Microsoft Entra ID vs Venafi comparison

Microsoft and CyberArk are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while CyberArk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 15.9% mindshare in AS, compared to CyberArk’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of CyberArk users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Entra ID

Read 234 Microsoft Entra ID reviews

9,863 Views
7,461 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Venafi

Read 8 Venafi reviews

780 Views
353 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Entra ID

Venafi

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Venafi and Microsoft Entra ID are strong competitors in the identity management space. Microsoft Entra ID seems to have the upper hand due to its robust feature set and seamless integration with other Microsoft products.

What features are offered by Venafi in comparison to Microsoft Entra ID?

Venafi is known for its security automation, detailed logging and monitoring, and management capabilities. Microsoft Entra ID offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, comprehensive identity protection, and a robust feature set.

What areas of improvement can be found in Venafi in comparison to Microsoft Entra ID?

Venafi users mention a steep learning curve, complexity in configuration, and technical issues. Microsoft Entra ID improvements focus on cost, complexity issues with scaling, and cost efficiency.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of Venafi in comparison to Microsoft Entra ID?

Venafi's deployment can be complex and time-consuming, but their customer support is highly rated. Microsoft Entra ID offers straightforward deployment with extensive support resources provided by Microsoft, although direct support experiences can vary.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with Venafi in comparison to Microsoft Entra ID?

Venafi's setup cost is often seen as high but provides positive ROI due to enhanced security. Microsoft Entra ID has higher setup costs, but the extensive feature set justifies the investment, offering a more compelling ROI for users.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Entra ID vs. Venafi Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. Venafi

April 2025

Download the complete report

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Entra ID

Ranking in Authentication Systems

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

234

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)

Venafi

Ranking in Authentication Systems

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 15.9%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Venafi is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Bahram Piri

Chief Executive Officer & Founder at IDmelon Technologies

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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Adam Goldstein

Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Automates certificate management across platforms and has enhanced integration support

Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively. We integrated it with GlobalSign and aimed to automate DNS verification, although challenges remained. Venafi's platform-agnostic nature was beneficial for handling certificates across different systems like IIS, AWS, and Azure. It ensures centralized certificate management, which is crucial for compliance and maintaining best practices. It significantly improved our operational efficiency by automating certificate workflows. This reduced the number of certificates requiring manual management, freeing internal resources from deploying trivial certificates. While some complex certificates still needed manual intervention, automating simpler ones eliminated internal bottlenecks associated with tasks like uploading certificates to Imperva. By automating these processes, we reduced errors, streamlined workflows, and eliminated the need to repeatedly remember and execute complex procedures, ultimately increasing our overall operational efficiency. The automation capabilities are good; when properly configured, it performs as expected.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I appreciate the most about Microsoft Entra ID is that it integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, which streamlines the process."

"Entra ID's ability to sync with the local Active Directory provides redundancy, allowing authentication via cloud features even if the local Active Directory faces issues. The SSO features with app registrations are also crucial, as we use Azure globally, allowing role and permission assignments directly from Entra."

"It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."

"The stability of Microsoft Entra ID is very great."

"I like that you can run it on-premises. I also like that I can use Azure at any time as the main one."

"Privilege identity management is the most valuable feature."

"For some applications, it's not only working for authentication but it's also being used to apply roles for users. From the management perspective, it's much better to have this because in the past we constantly needed to go into the console of the different solutions and create or delete users or modify their roles and permissions. Now, with Azure Active Directory, we can do that from a single point. That makes our management model much easier."

"Federated identity management is a great feature for the zero-trust model."

More Microsoft Entra ID pros

"We use Venafi for PKI certificates."

"The support is definitely great. What I like best about Venafi is that it's very easy to get somebody on a call and get any of my questions answered. That's probably the biggest thing. Besides the fact that it's a mature product and it works, the support is a big deal."

"We have reduced 80% to 90% of our outages with Venafi, which impacts the revenue substantially."

"What I appreciate most about Venafi is that it is very easy to use, easy to implement, and easy to navigate, which simplifies the certification-creation process."

"The most valuable feature of Venafi is the automation that helps save time and reduce human error."

"The feature that I have found most valuable is their certificate discovery."

"Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively."

"Venafi is super stable, and we experienced no issues with its stability."

More Venafi pros

Cons

"I would like them to improve the dashboard by presenting the raw data in a more visual way for the logs and events. That would help us understand the reports better."

"I had some issues with the Azure Active Directory on Windows XP. However, it worked well on Windows 7."

"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."

"Though the installation was seamless, it took longer than expected to be completed."

"There should be a clearer separation between objects held in Entra and Azure, so we don't need to approach the Entra ID team to create rules, policies, and app registrations. It would help if we could make independent IDs on the Azure side to go through that team to create a role, change permissions, or create something for a specific task."

"Generally, everything works pretty well, but sometimes, Azure Active Directory has outages on the Microsoft side of things. These outages really have a very big impact on the users, applications, and everything else because they are closely tied to the Azure AD ecosystem. So, whenever there is an outage, it is really difficult because all things start failing. This happens very rarely, but when it happens, there is a big impact."

"The licensing and support are expensive and have room for improvement."

"The synchronization with the local Active Directory and synchronization with all of the users on the local and cloud could be better."

More Microsoft Entra ID cons

"Currently lacks the capability to automatically download certificates in JKS."

"Venafi could enhance its offerings by providing more automation features."

"The product was really good when it was a Venafi product. However, since its acquisition by CyberArk, there has been a lack of significant innovations."

"There are quite a few different technical aspects of Venafi that I feel they just missed out on; I'd have to look at my notes for the specifics."

"Venafi can improve on API automated code signing; the process should be more straightforward."

"I would like to see included in the next release of Venafi integration with the cloud HSM's, Hardware Security Module. Additionally, I would say other cloud services, because it's not only cloud that's essential. If you have a customer that has a lot of their IT moved into cloud, integration with different cloud services is always an area to improve."

"Currently, specific processes require manual installations due to the lack of built-in integrations."

"Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations with public certificate authorities for DNS re-verification."

More Venafi cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Active Directory is expensive."

"I am not involved in the pricing or licensing, so I can't speak to that."

"It is costly."

"If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated."

"We are a non-profit organization, so we get good prices from Microsoft for their products. It is working well, but it could be cheaper. For the type of organization we are, it would be good if they could give a little bit more and be more generous like Google, which has completely free services. Microsoft has free versions or web services called Office 365 E1, which is free for use, but we want to have it with more qualified clients."

"MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down."

"It is in line. Because we are so early, we have not had to come back on a cycle where we are having to negotiate again."

"I feel Microsoft is very costly compared to other products. That is also what management is thinking. But when we consider security and support, Microsoft is better than any other product."

More Microsoft Entra ID pricing and cost advice

"Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market."

"The pricing of Venafi is really good, and that was a key reason we chose it. The pricing is very competitive compared to other solutions."

"The pricing model is complex, considering factors beyond the number of certificates. This complexity can make our payments to Venafi challenging if costs continue to rise. It is good but more expensive than the competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

28%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Venafi?

We use Venafi for PKI certificates.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Venafi?

The pricing has increased for us, impacting our organization due to its operational expenditure (OPEX). The pricing model is complex, considering factors beyond the number of certificates. This com...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Venafi?

The product was really good when it was a Venafi product. However, since its acquisition by CyberArk, there has been a lack of significant innovations. They are pushing for cloud adoption, but we p...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Cloud Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Intune vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 10% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 8% of the time

Auth0 vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon Cognito vs Microsoft Entra ID

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Entra ID Competitors

AppViewX CERT+ vs Venafi

Compared 39% of the time

DigiCert PKI Platform vs Venafi

Compared 32% of the time

Entrust Identity Enterprise vs Venafi

Compared 13% of the time

Axiad Conductor vs Venafi

Compared 11% of the time

More Venafi Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID

May 2025

Download Microsoft Entra ID product report

Buyer's Guide

Venafi

April 2025

Download Venafi product report

Also Known As

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator

No data available

Interactive Demo

Microsoft

Demo not available

CyberArk

Overview

Microsoft Entra ID is used for extending on-premises Active Directory to the cloud, managing application access, enabling multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on. It facilitates policy enforcement and secure access, ensuring centralized identity management across cloud and on-premises resources.

Organizations utilize Microsoft Entra ID for robust user and group management, identity synchronization, and conditional access. Its seamless integration with third-party apps, scalability, and support for remote work make it a preferred choice. The admin center streamlines identity and access tasks, enhancing efficiency and security with features like privileged identity management and audit logs.

What are the key features of Microsoft Entra ID?

Single Sign-On: Simplifies user access to multiple applications with one login.
Multifactor Authentication: Enhances security by requiring additional verification.
Conditional Access: Establishes policies that determine how users' access cloud apps.
Integration: Easily integrates with various third-party applications.
User Identity Protection: Safeguards user identities from threats.
Privileged Identity Management: Manages elevated access to sensitive resources.
Audit Logs: Provides thorough activity logs for oversight and compliance.

What benefits should users look for in Microsoft Entra ID reviews?

Enhanced Security: Offers strong multifactor authentication and identity protection.
Administrative Efficiency: Simplifies identity and access management tasks.
Scalability: Supports growing user bases and remote work environments.
Integration Capabilities: Compatible with numerous third-party applications.
User-Friendly Interface: Makes managing user identities straightforward.

Microsoft Entra ID implementation varies across industries. Tech firms leverage it for secure, scalable access management, while healthcare organizations utilize its identity protection features to safeguard patient data. Educational institutions adopt Entra ID for streamlined user management and policy enforcement, ensuring secure access for students and staff across on-premises and cloud resources.

Microsoft

Venafi automates protection for machine identities, which all organizations rely on to keep communications between machines secure and private. Venafi generates the machine identity intelligence necessary to automatically safeguard the flow of information to trusted machines and prevent communication with untrusted ones - all at machine speed and scale.

CyberArk

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.

Surescripts, CME Group, TD Bank Group, Aetna, MoneyGram, Zions Bancorp, Cisco

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Entra ID vs. Venafi

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Entra ID vs. Venafi

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