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Azure Front Door vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.6
Azure Front Door offers cost savings and efficient management, yielding a clear return on investment despite initial transition uncertainties.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Entra ID improves efficiency and security, reduces costs, and enhances performance with integrated security and automated identity management.
Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.
We leverage existing licensing, like Windows Server or SQL, and hybrid benefits, and our sales and marketing teams benefit from co-selling and partnership advantages.
We get a return from not needing to pay other vendors to do what we already had from Microsoft, which was better than the competition.
The return on investment comes from not needing as many IT staff to manage and verify user identity and ensuring seamless device connection without needing to administer device compliance manually.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Front Door receives high marks for customer service, with users praising knowledgeable support staff and clear documentation.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Entra ID support is generally positive but quality varies; premium options offer faster and more expert assistance.
I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.
The actual support when you get to that level is a ten out of ten.
There are immediate answers to any issues that arise with great knowledge and a deep understanding of the product and business needs.
They usually try to deflect, buy time, and often do not address the problem immediately.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable solutions for enterprises, enhancing performance and managing applications efficiently despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID offers seamless scalability and integration, effectively supporting diverse and large-scale enterprise operations globally.
I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.
I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.
We experienced no scalability issues with Microsoft Entra ID.
Its scalability is impressive, aided by Microsoft's efforts to expand its data centers.
When dealing with tens of thousands of objects, it requires proper management and best practices to retrieve only necessary data.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Azure Front Door is praised for high stability and reliability, though some DNS management issues are occasionally noted.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Entra ID is praised for its stability and reliability, despite minor MFA issues and occasional sluggish response times.
I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.
It's a critical solution that we can't do without.
The stability of the solution is very high at 99.999%.
We rarely had significant problems or crashes.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Front Door requires enhancements in multi-cloud support, load balancing, IP support, latency, UI, pricing, rules, monitoring, and APIs.
Microsoft Entra ID requires better documentation, integration, user interfaces, pricing clarity, support, stability, and enhanced features for improved functionality.
If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.
The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.
A recent incident we dealt with took four months to resolve with a seven-day deadline, which was quite frustrating.
Synchronization issues occasionally occur, making it challenging to analyze logs and pinpoint the exact problem.
There is a need for better transformation support from on-premises Active Directory policies to the cloud, as Entra ID doesn't cover this sufficiently yet.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Front Door's pay-as-you-go pricing offers flexibility, with costs and value balancing for various project needs.
Microsoft Entra ID offers flexible user-based pricing and licensing tiers, with discounts for educational and nonprofit organizations.
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
We are getting our money's worth.
Microsoft sets pricing based on customer demand, adjusting to find the optimal balance between sales volume and profit per unit, similar to how Costco manages product prices.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Front Door provides scalable, secure, and affordable solutions with advanced features like SSL offloading, load balancing, and DDoS protection.
Microsoft Entra ID enhances security and efficiency with features like single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and seamless third-party integration.
Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.
Azure Front Door includes a built-in web application firewall, which performs signature-based checks of the request payload, offering protection against common attacks or malicious requests.
We can secure the applications that we are building and make sure that if the application were to be compromised, there is no full access to a customer's environment causing issues and other security concerns.
It's integrated with Microsoft technologies like Authenticator, SSO, and MFA, streamlining operations and creating a seamless environment.
The granular control, such as preventing logins from specific locations, enhances security significantly.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Front Door
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 9.5%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides great security with a good application firewall
The initial setup is straightforward. If you want to use the portal, CLI, or PowerShare, or you want to use automation data for one month, it's straightforward. Even when it comes to operational maintenance, it's pretty easy and straightforward. Microsoft has done a great job on that front. Maintenance generally requires someone who is a cloud administrator or similar to maintain services in general, with Front Door a small piece of a larger maintenance requirement. There's not a lot to manage, the configuration is simple. I encourage people to document the configuration and infrastructure as well as disaster recovery in case anything happens.
Bahram Piri - PeerSpot reviewer
Security focus and seamless implementation increase platform productivity
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved in many ways, and there's a big wish list.If we're focusing on security, something that I definitely expect is improvement in the UI and UX for frontline workers. This is important, especially for non-tech savvy individuals. It is something Microsoft Entra ID could do to improve for a wider audience. It's important to focus on the frontline workers since they are non-tech savvy individuals. They are not like those back-office engineering C-level employees who are constantly dealing with computers, and we need to build a specific user experience and user interface for them to handle this stuff. That's something I expect Microsoft to focus on more for Microsoft Entra ID.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?
I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.
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 do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Regarding pricing, for the services we receive, it seems within the market range and about average.
 

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.