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Microsoft Entra ID vs Thales SafeNet Trusted Access comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

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

Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (3rd), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
19th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
25th
Ranking in Access Management
27th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 9.1%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID9.1%
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access2.0%
Other88.9%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
GauravMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Simple to use, easy to set up, and performs well
I'm not saying that we want to switch the product, however, since the requirement has increased, we are looking at other options that may be better suited. The scalability may not there. We have a few specific use cases where we have to avoid the cloud. Especially in Europe, we're not allowed to carry their phone in factories. We need some sort of secure access solution. There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure. I am paying to SafeNet and in parallel, I also need to pay Microsoft to use the same service. That makes no sense, to pay double. If they could do something about it, that would be very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bringing our many hundreds of applications onto Azure Active Directory single sign-on authentication has had a big impact on users' productivity, usage, and adoption of enterprise applications because they don't need to log in."
"The solution has a variety of tools. Two of the most valuable features are the ability to create users and to replicate the user account from on-premise to the cloud."
"Microsoft customer service is the best in the industry."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to set up conditional access, where you can enforce users to connect using multifactor authentication, which means that users who are accessing the applications remotely are authentic."
"Microsoft Entra ID identity platform is feature-rich, allowing for a lot of integration as a single identity model."
"The centralized management with the single sign-on feature of Microsoft Entra ID has been huge, and that aspect has been nice as a data point demonstrating the ROI."
"Personally, I'm a great fan of Azure Active Directory due to the security and compliance features that are there in the classic or default Azure Active Directory."
"It is a central point where we provide the cloud lock-in for our company. We focus the multi-factor authentication within Azure AD before jumping to other clouds or software as a service offerings. So, it is the central point when you need to access something for our company within the cloud. You go to Azure AD and can authenticate there, then you move from there to the target destination or the single sign-on."
"The interface is easy to use."
"I recommend this solution because it protects information."
"Right now, we only have a small use case for the product, however, it has performed well."
"The solution is simple to use."
"The validation and integrity features of the endpoint are great."
 

Cons

"If any service is down, it can affect a whole region. We would need to wait on a ticket and get word from Microsoft to understand the issues. If it takes longer to resolve the issue on Microsoft's side, all we can do is wait for them to fix it."
"I believe instead of putting everything in a single form under Microsoft Entra ID, it would be best for Microsoft to segregate these features."
"The stability and reliability of Microsoft Entra ID is assessed as good, other than typical outages that every cloud service provider deals with."
"The integration between the Azure active directory and the traditional active directory could be improved upon."
"If your organization requires additional security then the subscription will be more expensive."
"Compatibility features for legacy system integration with new features will be challenging at times."
"My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been that it is pretty complex."
"The Azure AD Application Proxy, which helps you publish applications in a secure way, has room for improvement. We are moving from another solution into the Application Proxy and it's quite detailed. Depending on the role you're signing in as, you can end up at different websites, which wasn't an issue with our old solution."
"SafeNet's reporting and monitoring features could be improved."
"There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure."
"The scalability may not be there."
"I'd like to see more networking features, such as the ability to integrate network monitoring solutions and authenticate the app users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model makes it difficult to understand the real cost of the solution, especially because it changes all the time."
"Microsoft Azure AD has P1 or P2 licensing options, and it depends on the customer's needs. To use Conditional Access, you need to have the P1 license, and to use the PIN features, you need the P2 license."
"Pricing-wise, they offer a stepladder approach. You can start with the lowest level features, then start increasing based on new requirements."
"The pricing for Azure Active Directory is affordable; I would rate the cost a six out of ten."
"Most features of Entra ID are part of Microsoft's ecosystem and included in Microsoft 365 bundles, which means there are no additional costs associated with pricing and licensing."
"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."
"Microsoft is so expensive. You know it is expensive when a Fortune 100 company like ours is complaining about the cost. That has been a big thing for me. When I really want to use an Azure service, it is very hard for me to justify the cost, especially with Microsoft support."
"Entra ID is not too bad, but Microsoft licensing generally is insane. Most customers normally buy a bundle license with Microsoft 365, E3, or E5. Out of our 2,000 customers, for 99.9% of our customers, the Entra ID license that they are getting through the part of that would be sufficient. There are some more advanced ones that give you a bit more functionality, but we probably have not had a customer for that. We do not even internally use that ourselves. When you buy the Entra ID license on its own, it is probably three or four pounds. You just get it included in the license."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
11%
Performing Arts
9%
Legal Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise41
Large Enterprise162
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
SafeNet Trusted Access, Gemalto SafeNet Trusted Access
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
IBM, Western Union, Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, Novartis, and AT&T.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Thales SafeNet Trusted Access and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.