Microsoft Entra ID vs. Zscaler Internet Access

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zscaler Internet Access™ (ZIA) is a secure web gateway (SWG), delivering cloud native cyberthreat protection and zero trust access to the internet and SaaS apps.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Editions & Modules
Premium P1
$6.00
per user/per month
Premium P2
$9.00
per user/per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Features
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Identity Management
Comparison of Identity Management features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Entra ID
8.5
114 Ratings
3% above category average
Zscaler Internet Access
5.0
2 Ratings
56% below category average
ID-Management Access Control8.9112 Ratings00 Ratings
ID Management Single-Sign On (SSO)9.1112 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Factor Authentication9.1113 Ratings5.02 Ratings
Password Management8.2107 Ratings00 Ratings
Account Provisioning and De-provisioning8.4106 Ratings00 Ratings
ID Management Workflow Automation7.785 Ratings00 Ratings
ID Risk Management7.989 Ratings00 Ratings
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Entra ID
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
10.0
2 Ratings
10% above category average
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Threat Intelligence
Comparison of Threat Intelligence features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Entra ID
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
8.4
137 Ratings
8% above category average
Network Analytics00 Ratings8.3137 Ratings
Threat Recognition00 Ratings8.1134 Ratings
Vulnerability Classification00 Ratings8.4120 Ratings
Automated Alerts and Reporting00 Ratings8.3130 Ratings
Threat Analysis00 Ratings8.7128 Ratings
Threat Intelligence Reporting00 Ratings8.5127 Ratings
Automated Threat Identification00 Ratings8.5124 Ratings
Zero Trust Security
Comparison of Zero Trust Security features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Entra ID
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
8.8
160 Ratings
1% above category average
Continuous Verification00 Ratings8.6147 Ratings
Secure Web Gateways00 Ratings8.9142 Ratings
Network Flow Control00 Ratings8.7132 Ratings
Network Traffic Analysis00 Ratings8.6133 Ratings
Segmentation Leveraging00 Ratings8.1119 Ratings
Admin Access Control00 Ratings9.0141 Ratings
Network Data Encryption00 Ratings8.9129 Ratings
Network Topology Mapping00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
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Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
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RSA Access Manager (Discontinued)
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Enterprises
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 8.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(170 ratings)
8.9
(183 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(16 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(28 ratings)
8.4
(167 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
5.5
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(21 ratings)
8.2
(8 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Entra IDZscaler Internet Access
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
Microsoft Entra ID provides powerful and reliable identity and access management capabilities that enhance secure authentication and authorization for cloud systems. Offer modern security features, including MFA, conditional access, and threat intelligence, to protect identities and prevent unauthorized access. Single Sign-On allows us to access multiple apps with just a single login.
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Zscaler
It's best suited for a distributed remote workforce, securing internet access for users from anywhere. Suitable for highly regulated industries, such as banking and Healthcare. Not a good fit for an organisation where most of its legacy is in an on-premises environment. Bandwidth-intensive industries like media/entertainment firms.
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Pros
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.
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Zscaler
  • Single Pane of Glass Management - Everything is very easy to access and monitor the entire environment from an internet security perspective.
  • Install Flexibility - We can and do install Zscaler Internet Access on both our client devices as well as our SD-WAN appliances and servers. This allows us to control internet security even on devices without an agent in our networks.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • For larger organizations the policy management user interface gets complex
  • Security group nesting limitations - you cannot always nest groups within groups depending on the group types and use case
  • Price gets high if you need the enterprise or P2 premium licenses
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Zscaler
  • The logs feel kind of lack luster
  • When issues are arising with SSL Inspection, logs show everything working despite end user experience
  • Could use some kind of global find functionality or something that would allow you to search the entire configuration for matching URLs and the like
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Zscaler
While Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) delivers critical value in cloud security and RBI compliance, I rate renewal likelihood 7/10 due to evolving needs versus platform limitations. Below is my rationale:
Key Gaps:
1. Advanced Threat Costs:
ZIA’s add-ons (e.g., Advanced DLP, Sandboxing) incur 35%+ cost premiums – straining budgets as transaction volumes (UPI/iMobile) grow 50% YoY.
2. API Banking Scalability:
ZIA’s API rate limits throttle real-time policy sync during UPI peaks (10K+ TPS), forcing workarounds for finacle integrations.
3. RBI Future-Proofing:
Limited native support for upcoming digital rupee (CBDC) security rules requires custom development, increasing compliance overhead.
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Usability
Microsoft
Simply because of what I mentioned earlier, the feature set sort of keeps changing and they do a lot of, they integrated with a lot of the other tools and so for users who are not as well seasoned, it may be a little bit more complicated for them to begin working within the tool.
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Zscaler
The application is easy to install and configure on all Windows devices. To troubleshoot any internet issue, we can easily collect all the relevant logs from Zscaler and check the exact issue. The only problem is with the uninstall, as a dedicated crew needs to provide the password.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
There has been a handful of outages but they have been either minimal or rarely severe
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Performance
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.
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Zscaler
There are often performance issues reported
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Support Rating
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
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Zscaler
Zscaler's ZIA support is quick and knowledgable. They respond within 1-2 hours of you submitting your ticket. They are very thorough and are typically ready to jump on a live troubleshooting session. Our ZIA platform and how we use is it unique so at times tickets can be open for weeks but we alway get quality support compared to other unrelated product support in our enterprise
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Online Training
Microsoft
Most training was internally produced
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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.
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Yeah, so basically that product to be honest, was more of a getting comfortable with cloud identification management. So that was a product I used. It has all the policies for desktops and doing updates and all that central directory identity provisioning stuff for users. Users and I will have an advantage because right now you get it from the time you get email, you get it, it is there, right? I mean you don't have to pay for anything. And then Microsoft, depending on your interest file license you have Access to Defender and all of those other nice products that compliment Entra ID. So I think that Entra ID is more rich. There's more potential as the business scales if that other product, you can't really scale as much as it was good because I deal with a lot of small medium size enterprises. I do a lot of more consulting type firms. They don't have more than 20 consultants and they just need a system whether it's for their legal activities, finance activities, et cetera. But in terms of having an email is very important to so many companies. So it's so easy to use the Entra ID and easy to expand more value for money for clients.
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Zscaler
Zscaler Intenet Access outperformed the competition due to its lightning-fast policy delivery and cross-compatibility. It is easy to track employee usage and block unnecessary websites, reducing company internet usage. Zscalar installed on every system increases cloud-based software bandwidth, decreasing user turnaround time and increasing efficiency.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Microsoft
The features are getting addresses per requirements and their value for Money. The proposed ROI and actual ROI build confidence.
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Microsoft
Scalability is pretty trival for Entra ID. It's not difficult to manage a few or many accounts.
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
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.
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Zscaler
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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.
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Zscaler
  • Has allowed us to remove other products that were suboptimal
  • Saved us money overall by stacking it with other Zscaler products
  • Created a more secure work environment for our users through intelligent internet policies that are not needlessly restrictive while still maintaining security best practices
Read full review
ScreenShots

Zscaler Internet Access Screenshots

Screenshot of an overview of Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA), a cloud native security service edge (SSE) solution that builds on a decade of secure web gateway leadership. Offered as a scalable SaaS platform through Zscaler's security cloud, it replaces legacy network security solutions, preventing advanced attacks and data loss with a comprehensive zero trust approach. ZIA is integrated into the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ to provide superior defense-in-depth, secure connectivity, end user experience, and administrative visibility and control.