Azure ADs together. We use the B2B functionality for that. Improvements are already on the roadmap for Azure AD in that area. I think they will make it easier to work together between two different tenants in Azure AD, because normally one tenant is a security boundary. For example, company one has a tenant and company two has a tenant, and then you can do B2B collaboration between those, but it is still quite limited. For our use case, it is enough currently. However, if we want to extend the collaboration even further, then we need an easier way to collaborate between two tenants, but I think that is already on the roadmap of Azure AD anyway."
More F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) Pricing and Cost Advice →
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is ranked 6th in Access Management with 13 reviews while Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 1st in Access Management with 190 reviews. F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) writes " Facilitates packet inspection, modification, and offloading and offers visibility and troubleshooting capabilities, allowing for pre-production server testing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Entra ID writes "Saves us time and money and features Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA". F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is most compared with Citrix Gateway, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine), Ivanti Connect Secure and Aruba ClearPass, whereas Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Ping Identity Platform and Okta Workforce Identity. See our F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Microsoft Entra ID report.
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