AWS Directory Service vs JumpCloud comparison

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AWS Directory Service

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 6, 2025

AWS Directory Service and JumpCloud are competing in the identity management and directory service sector. JumpCloud seems to have the upper hand due to its versatile features.

Features: AWS Directory Service provides multi-factor authentication, cloud-native solutions, and integration with AWS infrastructure. JumpCloud offers broader integration options, centralized identity access management, and flexibility with SSO and LDAP integration.

Room for Improvement: AWS Directory Service could enhance its ease of initial configuration, improve cross-platform compatibility, and expand integration options beyond the AWS ecosystem. JumpCloud might improve by offering more detailed pricing information, expanding on deployment customization, and providing additional security measures for certain industries.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Directory Service is noted for strong integration with AWS, though its initial setup can be complex. Its customer service is reliable. JumpCloud is recognized for easier deployment with comprehensive documentation and responsive support, making it more user-friendly during initial setup.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Directory Service generally provides competitive pricing within AWS environments, offering long-term ROI benefits. JumpCloud might require higher initial costs but promises better ROI through its extensive integration capabilities across various platforms.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Directory Service vs. JumpCloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

AWS Directory Service vs. JumpCloud

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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

AWS Directory Service

Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

16th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

JumpCloud

Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

13th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (12th), Identity Management (IM) (19th), Enterprise Password Managers (12th), ZTNA as a Service (16th), Active Directory Bridge (5th), Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of AWS Directory Service is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JumpCloud is 2.2%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

Featured Reviews

MassimilianoCollavo

Computer Area Instructor of the Municipality of Asolo at Comune di asolo

Integrates well with other tools, particularly through single sign-on

I've been working with AWS Directory Service as part of a broader solution for moving our infrastructure to a hybrid cloud model. Initially, the goal was to replicate our on-premises server to the cloud and then eventually shut down the on-premises server entirely. My work with AWS Directory Service is focused on migrating to the cloud and finding a suitable document management system that allows for online editing, document sharing, and workflow management. I rate it an eight out of ten.

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MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Manage multiple cloud platforms seamlessly with unified credentials

The most impactful feature of JumpCloud is that it allows me to use one credential for all platforms or accounts, reducing the need to remember multiple credentials. This feature is highly beneficial for user management, particularly for clients with multiple cloud accounts. Additionally, JumpCloud simplifies the workflow when I work with different cloud platforms, such as AWS, Azure, and GCP, by integrating directory and credential management.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The AD Connector is very good and easy to implement."

"I like the manageability. Activate Connect makes it easier to assign information and to manage the resources in the network."

"AWS Directory Service is secure."

"The pricing is very good because it is low and there is no management cost."

"The most valuable feature is ease of use."

"We like the fact that it's got such great redundancy."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Directory Service is cost-cutting features."

"The most valuable feature is that because it's all in the cloud, you don't need to manage the infrastructure."

More AWS Directory Service pros

"The most valuable features of JumpCloud are flexibility, policy management for devices, and device patch management. For example, we can limit access to devices only in Chile or send a number of commands to the devices to manage them."

"The most valuable feature of JumpCloud, it provides a convenient and streamlined solution for me to access and manage all of the features I require in one centralized location. This eliminates the need for me to worry about hiring individuals to manage these tasks, as well as eliminating concerns surrounding hardware, updates, and licenses. With JumpCloud, I am able to receive the services I need in a timely and efficient manner, which has significantly reduced my stress and alleviated a great deal of the issues I once faced. This is especially important as I am often bound by laws, regulations, contracts, and customer demands to keep up with various tasks. With JumpCloud, I am able to manage everything I need in one place, giving me visibility and control over aspects that I previously had to manage through multiple systems."

"The whole product is great. The device management is amazing. The fact that you can basically set up an entire machine without having the machine in front of you is most valuable."

"The product enables device management."

"After deploying to the cloud, we had remote device management on all of our corporate laptops."

"Some of the most valuable features of Jumpcloud have been the use of the policies. They have been very helpful. There are modules in there for policies where you can create your own which indirectly are GPOs similar to what you have for Microsoft environments, however, they are only doing registry changes. They are very powerful and useful. Additionally, having your directory and SSO in one spot is another thing that they provide in application management. Adding, removing, and updating applications are in one place for desktop administration."

"The UI is intuitively easy to use. It is easy to set up a user. I have found the group management to be pretty simple. You can group users, then assign them to groups of systems, and that relationship allows us to ease the management burden."

"JumpCloud enables different kinds of connections and enables employees or subcontractors not within the company to connect to our network securely."

More JumpCloud pros

Cons

"I've encountered challenges, particularly with Amazon WorkDocs, which is being deprecated. This has made it necessary to find an alternative document management solution that can handle editing, sharing, and workflow management for documents like Word files and PDFs."

"The group policy can be improved."

"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."

"To get CloudWatch to monitor your memory and storage, you have to do some configuration within your server, which sometimes results in errors."

"Currently, there is no option to integrate our on-premises Cisco AWS Directory Service, requiring some manual configuration. If AWS Active Directory Service provided additional domain controller functionalities, like other on-premises Active Directory, it would be very helpful."

"Some of the security protocols are difficult to understand."

"Can be improved by including on-premises access for services through Identity Access Management."

"I would like to see better integration with other business solutions."

More AWS Directory Service cons

"It could dip into CI/CD tooling as well. That would be a very interesting part to see."

"JumpCloud could improve the user interface. While it has certainly come a long way, there is still room for improvement in terms of simplifying and making it more intuitive for the user. In my opinion, the UI/UE could benefit from some modifications to enhance the overall user experience. I have suggested some changes to JumpCloud regarding this matter as I believe that they have the potential to further enhance the platform and make it even more user-friendly. There are certain small features within the system that users may not be familiar with, as they may have previously used different systems with different user interfaces."

"For improvement, the tool should introduce more customization options."

"The visual tool and interface must be more fine-tuned."

"JumpCloud could improve by providing more features. They are only giving the three standard features, such as SSO radius. I would like there to be multi-tenant features. For example, my colleague is from a different organization, and he's using different applications and I'm using different applications, I wanted to access his applications and database with my JumpCloud credentials. However, since it is a multi-tenant instance. I would like it to be open-ended where we can gather all these multi-level organizations to put in a single domain to access one authentication for all the different applications."

"JumpCloud can improve in its synchronization of identities. More specifically, groups with Office 365. They've been working on it, but it's not where I would necessarily like it to be."

"JumpCloud could improve the compatibility with other devices and operating systems. For example, the solution only works well with Mac and some Linux devices. It does not work for mobile devices, such as Android."

"The product needs to create its own self-service feature which has been requested by all the admins in the community."

More JumpCloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS' pricing is fair, and costs can be cut if you look carefully at when you're using it."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The pricing depends because with AWS there are two types of directory objects: 30,000 and 500,000. It varies. AWS provides the pricing calculators so we can get an estimate from there as per the company requirement of how many users and objects that we need to create. So we can go to that portal, put in the data, and get the quotation. There are no extra licensing fees. It's all included."

"We pay an annual subscription fee."

"The pricing is all on the JumpCloud website. It's not hidden, you don't have to go through a show me a quote type procedure. The pricing is straightforward to understand."

"The solution is pretty expensive."

"JumpCloud's monthly license costs around $25 for the complete solution."

"I am pretty sure that the cost to acquire JumpCloud is less. They have à la carte or per-user pricing. The pricing is there on their webpage. I am not sure if they have any enterprise pricing or discounts if you have more users. But the overall pricing is less than Okta."

"JumpCloud offers several subscription plans as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. The pricing is based on the number of users and the services that are required, meaning that you only pay for what you consume and don't have to pay for services that you don't need. When compared to other solutions, JumpCloud can actually be more cost-effective, as it eliminates the need to hire a team, purchase hardware, pay for licenses and software, and worry about updates, security, and backups. Thus, it offers a more efficient and cost-effective solution for managing your needs."

"Licensing cost can be anywhere between $2 and $18 a month depending on what you want to do."

"We are using an enterprise license for JumpCloud. We have purchased a license for approximately $3,000 a year, but we are charged more than $135,000 annually."

"The cost of the solution is approximately $12 per user. However, the cost depends on what modules you're using. They have an all-in-one package and they do have tiers. For example, the more users you have, the cheaper it ends up being in the end too. I know they've done some changes to the pricing model and I haven't been involved in a lot of the licensing lately. I don't know the exact cost at this time."

More JumpCloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Healthcare Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Directory Service?

The most valuable feature of AWS Directory Service is cost-cutting features.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Directory Service?

The pricing is very good because it is low and there is no management cost. You do not need to hire any system administrator to manage your Active Directory.

What needs improvement with AWS Directory Service?

Accessing the data needs improvement. Additionally, integration and compatibility with other AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) services, network open LDAP, support for on-premise and cloud envir...

What do you like most about JumpCloud?

The product enables device management.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JumpCloud?

AWS charges per user, which can be costly if I have more than ten users. Third-party platforms tend to be cheaper than AWS. However, it depends on the features I receive for the price.

What needs improvement with JumpCloud?

I would like AWS to integrate more cloud platforms with JumpCloud, such as Alibaba or Oracle. This would be helpful, especially for AWS users, by providing broader support for different cloud platf...

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

Download AWS Directory Service product report

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Also Known As

AWS Managed Microsoft AD

Resmo

Overview

AWS Directory Service lets you run Microsoft Active Directory (AD) as a managed service. AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory, also referred to as AWS Managed Microsoft AD, is powered by Windows Server 2012 R2. When you select and launch this directory type, it is created as a highly available pair of domain controllers connected to your virtual private cloud (VPC). The domain controllers run in different Availability Zones in a region of your choice. Host monitoring and recovery, data replication, snapshots, and software updates are automatically configured and managed for you.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

JumpCloud enables organizations to manage devices, users, and applications across platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. It offers centralized authentication, identity and access management, single sign-on, directory services, security policy enforcement, and cloud service integration.

Organizations leverage JumpCloud for its robust device management, policy management, and seamless integration with applications such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Its flexibility, stability, scalability, and ease of use make it a strong choice for managing business directories, executing scripts on-demand, synchronizing system access, and implementing mobile device management. Key features include remote access, Windows Out of Box Experience, strong authentication and authorization controls, centralized user and device management, efficient onboarding and offboarding processes, and extensive security and reporting features.

What are the most important features?

Device Management: Centralized control over devices across multiple platforms.
Single Sign-On: Simplified access to multiple applications with one set of credentials.
Policy Management: Enforcement of security policies across different systems and devices.
Application Integration: Integration with major applications like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Remote Access: Secure remote access capabilities for users.
Script Execution: Efficient execution of scripts and job scheduling across systems.
Comprehensive Reporting: Detailed security and activity reports to help monitor and manage access.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Flexibility: Adaptable to different business needs and environments.
Stability: Reliable performance with minimal downtime.
Scalability: Easily scales to accommodate growing user and device numbers.
Ease of Use: User-friendly interface supports efficient management tasks.
Enhanced Security: Strong controls and policy enforcement reduce security risks.
Streamlined Processes: Simplified onboarding and offboarding processes increase efficiency.

In specific industries, JumpCloud is utilized to manage a wide array of tasks such as automating administrative functions in healthcare, ensuring secure access to sensitive data in finance, and supporting remote work needs in technology sectors. Its ability to integrate with diverse platforms and provide centralized control makes it suitable for managing complex IT environments.

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Cars.com, GoFundMe, Grab, ClassPass, Uplight, Beyond Finance, Foursquare

AWS Directory Service vs. JumpCloud