No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Atlassian Crowd vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Atlassian Crowd
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
26th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Atlassian Crowd is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 9.0%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID9.0%
Atlassian Crowd1.4%
Other89.6%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at HDI Systeme AG
Enhanced user management offering seamless single sign-on, scalability for large enterprises, and improved configurability through integration with various user sources and directories
For organizations using various Atlassian products and dealing with multiple user sources or directories, implementing Atlassian Crowd for single sign-on proves highly beneficial. This is especially true for companies that have instances of Atlassian product installations across different entities, each with its own Active Directory and user directory. Crowd significantly streamlines user and directory management, making it more efficient for larger enterprises. It is particularly advisable and recommended for big companies, especially those that have undergone acquisitions or mergers, as it enhances user management, transparency, and configurability. While it's incredibly useful for enterprise-level businesses, it may also be suitable for mid-sized companies with a substantial user base. Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.
Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Integrating third-party directories is very easy since Crowd offers well-described input fields so you know what information is needed."
"If your budget allows, it is worth purchasing Crowd once you have at least 2 Atlassian products like Jira and Confluence."
"One standout feature is the capability to configure various authentication and authorization methods from diverse user directories."
"The most valuable features are predominantly in the directory and development spaces."
"After the move to Azure AD, the security level is high."
"The most beneficial feature would be the effectiveness of having a hybrid set-up."
"Single sign-on provides flexibility and helps because users don't want to remember so many passwords when logging in. It's a major feature. Once you log in, you have access to all the applications. It also enables us to provide backend access controls to our users, especially when it comes to groups, as we are trying to normalize things."
"Microsoft Entra ID's valuable features include integration capabilities, a simplified Active Directory approach, scalability, conditional access, and privileged identity management."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to delegate roles to each individual resource, which is great."
"Before Azure Active Directory, it took effort to provide cloud access to on-premises users, but with Azure Active Directory and AD Connect, we are able to sync on-prem users to the cloud with minimal effort and we don't have to manage keeping multiple entities for the same user."
"Don't delay implementing this solution, it's the best thing you can do for your identity protection."
"The features around permissions are excellent."
 

Cons

"There's a need for effective group membership management, especially for corporate programs."
"It would be great if the UI would receive a complete re-design."
"It makes you more efficient, but you have to optimize what you're doing before you get into the software."
"Exporting users/group toward LDAP and retrieving LDAP attributes like photo profile."
"The primary thing I would prioritize if we could do this again is the ability to keep a SAM account name instead of having to use a UPN. This causes considerable challenges for us as a customer because we have to reissue identities to everybody."
"When it comes to identity and access life cycle management for applications that are run on-premises, as well as access governance, if those kinds of capabilities could be built into Azure Active Directory, that would be good."
"The only issue is the OU is not properly synced. Therefore, you have to do a manual sync sometimes or you might lose the connector due to AD Connect or sync servers."
"I would rate Microsoft Entra ID an eight based on some experiences, such as asking for repetitive connectivity and on the confirmation or verification, but I think the rest are good."
"I would like to be able to authenticate Wi-Fi users using the Azure ID"
"We have experienced some downtime because of the use of the data centers."
"Sometimes, what one customer may like, another may not like it. We have had customers asking, "Why is Microsoft forcing us to do this?" For example, when you use Exchange Server on-premise, then you can customize it for your company and these customizations are unlimited. However, if you use Exchange Online or with Microsoft 365, then your ability to make modifications is limited. So, only the cloud versus is limited."
"Entra ID is not battle-tested or stable enough to support a business of our size. There are some design issues specifically around support for legacy services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's pretty cheap. I would rate the price as three out of five."
"While it may seem affordable for larger enterprises, it tends to become more expensive as you move up the scale."
"Pricing-wise, they offer a stepladder approach. You can start with the lowest level features, then start increasing based on new requirements."
"We are a non-profit organization, so we get good prices from Microsoft for their products. It is working well, but it could be cheaper. For the type of organization we are, it would be good if they could give a little bit more and be more generous like Google, which has completely free services. Microsoft has free versions or web services called Office 365 E1, which is free for use, but we want to have it with more qualified clients."
"We pay a yearly license. Licenses are very expensive."
"It's relatively inexpensive in comparison with third-party solutions. It's highly available and supported by Microsoft Azure in our enterprise agreements. With the addition of their B2C tenants, it's hard to beat from a cost perspective now."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be lower. Price is the most important factor for Turkish people."
"Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license."
"We have an agreement with Microsoft, and my company pays yearly."
"From a pricing standpoint, with all the services that we get, we are okay. I do not see a problem with the pricing structure. We are getting our money's worth."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions are best for your needs.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
University
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise162
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
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 a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that going through and being able to use these things is always part of delivering an M365 bundle, so I don't think the experience is great ...
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by open-sourcing it. You already have Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is open-source Linux in Microsoft. One major shift for Microsoft would be using the commo...
 

Also Known As

Crowd
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHL, Interspire, Appfire
Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian Crowd vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.