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Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Google Cloud Identity
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (11th), Cloud Resource Access Management (6th)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud Identity is 11.1%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 17.3%, down from 26.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID17.3%
Google Cloud Identity11.1%
Other71.6%
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Q&A Highlights

ID
Owner at Brains
May 12, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Director at GNX Solutions
Cloud automation has improved development efficiency and supports secure MFA and SSO
The best features in Google Cloud Identity are their cloud, their VMs, and their cloud VMs, which are too good compared to OCI. Using Google Cloud Identity is beneficial in terms of finance as we are always doing automation and AI, and it is definitely the best. I use multi-factor authentication with Google Cloud Identity. Regarding how Google Cloud Identity helps to improve security, I can say that security is something everyone is using. I do not feel any different. After this, everything will be JWT token and all things we are using. I do not feel any difference in there. I have used the SSO feature, single sign-on, with Google Cloud Identity. In a few words, how Google Cloud Identity affected user management within my organization is that it is not done for my organization but for one of my clients only. I already have the ADs there, but still, it is the best. I think the reporting tools of Google Cloud Identity are good. I cannot comment on these kinds of things for this particular product.
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

"The tool provides a free service that you can integrate for laptop authentication. You also don’t need a separate Active Directory."
"Using Google Cloud Identity is beneficial in terms of finance as we are always doing automation and AI, and it is definitely the best."
"The most valuable feature is that you can manage users from one central location."
"The most valuable feature of Google Cloud Identity is its simplicity in deployment."
"Cloud Identity is a cloud-based Software as a Service model, so you don't need to worry about managing the infrastructure."
"Although we have not looked at the whole product and explored it completely, we find that all the authentication features that we are using now are valuable."
"Everything is relatively good and overall, the product itself is good."
"Cloud Identity is scalable enough for our needs, and it's serving more than 3,000 users in our organization."
"It's not intuitive and we use it mainly for our Office 365 files. The integration between the two is interesting. However, the learning curve is high."
"Token-based security has had a positive impact on defending against threats with Microsoft Entra ID."
"If a company has hundreds of users that already exist in the cloud, and it now wants to enable those same users to be present in third-party applications that their business uses, like Atlassian or GoToMeeting, the provisioning technology can assist in achieving that."
"Azure is the leading market solution because of its history, features, and maturity."
"The user functionality enables us to provide different levels of access, across many applications, for each user. We can customize the access level and set a security level in connection with that access. For instance, we can require MFA. That is a feature that helps enhance our security posture a lot."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of scalability."
"Microsoft Entra ID works well for scalability in my organization, as we have grown from 150 employees to 700 employees."
"What I like most about Microsoft Entra ID is how it's the continuation of what was started with Active Directory to the cloud."
 

Cons

"When referring to the help articles I found them not helpful. Support themselves understood my query but the resolution was not satisfactory."
"I would like to see more integration in future releases."
"For Google Cloud Identity, there will be a recurring cost. There is no ROI."
"One area where Cloud Identity has room for improvement is monitoring and alerts. If you want to set up some alerts, you don't have much control over the configuration."
"Google Cloud Identity the UI could improve."
"The one place it could be improved is the password vaulting. The password vaulting does not prevent the admins from reading users' passwords, and that's a debate."
"If you want to set up some alerts, you don't have much control over the configuration. You have to use their default alerts. And they only provide alerts for certain activities, so you cannot customize those. Monitoring isn't very helpful either."
"There is room for improvement in the configuration of their security policies. It seems quite basic."
"Entra ID needs to improve its application credentials and use of ID permissions. There are challenges with the management layer. We want to create access down to the Graph level while invoking some management logic. That also means that if an application comes in, we cannot send that to the Graph because we would need an ID on behalf of the cloud hook."
"It doesn't function the same way as an Active Directory inside of an infrastructure, that is, a physical infrastructure. In the cloud, it is all flat. That's one of the disadvantages."
"For the end users, it can be confusing if they have worked for another company that had the Authenticator app. It is tricky if they have already had the Authenticator app and then work somewhere else. If they have to download it again and use it again on their phone, it is something that gets complicated. I know how to get through it. They just need to uninstall and reinstall the application, but for them, sometimes, it is confusing."
"The role-based access control can be improved. Normally, the role-based access control has different privileges. Each role, such as administrator or user, has different privileges, and the setup rules for them should be defined automatically rather than doing it manually."
"Microsoft plans to move away from SMS authentication for Multi-Factor Authentication and only implement application-based authenticator, which will be challenging for retail outlets reliant on Microsoft Active Directory."
"I think Microsoft Entra ID can be improved, but that's a broad question, and I'm uncertain about specific areas."
"However, if you use Exchange Online or with Microsoft 365, then your ability to make modifications 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

"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"The solution is not expensive."
"When I worked on Cloud Identity, they offered a free or enterprise version. You can synchronize and create up to 100 user identities in the free version. After that, you have to purchase a business or enterprise license. In that model, you'll be charged based on the number of users."
"We probably spend about $50,000 a year on licensing."
"The licensing cost depends on the partners and the relationship between the company and the partners."
"Licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"The fees are paid monthly and there are no additional costs other than the licensing fees."
"The product is billed on a monthly basis depending on the number of users."
"Azure Active Directory is more expensive than Google, but the capabilities they provide are superior."
"We pay about $35 per user."
"Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license."
"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."
"There are four different levels of subscription including the free level, one that includes the Office 365 applications, the Premium 1 (P1) level, and the Premium 2 (P2) level."
"I'd recommend Azure Active Directory if you are a big company. For small or medium companies, it's probably not the best idea in the world because of the pricing. If you are a small company, you can probably deploy your own solutions because you're not handling a website with tons of traffic. If you are not like Adidas, Nike, or Walmart, you can do it in a way that is more localized than handling everything through a big price solution. However, Azure tends to provide you with solutions that are easier to use. If it was cheaper, I'd definitely recommend going for it."
"The solution has three types of tiers: E1 has very basic features. You get limited stuff in E2 and cannot have Office 360 associated with it. E3 is on the costly side and has all the features."
"MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise162
 

Questions from the Community

How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also access to both Microsoft’s user community as well as around-the-clock customer s...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Identity?
It's crucial to monitor costs carefully, as there can be unexpected charges. I have been charged even when there was supposed to be free credit.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Identity?
If you are asking about room for improvement with Google Cloud Identity, whatever is there already, cost is the only problem. If you are comparing with GCP, OCI, the cost will be a little bit highe...
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

Cloud Identity, Cloud Identity Premium
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ExtraHop Networks, HealthChannels
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 Google Cloud Identity vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.