We performed a comparison between AWS Directory Service and Microsoft Entra ID based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."We like the fact that it's got such great redundancy."
"We can provide specific access to people based on what they need from our accounts."
"The support is very good. I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"The most valuable feature is that because it's all in the cloud, you don't need to manage the infrastructure."
"Two-step authentication is very useful and important."
"AWS handles everything on the backend requiring minimal legwork from our team. We only require a dedicated database administrator while depending on Amazon for RDS."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Directory Service is cost-cutting features."
"The ability to speed up ability is an asset."
"The solution has come a long way. Now, with the Azure AD B2C offering integrated as well, we've got a full IAM-type solution for our customer-facing identity management. In addition, when it comes to user journeys we now can hook in custom flows for different credential checking and authorizations for specific conditional access."
"The solution adds an extra layer of security."
"The security features, such as attack surface rules and conditional access rules, are the most valuable aspects of Azure AD."
"The most valuable feature is that it is very easy to implement, you don't need a lot of effort to set up the solution. This is the most advantageous point, that you can do anything on Azure without taking too much time."
"I like the way it communicates to the cloud."
"In terms of identity management, it helps to improve security posture. It generally helps in terms cloud security, simplicity, and single sign-on for multiple apps."
"I like Intune's MDM and MI."
"AWS could improve the number of regions. Azure has passed them. The ned more consistency, as far as the Northeast is concerned."
"We had a problem with the schema uploading and setting up the directory when we are migrating our users from on-premises to cloud infrastructure."
"Our only complaint is that you cannot integrate your Exchange server. Or, if you are planning to install an Exchange server on your Amazon EC2 instance, then you need to configure Active Directory on EC2 instance. We would like for this limitation to be lifted."
"Can be improved by including on-premises access for services through Identity Access Management."
"To get CloudWatch to monitor your memory and storage, you have to do some configuration within your server, which sometimes results in errors."
"Some of the security protocols are difficult to understand."
"The group policy can be improved."
"I would like to grant partial access to a table contained in a database without having to provide full access to the whole database."
"Something that can be improved is their user interface"
"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."
"On-premise capabilities for information and identity management need improvement."
"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."
"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 would rate it an eight out of ten. The price plays a factor in the rating."
"Its area of improvement is more about the synchronization of accounts and the intervals for that. Sometimes, there're customers with other network challenges, and it takes a while for synchronization to happen to the cloud. There is some component of their on-prem that is delaying things getting to the cloud. The turnaround time for these requests is very time-sensitive. I don't mean this as derogatory for this service, but in my experience, that happens a lot."
"Allowing for more customization would be very useful. There is a limited metadata capability. When you look at a user, there are only six pieces of information you can see, but organizations are way more complex, so having that metadata available and being able to use that for dynamic user groups and other policies would be very helpful."
AWS Directory Service is ranked 6th in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 12 reviews while Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 1st in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 190 reviews. AWS Directory Service is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of AWS Directory Service writes "Extends AD identity and management capabilities to AWS resources". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Entra ID writes "Allows users to authenticate from home and has excellent integrations in a simple, stable solution". AWS Directory Service is most compared with Microsoft Entra External ID, Google Cloud Identity, Okta Workforce Identity, Omada Identity and SailPoint IdentityIQ, whereas Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Yubico YubiKey and Cisco Duo. See our AWS Directory Service vs. Microsoft Entra ID report.
See our list of best Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) vendors.
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