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JumpCloud vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2025

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

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
JumpCloud
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (10th), Identity Management (IM) (12th), Enterprise Password Managers (10th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (10th), ZTNA as a Service (13th), Active Directory Bridge (4th), Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) (5th)
Microsoft Active Directory
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (7th), Active Directory Management (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Roberta Politano - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good authentication features
The solution's group policy is a normal way to deploy configuration and helps deploy to a wider environment. The solution is deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. I would recommend the solution to other users based on their infrastructure. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"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."
"The interface is clean and user-friendly. Setting up new devices or setting up new users inside the system is easy. Also, it integrates with Office 365, which is pretty much a must for our organization."
"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 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."
"I rate the stability of JumpCloud ten out of ten."
"The solution is stable."
"As a cloud-based directory, JumpCloud allows me to integrate nearly every system I have come across that supports SAML 2.0. That's a specific technology that allows different services to integrate for user authentication and identification purposes. That means that with JumpCloud, I can then have one single password. Single sign-on for a particular user that works with VPN, radius authentication for WiFi, logging into Office 365, and their email. Their individual computers use that same password. It's extensible which allows us to tie in customers' security systems. We don't have to provision a new user, 12 different places with 12 different passwords. I only have to create them once and assign them privileges."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an easy-to-use tool."
"It is easy to understand all the components."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Active Directory are the management of user and group policies."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs."
"I can use Active Directory to block a user's internet access and monitor how an employee is using the internet."
"The Solution's most important feature is that it can merge with a cloud-based active directory via Azure AD Connect."
"Active Directory makes managing user policies easier, like when a user wants to share files. We also use it to create and manage our email accounts."
 

Cons

"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"The visual tool and interface must be more fine-tuned."
"It could dip into CI/CD tooling as well. That would be a very interesting part to see."
"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."
"The querying for users in Jumpcloud could be improved, it is sometimes difficult to use. When you're trying to query a user and you spell out their name, you don't receive that person. Sometimes you receive a list of people with the same first name or last name. This could be better."
"The product needs to create its own self-service feature which has been requested by all the admins in the community."
"Support is not good enough."
"They need more straightening of the SSO capabilities."
"The capability to get alerts would be great when CPU or RAM is high on an endpoint, or when a disk is failing. It would be great to get an alert rather than having to go looking for it."
"The challenges everyone now has in mind is how to really migrate fully to the cloud. Many companies face both technical and cost-related challenges when moving from on-premise Active Directory to Microsoft Intra."
"The product's premium support services could be less expensive."
"There are no reporting features."
"The solution could be made more safe by using authentication mechanisms."
"The scalability of the solution needs improvement."
"I did not have a good experience with the product's tech support. First-level support takes a lot of time since they ask many questions."
"I have encountered a few stability issues."
"Perhaps the synchronization could be simpler and more controllable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"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 solution is pretty expensive."
"The cost was around $5 per user per month."
"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."
"JumpCloud's monthly license costs around $25 for the complete solution."
"My company makes payments every quarter towards the licensing costs of the product."
"Microsoft Active Directory is not an expensive solution."
"The price of Microsoft Active Directory could improve. We pay annually for the solution."
"The solution is based on a licensing model."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"The license per user can probably be reduced."
"The version of Microsoft Active Directory I was using was expensive because it was used for large companies."
"Active Directory is an expensive solution, primarily due to Microsoft's licensing model. This licensing approach includes paying for server licenses as well as for each computer that connects to it. However, when working with the Azure cloud, there is no cost for the server. This is profitable and one of the main reasons why Azure Cloud and other cloud-based solutions are being used more."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
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 tha...
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, ...
What do you like most about Microsoft Active Directory?
The solution is easy to install and has good reliability.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?
Technology is evolving. AI is offering solutions. However, short-term fixes are like band-aids.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
I utilize it in almost every scenario. I use the Hazer database and meet daily needs across every industry, every time.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Resmo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Cars.com, GoFundMe, Grab, ClassPass, Uplight, Beyond Finance, Foursquare
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about JumpCloud vs. Microsoft Active Directory and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.