AWS IAM Identity Center vs Microsoft Active Directory comparison

AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Microsoft Active Directory

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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

5.9

AWS IAM Identity Center enhances security, compliance, efficiency, and cost management through centralized access control and streamlined processes.

Sentiment score

4.4

Microsoft Active Directory enhances efficiency and access control, providing value through centralized management despite lacking direct ROI calculation.

The return on investment includes operational efficiency gains, security risk reduction, compliance with regulations, improved user experience, productivity benefits, reduced overhead, and better security posture.

Khaled Saidi

DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising

We have achieved significant time efficiencies with AWS IAM Identity Center.

Vishal-Saxena

Director of Engineering at Infosys

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware

Customer Service

Sentiment score

5.9

AWS IAM Identity Center documentation is detailed; users appreciate support plans, though some miss visuals and live chat.

Sentiment score

5.5

Microsoft Active Directory support is inconsistent, with varying response quality, reliance on online resources, and better service via premium options.

AWS provides immediate solutions and assistance whenever needed, especially if issues arise that cannot be handled internally.

Vishal-Saxena

Director of Engineering at Infosys

They are prompt, keep you updated, and provide excellent assistance.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions

AWS offers better assistance plans for their services.

Vedant Bhosle

Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Support documents are available on the internet in every language.

Kadir Kokcu

Owner at a computer software company with 1-10 employees

If you purchase retail, the support will be more difficult because they will assess the priority or rating from the customer.

IT Operations & Security at veris

Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

AWS IAM Identity Center efficiently manages growth, offers scalability, and integrates well for enterprises despite permission management challenges.

Sentiment score

6.2

Microsoft Active Directory is scalable and integrates well, but faces challenges at larger scales, suggesting hybrid solutions.

AWS Identity Center successfully supports scalable deployments, allowing additional resources as the company grows.

NGOUFACK Freddy

AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K

The scalability of AWS IAM Identity Center is excellent.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions

It can handle both a small number of users and a bigger number of users efficiently.

Arthur Gregorius

AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial

Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.9

AWS IAM Identity Center is highly reliable with 99.96% uptime, stable performance, and smooth integration despite occasional page refresh issues.

Sentiment score

6.4

Microsoft Active Directory is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues not significantly affecting performance.

There can be issues if there is an outage on AWS's side, which could prevent logging in because your region might be down, affecting the Identity Center's availability.

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

It offers 99.96% uptime.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions

Stability-wise, it is functioning well without any outages or crashes.

Arthur Gregorius

AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial

If you meet the installation requirements from Microsoft, it will be very stable.

IT Operations & Security at veris

With multiple domain controllers, stability is ensured.

Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware

I've been working with Microsoft Active Directory for over 3 years, and we've had no problems.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Room For Improvement

AWS IAM Identity Center needs UI, integration, and automation improvements for better user management, security, and onboarding experiences.

Microsoft Active Directory needs improvements in usability, integration, security updates, synchronization, setup, reporting, support, scalability, and email group sync.

Having a lot of users on one instance is hard to configure, so I hope for more flexibility and ease in configuration.

Arthur Gregorius

AWS Certification Full Stack Cloud Engineer at Social Economic Accelerator LabSocial

Enhancements could include automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts, simplifying the process.

Khaled Saidi

DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising

When configuring it with third-party tools, like Active Directory, the naming convention of permission sets requires careful attention, which can be confusing.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Exporting and verifying group memberships require command line scripts, which isn't simple.

Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware

There are some features that need improvements in terms of ease of use and frequency of updates.

Stelios Georgiou

Information Technology Specialist at stelios@biolandenergy.com

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Setup Cost

AWS IAM Identity Center is cost-effective with free basic functionality, though premium features may incur additional charges.

Microsoft Active Directory pricing varies by region and model; Azure offers cost-effective solutions for large enterprises despite perceived expense.

AWS IAM Identity Center is available as a free service by default.

NGOUFACK Freddy

AWS Cloud Engineer at BINO-K

It is not that expensive, rated at three out of ten for costs.

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Pricing for AWS IAM Identity Center is very affordable, rated at two out of ten with one being cheap.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

AWS DevOps Engineer at CTB Solutions

For the cloud solution in our region, the pricing of Microsoft Active Directory is very high.

Magdy Ali

Network & Security Section Head/Digital Transformation at a government with 201-500 employees

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.

Giovanni Baruzzi

Owner at Syntlogo GmbH

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Network Security Administrator at a retailer with 51-200 employees

Valuable Features

AWS IAM Identity Center streamlines role management, enhances security with MFA, and simplifies access control and policy configuration.

Microsoft Active Directory simplifies management with integration, group policies, and scalable operations across on-premises and cloud environments.

It provides the least privilege-based access control, which limits users to only the operations they need to perform without interfering with unrelated configurations.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS IAM Identity Center report

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

These features allow for excellent micro-level control over resources, ensuring specific permissions are granted.

Vedant Bhosle

Strategist | Webops and Blockchain at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Its valuable features include granular access control, allowing precise control over who can access specific AWS resources and under what conditions using JSON-based policies.

Khaled Saidi

DevOps Engineer | Cloud Architect & Automation Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, AWS EKS at Phoenix Marketing & Advertising

To assess the impact of Microsoft Active Directory's centralized domain management on security protocols and access permissions, Microsoft Active Directory itself has constraints with security because when we have a solution such as SSO or Single Sign-On, which makes it easier for users to log in, some parts have security openings.

IT Operations & Security at veris

One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Active Directory report

Senior Consutant at HCLSoftware

I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.

Stelios Georgiou

Information Technology Specialist at stelios@biolandenergy.com

Categories and Ranking

AWS IAM Identity Center

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

8th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (7th)

Microsoft Active Directory

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Active Directory Management (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
AWS IAM Identity Center	2.3%
Microsoft Active Directory	3.3%
Other	94.4%

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Featured Reviews

Kteams Michael

Web developer at King of CMS Consulting

Centralized access control has improved team collaboration but still needs a simpler onboarding

One of the best features AWS IAM Identity Center offers is the permission set, which is one of the best. Then there are the temporary credentials via SSO, the multi-account governance, and the centralized identity management. Those are good features that I believe assist developers, and another feature I can say is one of the best is the improved security with temporary credentials. The feature I find myself relying on the most day-to-day would be the centralized identity management and multi-account governance. It allows me to check what other developers are doing and since I am the admin, I can also revoke the access they have to the AWS accounts.

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Has simplified credential management and improved secure access control across departments

IT Operations & Security at veris

The features I find most useful in Microsoft Active Directory are especially for the Single Sign-On. This is very useful for users, particularly if they have plenty of applications, such as tablet applications. When they log in to their computer, the application will automatically log in with their credentials. They don't need to remember another user and password to log in to the application because it's already maintained with Microsoft Active Directory using Single Sign-On. To assess the impact of Microsoft Active Directory's centralized domain management on security protocols and access permissions, Microsoft Active Directory itself has constraints with security because when we have a solution such as SSO or Single Sign-On, which makes it easier for users to log in, some parts have security openings. When their computer is compromised with a threat, malware, or other cyber threats, it becomes easier to enter the application without login permission.

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884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Marketing Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS IAM Identity Center?

The product is easy for beginners to learn and use.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS IAM Identity Center?

AWS provides the lowest pricing among other service providers like Azure, Google, Oracle. It is cost-effective, and they use a pay-as-you-go model.

What needs improvement with AWS IAM Identity Center?

I think AWS IAM Identity Center can be improved by making it beginner-friendly. It was very hard for me to navigate initially because the UI was very complicated. I had to do a lot of research and ...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?

The best way to protect this is to use Microsoft Defender. For Microsoft support for Microsoft Active Directory, I would rate it as eight. If I give it 10, it would be too perfect. Eight is fair. M...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?

My main use cases for Microsoft Active Directory are to manage user access and credentials.

What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Active Directory?

Regarding Microsoft Active Directory's integration with third-party applications, it depends on the requirements. It's not always linked or combined with Microsoft Active Directory. In my experienc...

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Product Reports

AWS IAM Identity Center

Download AWS IAM Identity Center product report

Microsoft Active Directory

Download Microsoft Active Directory product report

Also Known As

AWS Single Sign On, AWS SSO

No data available

Overview

AWS IAM Identity Center is the recommended service for managing your workforce's access to AWS applications or your multiple AWS accounts (or both). It is a flexible solution that can be used to connect your existing identity source or help you create users in AWS. IAM Identity Center can be used alongside your existing AWS account access configurations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Active Directory stores information about objects on the network and makes this information easy for administrators and users to find and use. Active Directory uses a structured data store as the basis for a logical, hierarchical organization of directory information.

This data store, also known as the directory, contains information about Active Directory objects. These objects typically include shared resources such as servers, volumes, printers, and the network user and computer accounts.

Security is integrated with Active Directory through logon authentication and access control to objects in the directory. With a single network logon, administrators can manage directory data and organization throughout their network, and authorized network users can access resources anywhere on the network. Policy-based administration eases the management of even the most complex network.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Information Not Available

AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Microsoft Active Directory