Microsoft Entra External ID vs. Microsoft Entra ID

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Entra External ID
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Entra External ID (formerly Azure Active Directory B2C, or alternately, Azure Active Directory External Identities) provides business-to-customer identity as a service. Customers can use their preferred social, enterprise, or local account identities to get single sign-on access to applications and APIs.
$0
per month per active users
Microsoft Entra ID
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Microsoft Azure Active Directory or Azure AD) is a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) solution supporting restricted access to applications with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) built-in, single sign-on (SSO), B2B collaboration controls, self-service password, and integration with Microsoft productivity and cloud storage (Office 365, OneDrive, etc) as well as 3rd party services.
$6
per user/per month
Pricing
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Editions & Modules
Premium P1 (for More than 50,000 MAU)
$0.00325
per month per active users
Premium P2 (for More than 50,000 MAU)
$0.01625
per month per active users
Premium P1
$6.00
per user/per month
Premium P2
$9.00
per user/per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA flat fee of $0.03 is billed for each SMS/Phone-based multi-factor authentication attempt.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Features
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Identity Management
Comparison of Identity Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Entra External ID
9.3
1 Ratings
13% above category average
Microsoft Entra ID
8.4
111 Ratings
3% above category average
ID-Management Access Control10.01 Ratings8.8109 Ratings
ID Management Single-Sign On (SSO)9.01 Ratings9.0109 Ratings
Multi-Factor Authentication10.01 Ratings9.0110 Ratings
Password Management10.01 Ratings8.2105 Ratings
Account Provisioning and De-provisioning10.01 Ratings8.3103 Ratings
ID Management Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings7.582 Ratings
ID Risk Management9.01 Ratings7.886 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Small Businesses
Dashlane Password Manager
Dashlane Password Manager
Score 9.0 out of 10
Dashlane Password Manager
Dashlane Password Manager
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
OneLogin by One Identity
OneLogin by One Identity
Score 9.6 out of 10
OneLogin by One Identity
OneLogin by One Identity
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
OneLogin by One Identity
OneLogin by One Identity
Score 9.6 out of 10
OneLogin by One Identity
OneLogin by One Identity
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(7 ratings)
8.9
(171 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(16 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.7
(28 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(21 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Entra External IDMicrosoft Entra ID
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
It is not easy to calculate the actual ROI due to the difficult quantification of all factors, but it certainly contributed a lot in protecting, monitoring and controlling access to our system. It also made it much easier to detect vulnerable external users with simple and "easy to hack" passwords they use on multiple apps.
Read full review
Microsoft
It is especially good for organizations that are otherwise in the Microsoft ecosystem (Microsoft 365 applications). Microsoft Entra ID is really well supported sign-in method in various SaaS-applications and they often have step-by-step guides how to deploy the SSO with Microsoft Entra ID. It's less suitable for organizations that might use other productivity tools than M365 or do not have Windows-based computers.
Read full review
Pros
Microsoft
  • One of the things that Microsoft Entra External ID does really well is creating user logins, accounts and profile. It is very easy to create them, manage them and delete them. It is fast and reliant.
  • Limit access or authorization feature. We can allow different levels of authorization and access. So that not all the employees would have access to all the data. Only some relaible employees would have access and power to change anything.
  • Mutli factor authentication feature is also a really good feature to secure data. Even overseas vendors need MFS to login which gives double protection to our data.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Single Sign-on helps ease the user experience, allowing users to avoid typing multiple passwords.
  • The identity and management are straightforward to use and easy to connect to other applications, as well as third-party applications.
  • The support of remote work. Nowadays, many people work from home and need to access their accounts. Microsoft Enterprise ID gives secure access to the company data.
Read full review
Cons
Microsoft
  • Troubleshooting diagnostic logs effectively requires VS Code
  • Group and role management requires additional effort
  • The programming model (XML) could use some developer experience love
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Probably the most primary thing is just the interface itself. It's frequently changing and so oftentimes we kind of have to go back and redocument our processes for our IT staff because the steps that they would take to perform a task one month. Now it's a totally different staff, new dashboard, even a new name for the product or the feature. So it would be nice if that stuff was a little bit more consistent.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
MSFT Entra ID has been essential for managing our geographically dispersed team. We're confident that it will scale with us as grow, and we'll be able to take advantage of additional security and ID management features as they become necessary. Being able to centrally manage our user access from anywhere with a small support team is such a relief.
Read full review
Usability
Microsoft
I find it easy to use. The usability is great. Every department uses it for different purposes. Everyone access information relevant to them. Since we've started to use this we have seen less security incidents.
Read full review
Microsoft
I mean it's pretty good. It is click, click. I mean, oftentimes I can go to the expert or layer two support to get help. Suddenly I go to them. So it has to be pretty useful to be honest. I do a lot of, and there's a lot of, you could do research quickly online to find out how to do certain things. I think that's the only thing we can improve to in terms of kind of a best practice path is setting up it. But because I'm it profess of tons of years in co-management services, I can figure it out. But for others they may not be able to figure it out. You still need an IT person of course to translate all of that. But to me pretty straightforward. I come from the days of directory from 2008, 2000, Microsoft server 2000.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
There has been a handful of outages but they have been either minimal or rarely severe
Read full review
Performance
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I could probably rate this a 10 but I'm always conservative on giving out perfect scored bt performance has not been a problem for us using Entra ID.
Read full review
Support Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I have not needed to engage support for anything at this time. I have been able to find the answers either online or in a knowledgebase. I tried to skip the question but it would not let me, so I rated a 9 based on other interactions with Microsoft support I have had
Read full review
Online Training
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Most training was internally produced
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Make sure you use a good partner. Our implementation was a bit longer and more problematic than we expected. Our partner got it done, but, in my opinion, some of their inexperience and staffing issues were evident.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
I really enjoy how simple it is to connect this Active Directory with other Microsoft Products to collaborate with colleagues and clients.
Read full review
Microsoft
We've used other Microsoft products and we've also used some standalone products, like each application you can have its own identity, so we've looked at some of those too, but we try to use the Entra ID as much as possible because it offers a wider range of reliability.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
The features are getting addresses per requirements and their value for Money. The proposed ROI and actual ROI build confidence.
Read full review
Scalability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Scalability is pretty trival for Entra ID. It's not difficult to manage a few or many accounts.
Read full review
Professional Services
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Microsoft Professional Services' technical knowledge is appreciable as consultants design the solution as per customer requirements. Mapping of features per user specifications and assisting Customer IT engineers to implement so they can manage and administer the services.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Having monthly active users billing was cost-effective.
  • Helped with the IT support that was already managing the Azure platform of the company; this helped to manage the costs better and optimize them.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • I think it's had positive. It's enabled us to make authentication easier and more streamlined across the organization from frontline workers to back office workers.
  • It's allowed us to really adopt authentication policies and methods that suit that user and their work environment.
Read full review
ScreenShots