Microsoft Entra ID vs Microsoft Sentinel comparison

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4,010 views|2,952 comparisons
94% willing to recommend
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5,511 views|3,071 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft Sentinel based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Sentinel Report (Updated: March 2024).
771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature is the conditional access policies. This gives us the ability to restrict who can access which applications or the portal in specific ways.""This solution serves as the basis to understand the MS SSO and MFA capabilities.""When logging on to Azure AD it's pretty quick.""I like Intune's MDM and MI.""Microsoft Entra ID Protection and Microsoft Sentinel are both excellent monitoring features for Microsoft Entra ID.""It's a very intuitive platform. It's easy to create groups and add people.""It has been stable, and we haven't had any issues since we started to use it.""Azure Active Directory has useful policy assigning and management."

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"The log query feature has been the most valuable because it's very good. You can put your data on the cloud and run queues from Sentinel. It will do it all very fast. I love that I don't have to upload it to an Excel file and then manually look for a piece of information. Sentinel is much faster and is good for big databases.""The part that was very unexpected was Sentinel's ability to integrate with Azure Lighthouse, which, as a managed services solution provider, gives us the ability to also manage our customers' Sentinel environments or Sentinel workspaces. It is a big plus for us. With its integration with Lighthouse, we get the ability to monitor multiple workspaces from one portal. A lot of the Microsoft Sentinel workbooks already integrate with that capability, and we save countless amounts of money by simply being able to almost immediately realize multitenant capabilities. That alone is a big plus for us.""The standout feature of Sentinel is that, because it's cloud-based and because it's from Microsoft, it integrates really well with all the other Microsoft products. It's really simple to set up and get going.""Sentinel also enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and not just from the Microsoft ecosystem. It can receive data from third-party vendors' products such firewalls, network devices, and antivirus solutions. It's not only a Microsoft solution, it's for everything.""The in-built SOAR of Sentinel is valuable. Kusto Query Language is also valuable for the ease of writing queries and ease of getting insights from the logs. Schedule-based queries within Sentinel are also valuable. I found these three features most useful for my projects.""Sentinel is a SIEM and SOAR tool, so its automation is the best feature; we can reduce human interaction, freeing up our human resources.""It is able to connect to an ever-growing number of platforms and systems within the Microsoft ecosystem, such as Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365 or Office 365, as well as to external services and systems that can be brought in and managed. We can manage on-premises infrastructure. We can manage not just the things that are running in Azure in the public cloud, but through Azure Arc and the hybrid capabilities, we can monitor on-premises servers and endpoints. We can monitor VMware infrastructure, for instance, running as part of a hybrid environment.""There are a lot of things you can explore as a user. You can even go and actively hunt for threats. You can go on the offensive rather than on the defensive."

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Cons
"I faced difficulties from Micorosft's end and during the transition from Microsoft Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID. Sometimes, some of Microsoft's documentation could be a little outdated.""Overall, it's not a very intuitive solution.""An area where there is room for improvement is the ease of use of the dashboards.""I would like to dive into some of the things that we saw today around the workflows at this Microsoft event. I cannot say that they need to make it better because I do not have much experience with it, but something that is always applicable to Microsoft is that they need to be able to integrate with their competitors. If you look at IDP, they do not integrate with Okta.""Microsoft needs to make improvements in this regard and extend its services to other operating systems as well, especially when considering their widespread usage.""Sometimes, the notifications and alerts are not delivered properly, and we end up missing them. Also, the overall graphical user interface needs to be improved.""At first, it was a bit challenging to come up with a workaround that would get authentication to work.""From time to time it takes a little bit of time to replicate, with some of the applications—something like five to 10 minutes. I know that the design is not supposed to enable real-time replication with some of the applications. But, as an administrator, I would like to run a specific change or modification in Azure Active Directory and see it replicated almost immediately."

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"Sentinel's alerts and notifications are not fully optimized for mobile devices. The overall reporting and the analytics processes for the end user should also be improved. Also, the compatibility and availability of data sources and reports are not always perfect.""They could use some kind of workbook. There is some limitation doing the editing and creating the workbook.""The product can be improved by reducing the cost to use AI machine learning.""The on-prem log sources still require a lot of development.""Documentation is the main thing that could be improved. In terms of product usage, the documentation is pretty good, but I'd like a lot more documentation on Kusto Query Language.""They can work on the EDR side of things... Every time we need to onboard these kinds of machines into the EDR, we need to do it with the help of Intune, to sync up the devices, and do the configuration. I'm looking for something on the EDR side that will reduce this kind of work.""They only classify alerts into three categories: high, medium, and low. So, from the user's point of view, having another critical category would be awesome.""There is some relatively advanced knowledge that you have to have to properly leverage Sentinel's full capabilities. I'm thinking about things like the creation of workbooks, how you do threat-hunting, and the kinds of notifications you're getting... It takes time for people to ramp up on that and develop a familiarity or expertise with it."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."
  • "The licensing is really not clear unless you are a premium client."
  • "Licensing is easy."
  • "It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."
  • "It is not too expensive."
  • "It's really affordable."
  • "I do not have experience with pricing."
  • "Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis and the cost depends on the number of users."
  • More Microsoft Entra ID Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It comes with a Microsoft subscription which the customer has, so they don't have to invest somewhere else."
  • "It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
  • "Good monthly operational cost model for the detection and response outcomes delivered, M365 logs don't count toward the limits which is a good benefit."
  • "I have had mixed feedback. At one point, I heard a client say that it sometimes seems more expensive. Most of the clients are on Office 365 or M365, and they are forced to take Azure SIEM because of the integration."
  • "It is kind of like a sliding scale. There are different tiers of pricing that go from $100 per day up to $3,500 per day. So, it just kind of depends on how much data is being stored. There can be additional costs to the standard license other than the additional data. It just kind of depends on what other services you're spinning up in Azure, or if you're using something like Azure log analytics."
  • "I am just paying for the log space with Azure Sentinel. It costs us about $2,000 a month. Most of the logs are free. We are only paying money for Azure Firewall logs because email logs or Azure AD logs are free to use for us."
  • "Sentinel is a bit expensive. If you can figure a way of configuring it to meet your needs, then you can find a way around the cost."
  • "Azure Sentinel is very costly, or at least it appears to be very costly. The costs vary based on your ingestion and your retention charges."
  • More Microsoft Sentinel Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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 and… more »
    Top Answer:It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.
    Top Answer:Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized by… more »
    Top Answer:It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log… more »
    Top Answer:We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will… more »
    Ranking
    4th
    Views
    4,010
    Comparisons
    2,952
    Reviews
    83
    Average Words per Review
    920
    Rating
    8.7
    6th
    Views
    5,511
    Comparisons
    3,071
    Reviews
    59
    Average Words per Review
    1,638
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
    Azure Sentinel
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    Overview

    Microsoft Entra ID, previously known as Azure AD (Active Directory), is Microsoft's cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) solution. Designed to help organizations of all sizes manage user identities and create an intelligent security perimeter around their cloud and on-premise resources. Microsoft Entra ID or Azure AD is integral to the Microsoft 365 and Azure ecosystems. It provides a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups and secure access to applications in a centralized, streamlined manner.

    Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) is a login system, morphing into a sophisticated identity and access management (IAM) solution for the modern, hybrid workplace. Imagine a single vault for all your digital keys – that's the essence of Entra ID's identity management. It acts as a central repository for user identities, encompassing usernames, passwords, and even additional attributes like department or employee role.

    These capabilities enabled simplified administration using a unified platform for adding, modifying, and deleting user accounts. Users no longer need to remember login credentials for a plethora of applications. Entra ID streamlines access by using the same identity across various cloud services and on-premises resources (if integrated). Centralized identity management allows for stricter enforcement of security policies and password complexity requirements across the organization.

    Authentication sits at the heart of the solution, ensuring only authorized users gain access to sensitive resources. It employs a multi-pronged approach:

    • Password Authentication: The traditional method of username and password is still supported, but Entra ID encourages stronger authentication methods.
    • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adding an extra layer of security, MFA requires users to verify their identity beyond just a password – through a code sent to their phone, fingerprint recognition, or a security key.
    • Single Sign-On (SSO): This user-friendly feature eliminates the need to enter credentials repeatedly. Users sign in once to Entra ID and gain seamless access to all authorized applications, boosting productivity.
    • Conditional Access Policies: Providing granular control over how and when users can access resources. Based on conditions like user role, location, device state, and the application being accessed, Conditional Access policies help ensure that only the right people under the right conditions can access sensitive resources.
    • Seamless Integration: Seamless integration with thousands of SaaS applications, Microsoft 365, and on-premises applications via Application Proxy or third-party identity bridges.
    • Advanced Security Reports and Alerts: Sophisticated security monitoring, reporting tools, and automated alerts. These features enable to identify potential security issues, such as atypical behavior or attempted identity attacks, allowing for swift remediation actions.

    For organizations with on-premises infrastructure, Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) offers hybrid identity options. This allows for a smooth integration between on-premises Active Directory and Entra ID, providing a consistent identity for users across both environments. It enables organizations to leverage their existing investments in on-premises infrastructure while taking advantage of cloud scalability and flexibility.

    In conclusion, Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) is a comprehensive IAM solution that addresses the complex challenges of managing and securing identities in a cloud-centric world. Its blend of ease of use, security, and integration capabilities makes it an essential component of modern IT infrastructure, supporting both operational efficiency and strategic business objectives.

    Additional links:

        Microsoft Sentinel is a scalable, cloud-native, security information event management (SIEM) and security orchestration automated response (SOAR) solution that lets you see and stop threats before they cause harm. Microsoft Sentinel delivers intelligent security analytics and threat intelligence across the enterprise, providing a single solution for alert detection, threat visibility, proactive hunting, and threat response. Eliminate security infrastructure setup and maintenance, and elastically scale to meet your security needs—while reducing IT costs. With Microsoft Sentinel, you can:

        - Collect data at cloud scale—across all users, devices, applications, and infrastructure, both on-premises and in multiple clouds

        - Detect previously uncovered threats and minimize false positives using analytics and unparalleled threat intelligence from Microsoft

        - Investigate threats with AI and hunt suspicious activities at scale, tapping into decades of cybersecurity work at Microsoft

        - Respond to incidents rapidly with built-in orchestration and automation of common tasks

        To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

        Sample Customers
        Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
        Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
        Top Industries
        REVIEWERS
        Financial Services Firm14%
        Computer Software Company14%
        Educational Organization5%
        Healthcare Company5%
        VISITORS READING REVIEWS
        Educational Organization26%
        Computer Software Company12%
        Financial Services Firm9%
        Government6%
        REVIEWERS
        Financial Services Firm22%
        Computer Software Company11%
        Manufacturing Company8%
        Comms Service Provider8%
        VISITORS READING REVIEWS
        Computer Software Company16%
        Financial Services Firm10%
        Government9%
        Manufacturing Company7%
        Company Size
        REVIEWERS
        Small Business33%
        Midsize Enterprise14%
        Large Enterprise53%
        VISITORS READING REVIEWS
        Small Business18%
        Midsize Enterprise35%
        Large Enterprise47%
        REVIEWERS
        Small Business33%
        Midsize Enterprise21%
        Large Enterprise47%
        VISITORS READING REVIEWS
        Small Business25%
        Midsize Enterprise16%
        Large Enterprise59%
        Buyer's Guide
        Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Sentinel
        March 2024
        Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Sentinel and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
        771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.

        Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 4th in Microsoft Security Suite with 190 reviews while Microsoft Sentinel is ranked 6th in Microsoft Security Suite with 85 reviews. Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Sentinel is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Entra ID writes "Saves us time and money and features Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Sentinel writes "Gives a comprehensive and holistic view of the ecosystem and improves visibility and the ability to respond". Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Okta Workforce Identity and Cisco Duo, whereas Microsoft Sentinel is most compared with AWS Security Hub, IBM Security QRadar, Splunk Enterprise Security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Elastic Security. See our Microsoft Entra ID vs. Microsoft Sentinel report.

        See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.

        We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite 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.