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AWS IAM Identity Center vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 2, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
AWS IAM Identity Center boosts ROI by enhancing security, streamlining access, and reducing administrative overhead, improving operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.4
Companies achieve cost savings and enhanced security using Microsoft Entra ID by reducing hardware costs and streamlining operations.
The return on investment includes operational efficiency gains, security risk reduction, compliance with regulations, improved user experience, productivity benefits, reduced overhead, and better security posture.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
We have achieved significant time efficiencies with AWS IAM Identity Center.
Director of Engineering at Infosys
We leverage existing licensing, like Windows Server or SQL, and hybrid benefits, and our sales and marketing teams benefit from co-selling and partnership advantages.
Cloud Engineer at Med Tech Solutions
We get a return from not needing to pay other vendors to do what we already had from Microsoft, which was better than the competition.
Lead Architect, Chief Technology Officer Office at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
By eliminating the need for multiple VPN channels and enabling direct work from Azure servers, we have achieved approximately 30% efficiency savings.
Infrastructure Specialist at Renova AB
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
AWS IAM Identity Center users find documentation lengthy but praise AWS's prompt and helpful support and appreciate diverse support options.
Sentiment score
6.4
Microsoft Entra ID's support varies; premium users often benefit, but experiences largely depend on agent expertise and plan.
AWS provides immediate solutions and assistance whenever needed, especially if issues arise that cannot be handled internally.
Director of Engineering at Infosys
They are prompt, keep you updated, and provide excellent assistance.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
AWS offers better assistance plans for their services.
Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
The actual support when you get to that level is a ten out of ten.
Senior Consultant at Convergeone
There are immediate answers to any issues that arise with great knowledge and a deep understanding of the product and business needs.
Lead Architect, Chief Technology Officer Office at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
They usually try to deflect, buy time, and often do not address the problem immediately.
Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
AWS IAM Identity Center excels in scalability and adaptability, but could improve in user group syncing and third-party integration.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Entra ID offers seamless scalability and integration, efficiently handling varying user volumes and organizational growth without challenges.
AWS Identity Center successfully supports scalable deployments, allowing additional resources as the company grows.
AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K
The scalability of AWS IAM Identity Center is excellent.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
It can handle both a small number of users and a bigger number of users efficiently.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
We experienced no scalability issues with Microsoft Entra ID.
Technical architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Its scalability is impressive, aided by Microsoft's efforts to expand its data centers.
Cloud Architect at Palmer College of Chiropractic-Davenport
When dealing with tens of thousands of objects, it requires proper management and best practices to retrieve only necessary data.
Senior Developer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
AWS IAM Identity Center boasts 99.96% uptime, stability, reliability, with minor regional login impacts swiftly addressed by AWS.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Entra ID is highly reliable, with users praising its stability, low downtime, and swift issue resolution.
There can be issues if there is an outage on AWS's side, which could prevent logging in because your region might be down, affecting the Identity Center's availability.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
It offers 99.96% uptime.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
Stability-wise, it is functioning well without any outages or crashes.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
It's a critical solution that we can't do without.
Cloud Principal & Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I haven't experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Microsoft Entra ID.
Director, Modern Workplace at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The stability of the solution is very high at 99.999%.
Senior Consultant at Convergeone
 

Room For Improvement

AWS IAM Identity Center needs UI clarity, better integration, flexible access controls, enhanced tools, and improved support for users.
Microsoft Entra ID needs improved promotion, documentation, usability, integration, and support for biometric authentication, onboarding, and multi-platform environments.
Having a lot of users on one instance is hard to configure, so I hope for more flexibility and ease in configuration.
AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial
Enhancements could include automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts, simplifying the process.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
When configuring it with third-party tools, like Active Directory, the naming convention of permission sets requires careful attention, which can be confusing.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
A recent incident we dealt with took four months to resolve with a seven-day deadline, which was quite frustrating.
Cloud Principal & Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Synchronization issues occasionally occur, making it challenging to analyze logs and pinpoint the exact problem.
Senior Nutrition Officer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
There is a need for better transformation support from on-premises Active Directory policies to the cloud, as Entra ID doesn't cover this sufficiently yet.
Sales Representative at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

AWS IAM Identity Center is cost-effective, mainly free, with extra charges for premium features and competitive with other providers.
Microsoft Entra ID offers scalable pricing with integrated options in Microsoft 365, providing cost-efficient identity management for enterprises.
AWS IAM Identity Center is available as a free service by default.
AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K
It is not that expensive, rated at three out of ten for costs.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Pricing for AWS IAM Identity Center is very affordable, rated at two out of ten with one being cheap.
AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions
We are getting our money's worth.
Cloud Architect at Palmer College of Chiropractic-Davenport
Microsoft sets pricing based on customer demand, adjusting to find the optimal balance between sales volume and profit per unit, similar to how Costco manages product prices.
Owner at Alopex ONE UG
Most features of Entra ID are part of Microsoft's ecosystem and included in Microsoft 365 bundles, which means there are no additional costs associated with pricing and licensing.
Senior Consultant at Convergeone
 

Valuable Features

AWS IAM Identity Center centralizes permission management with templates, role-based access, MFA, and SSO for streamlined security.
Microsoft Entra ID offers seamless integration, multifactor authentication, and centralized management with enhanced security and user-friendly administration.
It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
These features allow for excellent micro-level control over resources, ensuring specific permissions are granted.
Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Its valuable features include granular access control, allowing precise control over who can access specific AWS resources and under what conditions using JSON-based policies.
DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising
We can secure the applications that we are building and make sure that if the application were to be compromised, there is no full access to a customer's environment causing issues and other security concerns.
Senior Consultant at Convergeone
It's integrated with Microsoft technologies like Authenticator, SSO, and MFA, streamlining operations and creating a seamless environment.
Vice President, Sales & Cloud at Aztek
The granular control, such as preventing logins from specific locations, enhances security significantly.
Cloud Architect at Palmer College of Chiropractic-Davenport
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS IAM Identity Center
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
8th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
1st
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
266
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 2.4%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 12.6%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID12.6%
AWS IAM Identity Center2.4%
Other85.0%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

MA
Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global
Helped our organization by providing a unified dashboard to manage permissions and access controls
The most valuable feature of AWS IAM Identity Center is the ability to provide a structured approach to access management through a single dashboard. This single-pane management allows users to manage access control and permissions centrally. It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.
JP
Senior Information Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Implementing seamless integration boosts secure access and supports Zero Trust
What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Entra ID is that it integrates seamlessly with all the Defender products and is easy to use. Microsoft Entra ID's integration capabilities influence our Zero Trust model by allowing us to enforce our Zero Trust model. Conditional access policies allow us to leverage Microsoft Entra ID to verify that devices signing in to our cloud services are coming from registered devices, and that people are passing all the other requirements we have in order to complete sign-on or conditional access policies. Since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, I've observed changes in the frequency and nature of identity-related security incidents. The organization already had it implemented when I arrived, and I've been working to enhance it. Better configuration of Microsoft Entra ID has allowed us to better protect our organization from threats. Having it alone isn't a solution, but ensuring proper configuration goes a long way in preventing future compromises. My company's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has evolved since implementing Microsoft Entra ID. We haven't experienced any known compromises from nation-state attacks, and implementing newer features gives me more confidence in our protection. Regarding device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator and our approach to phishing-resistant authentication, we are currently implementing Microsoft Entra ID certificate-based authentication. Adding a strong form of MFA is important as we found it to be the most cost-effective way. While other solutions might be equally or more secure, they are significantly more expensive. Having worked as an IT consultant mainly with the Microsoft stack across various industries, I have experience with different identity management solutions. Microsoft Entra ID remains the best option. The major advantages when comparing it to Okta include integration with Defender products, Defender for Identities' integration with conditional access policies, and insider threat management integration for blocking sign-ins based on risk factors. The enhancement of Microsoft Entra ID's implementation is relatively straightforward. My main concern is the occasional lack of documentation and the frequency of changes, which can make feature location challenging.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business85
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise155
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS IAM Identity Center?
The product is easy for beginners to learn and use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS IAM Identity Center?
AWS provides the lowest pricing among other service providers like Azure, Google, Oracle. It is cost-effective, and they use a pay-as-you-go model.
What needs improvement with AWS IAM Identity Center?
The tech support for AWS is time-consuming, as we have experienced this issue. However, I am not aware of many other cases.
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?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID is that it is decent.
 

Also Known As

AWS Single Sign On, AWS SSO
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
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 AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,672 professionals have used our research since 2012.