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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)
15th
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)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
226
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Atlassian Crowd is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 27.2%, up from 25.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The features around permissions are excellent."
"Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity."
"The most valuable feature for us is the B2C functionality of Microsoft Entra ID, which is essential due to our need for external and internal users to log into our system."
"I find the conditional access policies to be the most valuable. They provide a lot of granularity in determining where the users can log in from, how they log in, and what they have access to."
"The solution adds an extra layer of security."
"The performance is good."
"Azure Active Directory has been very useful for our company, it is not difficult to use."
"The main valuable feature is the integration into a single console, which includes authentication service and endpoint security."
 

Cons

"There's a need for effective group membership management, especially for corporate programs."
"It makes you more efficient, but you have to optimize what you're doing before you get into the software."
"Microsoft's biggest challenge is the documentation. The challenge lies in keeping documentation up-to-date due to rapid changes. Troubleshooting requires workarounds and research."
"If your organization requires additional security then the subscription will be more expensive."
"The documentation could be better."
"In a hybrid deployment, when we update a license by changing the UPN or email address of a user, it does not get updated automatically during normal sync. This means that we have to update it manually from Azure, which is something that needs to be corrected."
"Initially, we wanted to exclude specific users from MSA. So, we had a condition policy, which forces MSA for all the users. So we wanted to exclude users who are using an NPS extension. So it was not listed, as a NPS extension was not listed outside an application, in actual, so, we go back and were not able to exclude users using NPS extension from MSA. So that was one limitation that we found and we had to work around that."
"Having more training would be quite helpful."
"Compared to what we can do on-prem, Azure AD lacks a feature for multiple hierarchical groups. For example, Group A is part of group B. Group B is part of group C. Then, if I put someone into group A, which is part of already B, they get access to any system that group B has access to, and that provisioning is automatically there."
"One thing that they need to improve is the cost."
 

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."
"Our customers are looking for advanced features and processes for it to be cost-effective for their organizations. They see it as an overpriced product. They are enjoying using Azure Active Directory, but they are looking for better prices."
"The cost is billed on a per-user licensing basis."
"We have a yearly license."
"Microsoft Entra ID service can be quite costly due to its hidden expenses linked to usage."
"The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need? They could also charge less for support."
"Azure has an educational package available for students with a variety of licenses and different software available."
"Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license."
"I feel Microsoft is very costly compared to other products. That is also what management is thinking. But when we consider security and support, Microsoft is better than any other product."
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849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Atlassian Crowd?
One standout feature is the capability to configure various authentication and authorization methods from diverse user directories.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian Crowd?
The pricing ranges from low to medium. While it may seem affordable for larger enterprises, it tends to become more expensive as you move up the scale.
What is your primary use case for Atlassian Crowd?
Our main use case is for user management, especially in the context of developers. The focus is consolidating different user types, such as active and desktop users, and facilitating a unified user...
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 do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Regarding pricing, for the services we receive, it seems within the market range and about average.
 

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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.