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ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 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
6.5
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus reduces costs and boosts business value by enhancing compliance, risk management, and preventing security incidents.
Sentiment score
5.0
Microsoft Active Directory enhances productivity by streamlining user management and access control, providing significant time and cost savings.
Feedback from clients indicates their keen interest in the product, as it allows for easy budget approval without needing an advisory board meeting.
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
5.7
Customers appreciate ManageEngine ADAudit Plus support for its prompt response and effective assistance, despite occasional developer delays.
Sentiment score
5.7
Microsoft Active Directory support quality varies; users experience mixed results influenced by representatives' skills and response times.
Customer service is effective, even for new users who need guidance on complex issues.
I would give their support a nine out of ten, where one is bad and ten is very good.
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
8.2
ADAudit Plus is highly scalable, handling extensive file servers and Active Directory, with successful migration and adaptability reports.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Active Directory is scalable, adaptable for diverse users, and effective for organizations of all sizes with Azure integration.
This product is highly scalable and supports easy migration.
I rate the scalability as eight out of ten.
Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is stable, quickly resolves issues, excels in identity management, and receives high user satisfaction ratings.
Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Active Directory is stable and reliable, with high ratings, minor issues, praised scalability, and requires proactive growth planning.
When compared to similar products like Accenture Plus or Reminder Plus, this solution excels in identity access management.
I am totally satisfied with the functionality of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus, and my clients are totally satisfied as well.
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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus requires improved custom reports, interfaces, integration, and documentation for better usability and diverse environment support.
Microsoft Active Directory requires improved integration, security, synchronization, usability, scalability, and support to better serve organizational needs.
Activity monitoring is cost-effective, workstation monitoring can be challenging without additional training.
Having more interactive reports with a better graphical user interface would be beneficial.
I would like to generate reports on users who have not logged into the Active Directory for a specific period, but this feature is not available.
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.
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.
 

Setup Cost

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is cost-effective with flexible perpetual or subscription licensing, offering significant value and affordability.
Active Directory costs differ by organization, often moderate to high, with cloud solutions like Azure reducing expenses for some.
It is cost-effective.
I consider the pricing for ADAudit Plus a bit high compared to other software solutions, so I would rate it around two or three on the pricing scale.
For the cloud solution in our region, the pricing of Microsoft Active Directory is very high.
I consider Microsoft Active Directory expensive because if you buy this thing bundled with the Windows Directory Server, you get five user licenses for about a thousand euros, or a little bit less than this.
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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides real-time AD monitoring with user analytics, detailed reports, and security enhancements for anomaly detection.
Microsoft Active Directory provides integration, scalability, access control, and security, making it vital for large organizations seeking efficient management.
All changes are recorded immediately in real-time and reported for forensic analysis of incidents including who created them, what exactly changed, and what were the old and new values for the attributes.
Engineers can receive reports and log details within one to five seconds, which is essential for monitoring user activity swiftly and effectively.
The audit functionality and the ability to share user-based reports with management are significant advantages.
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

ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
Ranking in Active Directory Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Active Directory Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is 10.7%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 6.2%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus10.7%
Microsoft Active Directory6.2%
Other83.1%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Md Abdul Hakim - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced monitoring enhances user tracking that's cost-effective
I have been involved with this product for the last three years, participating in service and support within our company. We are currently supporting over 30 companies. This month, we deployed the solution for three companies, including two RMGs and one private bank in Bangladesh. The popularity of this product is due to its active directory monitoring abilities. Engineers can receive reports and log details within one to five seconds, which is essential for monitoring user activity swiftly and effectively. This product is very well-liked in Bangladesh due to user tracking, failed logins, and Jar reports for any Barna activity or execution. This solution's popularity extends through comprehensive auditing capabilities.
Giovanni Baruzzi - PeerSpot reviewer
Mature technology delivers consistent capability and enhances centralized user management
I think Microsoft Active Directory could be more intuitive. My impression of the integration of Microsoft Active Directory with third-party applications is that it can be made better. It's not the tendency of Microsoft to use a standard, but to modify it to their needs. This is catastrophic if you have to integrate other applications that use the same standard. This creates a major problem, so you have to be very careful and implement step by step, knowing that the partner is Microsoft. I would leave Microsoft Active Directory as it is and build possibly interfaces. For example, there is a provisioning protocol standard named SCIM. It seems that Microsoft Active Directory does not yet have a SCIM interface, which is a problem.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ADAudit Plus is its reports.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ADAudit Plus?
An area of improvement for ManageEngine ADAudit Plus could be in graphical reporting, as currently, it's limited with old school bar charts, and having more interactive reports with a better graphi...
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?
I think Microsoft Active Directory could be more intuitive. My impression of the integration of Microsoft Active Directory with third-party applications is that it can be made better. It's not the ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
My usual use case for Microsoft Active Directory is to share groups of authorization among many different applications. The other use case for Microsoft Active Directory is the authentication of us...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warsaw City Hall, Acument Global Technologies, Inc., Cosma International, Bank of South Pacific, Life Management Center, Central Bank, UncleBob's Self Storage, Leeds Building Society, California Transplant Donor Network, First Response, Blessing Hospital, Northern Land Council, RMK Marine
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Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ADAudit Plus vs. Microsoft Active Directory and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,089 professionals have used our research since 2012.