Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) and Okta are leading IAM solutions with different strengths. Entra ID is praised for its seamless integration with Microsoft products like Office 365 and Azure, focusing on Active Directory integration, user lifecycle management and conditional access. Entra ID's customizable options and reliable performance are highly valued. Okta is platform-agnostic, streamlining access management processes, praised for its user-friendly interface, competitive pricing and exceptional customer service.
The summary above is based on 141 interviews we conducted recently with Okta Workforce Identity and Microsoft Entra ID users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"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."
"It certainly centralizes usernames, and it certainly centralizes credentials. Companies have different tolerances for synchronizing those credentials versus redirecting to on-prem. The use case of maturing into the cloud helps from a SaaS adoption standpoint, and it also tends to be the jumping-off point for larger organizations to start doing PaaS and infrastructure as a service. So, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service kind of dovetail off the Active Directory synchronization piece and the email and SharePoint. It becomes a natural step for people, who wouldn't normally do infrastructure as a service, because they're already exposed to this, and they have already set up their email and SharePoint there. All of the components are there."
"Configuring the domain and setting it up in the Azure portal is just three clicks to be honest."
"My two preferred features are conditional access and privileged identity management."
"As an end-user, the access to shared resources that I get from using this product is very helpful."
"The solution adds an extra layer of security."
"The most important things of Azure Active Directory are the security and the facility to manage all the services and users. It is very easy to manage users and assign roles, permissions, and access. At the same time, it is a very secure environment. Microsoft takes security very seriously. They take care of all the security and all the factors to prevent any kind of data or information compromise."
"The solution is free to use and you can use it for every service."
"The product is easy to use."
"Enabled MFA to access federated applications as well as increased user satisfaction through improved provisioning times and more reliable processes."
"One of the features that I have found to be very valuable is its interoperability and compatibility with all types of resources, whether it's networking, infrastructure, or applications. That is, it is compatible as well as interoperable, as far as the federated authentication is concerned."
"Its integration components are most valuable. It integrates with everything in some way. There are some products, such as O365 or AD, with which it completely and 100% integrates. So, you can seamlessly create accounts across the board with some of these products. For some of the products with which it doesn't completely integrate, you can do some kind of interfacing."
"First of all, the solution is very simple."
"Its simplicity and its integration with various vendor-agnostic platforms are the most valuable features."
"Okta controls all the users. It has context-based access from the user and type of device. It identifies the risk and can do a step of authentication when that user is trying to access some sensitive application from an unknown device."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the integration with external websites one-factor authentication."
"I hope, in the roadmap, Microsoft eventually offers the same features as Okta. It will take some more time to mature."
"I think the solution can improve by making the consumption of that data easier for our customers."
"I believe it can also be integrated into other Microsoft products, as well as more integrations with other solutions."
"To look at more documentation, engineering, or an open standard would be nice."
"It would be awesome to have a feature where you can see the permissions of a user in all their Azure subscriptions. Right now, you have to select a user, then you have to select the subscription to see which permissions the user has in their selected subscriptions. Sometimes, you just want to know, "Does that user have any permissions in any subscriptions?" That would be awesome if that would be available via the portal."
"I would like it if Intune could manage MacOS or iOS directly. Right now, we have to use a third-party solution."
"The downside of using a single password to access the entire system is that if those credentials are compromised, the hacker will have full access."
"ESAE management, especially the admin tools, could be improved. It should be built in by the vendor, and I shouldn't have to add patches or updates to connect to my domain directly. It should be added by default. The price could be better."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the support system, they are too slow."
"The lifecycle management part can be improved. It should also have identity governance and the ability to choose a specific factor authentication at the application level. Its licensing and pricing can also be improved."
"The solution lacks an on-premises deployment model so it can't offer a hybrid solution. It would be ideal if clients had options that weren't just cloud-based."
"RESTful Web Service calls and their response seem a bit slow."
"The training is too costly."
"The only area of concern in the solution stems from the fact that my company needs some help regarding the setup phase from a partner."
"On the admin side, we can create our own passwords instead of generating one, which is usually difficult to explain to a user."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the way passwords are reset and how it interfaces with Microsoft."
Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 1st in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 190 reviews while Okta Workforce Identity is ranked 2nd in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 59 reviews. Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6, while Okta Workforce Identity is rated 8.4. 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 Okta Workforce Identity writes "Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced ". Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Cisco Duo and Yubico YubiKey, whereas Okta Workforce Identity is most compared with Google Cloud Identity, SailPoint IdentityIQ, Saviynt, Auth0 and IBM Security Verify Access. See our Microsoft Entra ID vs. Okta Workforce Identity report.
See our list of best Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) vendors, best Single Sign-On (SSO) vendors, and best Authentication Systems vendors.
We monitor all Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) 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.
