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LastPass vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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
5.5
Users experienced positive ROI with LastPass by increasing productivity, reducing support calls, and improving security through streamlined password management.
Sentiment score
8.8
Microsoft Active Directory offers value by streamlining user management, justifying investment despite limited direct financial calculations.
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
LastPass customer service is mixed, with positive comments on quick help, but issues with contact difficulty and email support.
Sentiment score
5.9
Active Directory support receives mixed reviews, with delays and quality varying; premium service improves assistance but adds cost.
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
LastPass efficiently manages passwords for businesses, integrates seamlessly with devices, and offers strong multi-user management despite minor performance dips.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Active Directory is scalable for thousands but faces challenges in large infrastructures, with cloud migration as a solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Users praise LastPass for its reliability, security features, cross-platform performance, and efficient autofill, despite occasional minor glitches.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Active Directory is stable and reliable, highly rated by users, effectively scalable, with minimal downtime or performance issues.
With multiple domain controllers, stability is ensured.
 

Room For Improvement

Users criticized LastPass for slow performance, sync issues, security concerns, poor customer service, and an outdated design.
Microsoft Active Directory needs interface, security, integration, and scalability improvements, focusing on user experience, migration, and reporting features.
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.
AI is offering solutions.
 

Setup Cost

<p>LastPass offers affordable plans for Teams and Enterprises, praised for security, user management, performance, and customer support.</p>
Microsoft Active Directory offers moderate pricing, often packaged with Windows OS, with cloud services like Azure being more cost-effective.
 

Valuable Features

Users praise LastPass for its strong security, password management, autofill, cross-device sync, and business features like shared folders and admin controls.
Microsoft Active Directory offers robust user management, security, and seamless integration with Microsoft products, ideal for large network management.
One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs.
I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.
Having active deployment and well-configured systems helps me manage tasks and easily oversee thousands of users.
 

Categories and Ranking

LastPass
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
21st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (17th), AIOps (28th)
Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of LastPass is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 3.0%, up from 2.3% 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.
Rajitha Abhisheka - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that easily merges with cloud-based ADs and provides superior data security
The interface for logs should be user-friendly and allow for enhanced filtering to drill down to incidents. It is time consuming to get a clear picture and review deviations in conditional policies because you have to check each and every log to find information on malicious attacks, a compromised end-user's account, or phishing emails. The logs for sign-ins and auditing should be available for more than a 30-90 day window. Most logs are displayed in UTC but it would be helpful to include time conversions for tenant regions. Currently, we must do time conversions manually before we contact users to share information and troubleshoot issues.
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850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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?
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

LastPass Business, LastPass Enterprise, Lastpasss
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 vs. Microsoft Active Directory and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.