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LastPass Business vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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
5.5
Users experienced positive ROI with LastPass by increasing productivity, reducing support calls, and improving security through streamlined password management.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Active Directory enhances operational efficiency by streamlining user management and access control, proving cost-effective and valuable.
The solution is really time-saving since I don't need to create users in each server or system manually, and user access control is streamlined.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.0
Enterprise users experience prompt responses but face reliability and communication issues, with inconsistent technical assistance and access management challenges.
Sentiment score
5.3
Microsoft Active Directory support is effective but variable, with resolution time issues and moderate to high user satisfaction.
Support documents are available on the internet in every language.
Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
Opinions on LastPass Business scalability vary, with performance issues and feature needs cited alongside successful integrations and permissions.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Active Directory offers strong scalability, efficient user management, and adaptability, despite occasional management complexities in larger deployments.
Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
LastPass Business is generally reliable despite occasional stability issues, with two-factor authentication enhancing security and accessibility.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Active Directory is stable and reliable, though updates occasionally cause minor issues; scalability planning is crucial.
With multiple domain controllers, stability is ensured.
I've been working with Microsoft Active Directory for over 3 years, and we've had no problems.
 

Room For Improvement

LastPass Business struggles with inefficiencies in resource management, security features, and user functionality, prompting calls for enhanced capabilities.
Microsoft Active Directory requires updates in DNS services, interface, permissions, scalability, integration, security, and cost-effective cloud stability.
Sometimes, it can be overly complicated, and when you apply Group Policy in an Active Directory environment, sometimes those settings apply and sometimes they don't.
Exporting and verifying group memberships require command line scripts, which isn't simple.
There are some features that need improvements in terms of ease of use and frequency of updates.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers have mixed views on LastPass Business pricing due to recent increases, but appreciate flexibility and holistic value.
Microsoft Active Directory costs vary by user count and license type, with educational discounts and potential Azure savings available.
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing with Microsoft Active Directory is straightforward; you just buy the server and then have to buy the user CALs.
 

Valuable Features

LastPass Business offers extensive password management features emphasizing security, user friendliness, and integrations for efficient enterprise use.
Microsoft Active Directory offers easy configuration, centralized management, strong security, scalability, and integration with Azure AD and Office 365.
Having active deployment and well-configured systems helps me manage tasks and easily oversee thousands of users.
Permissions can be granted to a group or specific folder with one or two clicks in Active Directory.
I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.
 

Categories and Ranking

LastPass Business
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
22nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (17th), AIOps (30th)
Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of LastPass Business is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 3.3%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

MK
Straightforward to set up, good support, intuitive to use, and offers good value for the cost
The most valuable feature is being able to use a single master password to access all of your other passwords. One feature that is really important to us is the ability to create secure notes. In our scenario, these are notes such as how to get some of our devices on the network. They are processes and procedures that we don't want anybody else to see, especially within the IT department. It's a small department and we have very many processes that we use, but not on a daily basis, so we aren't going to remember them. By using LastPass and secure notes, we can go back to those notes in a secure fashion and remind ourselves how to do certain things. For instance, how to create a test database for accounting, which is something that we do once a year. We don't want that to be out in a non-secure fashion, where somebody in the public can see it.
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.
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865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
There are a few areas that could be improved with Microsoft Active Directory, along similar lines as Intune. Not too much on the support side, but on the Group Policy side, it doesn't always functi...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
The use cases for Microsoft Active Directory are managing all users on-premises. We have over 200 employees and multiple computers, approximately over 200 computers. We have shared computers and sh...
 

Also Known As

LastPass Enterprise, Lastpasss Teams
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deakin University, Duke University, Code.org, Influitive, PeopleKeys, SMA Technologies, Skynamo
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about LastPass Business vs. Microsoft Active Directory and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.