Microsoft Active Directory Reviews

Name: Microsoft Active Directory
Brand: Microsoft
Rating: 4 (36 reviews)

4.3 out of 5

36 reviews
97% willing to recommend

127 followers

What is Microsoft Active Directory?UNIXBusinessApplication
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Active Directory stores information about objects on the network and makes this information easy for administrators and users to find and use. Active Directory uses a structured data store as the basis for a logical, hierarchical organization of directory information.

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Microsoft Active Directory is the #5 ranked solution in top Active Directory Management solutions and #7 ranked solution in top Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions. PeerSpot users give Microsoft Active Directory an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Microsoft Active Directory is most commonly compared to Microsoft Entra ID: Microsoft Active Directory vs Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft Active Directory is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 67% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 23% of all views.

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Microsoft Active Directory

April 2024

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Helped 768,246 peers since 2012

Featured reviews

Rajitha Abhisheka

Senior Systems Engineer at Virtual IT Group - Australia

Sep 29, 2022

We have been using the solution for years and have adjusted our deployments to new environments. When Office 356 was introduced in 2015, there was some confusion about how to authenticate users with on-premises active directories where identities and authorizations for several applications were managed. We introduced Azure AD for use with the solution to integrate Office 365 with our client's environments. This created a conflict because every user now had two usernames and two passwords. To mitigate the conflict in those days, we used AD FS to set a 15-minute time interval which would sync on-premises AD with Azure AD. Information from a user reset in AD would push to Azure AD within a few seconds so this allowed users to log in to Office 365 email from anywhere in the world. By 2019, AD FS was a legacy system so we moved to Azure AD Connect which can be installed on an on-premises domain controller. Connect accomplishes the same things as AD FS but includes additional features for syncing.

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Shivaram Venkatesh

Cloud advisor at Digital Cognitive

Aug 10, 2023

Active Directory was an extension of the Windows NT infrastructure and wasn't designed for extreme scalability. It was intended for organizations with around five to six thousand PCs. However, as organizations grew to more than twenty-five or thirty thousand PCs, the complexity of managing it increased significantly. Especially when managing across different countries or regions, the complexity could lead to errors, issues with patches, and other problems. For large organizations, we often suggest a hybrid solution involving Azure Directory. This way, local Active Directory is still present, but there's less dependency on it and more reliance on the cloud. Cloud solutions like Azure offer virtually limitless scalability compared to local setups constrained by server and network infrastructure.

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Harrison Bulley

Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Net Consulting

May 25, 2023

We use the solution to control environments for different servers The solution's most valuable feature is access control and integration with different applications. The solution is complicated to navigate. We encounter issues while changing the settings. They should improve these particular…

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Microsoft Active Directory market share

Product category:

As of March 2024, the market share of Microsoft Active Directory in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category stands at 5.0%, marking an increase of 132.7% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Key learnings from peers

Last updated Feb 16, 2024

Valuable Features

"The user interface of the product is very easy to use."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The solution is easy to install and has good reliability."

Room for Improvement

"Microsoft Active Directory restricts most of the features our company's employees want to use since they are involved in research and development activities."
"Microsoft Active Directory fails to provide MFA. MFA, which is also known as multi-factor authentication on top of the password and username, is what I would like to see in the product's future releases."
"The solution could be made more safe by using authentication mechanisms."

Pricing

"Microsoft Active Directory is not an expensive solution."
"My company makes payments every quarter towards the licensing costs of the product."
"It's not overly expensive. It's considered a base function by Microsoft."

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Microsoft Active Directory Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Retailer

Healthcare Company

Comms Service Provider

Energy/Utilities Company

Construction Company

Insurance Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

University

Transportation Company

Hospitality Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Legal Firm

Media Company

Outsourcing Company

Pharma/Biotech Company

Aerospace/Defense Firm

Consumer Goods Company

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Learn more about Microsoft Active Directory

This data store, also known as the directory, contains information about Active Directory objects. These objects typically include shared resources such as servers, volumes, printers, and the network user and computer accounts.

Security is integrated with Active Directory through logon authentication and access control to objects in the directory. With a single network logon, administrators can manage directory data and organization throughout their network, and authorized network users can access resources anywhere on the network. Policy-based administration eases the management of even the most complex network.

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

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