Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Keycloak is a commercial access management tool by keycloak. Microsoft Entra ID is a commercial access management tool by Microsoft. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best access management fit for your security stack.
Based on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Startups and mid-market teams building custom applications need Keycloak because it's open-source IAM you can actually modify without vendor lock-in, and self-host it on infrastructure you already control. The tool supports OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML protocols out of the box, plus passkey-based MFA and multi-tenancy through its Organizations feature, covering NIST CSF 2.0's Identity Management function without licensing per user. Skip this if your organization needs managed SaaS convenience and hands-off operations; Keycloak requires DevOps capacity to deploy, patch, and maintain in production.
Enterprise and mid-market teams already committed to Microsoft 365 should choose Microsoft Entra ID because it eliminates the identity tax of managing a separate platform, with conditional access policies that actually enforce what your Microsoft-native apps require. NIST CSF 2.0 coverage on PR.AA (Identity Management, Authentication, and Access Control) is solid, and the integration with Security Copilot means threat investigation workflows stay within your existing Microsoft ecosystem rather than forcing context-switching. Skip this if you need deep API governance or fine-grained entitlements for non-Microsoft SaaS applications; Entra ID treats those as secondary use cases, and you'll end up stitching in third-party tools anyway.
Open-source IAM solution for SSO, MFA, and identity federation
Cloud-based identity and access management solution for enterprises
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Common questions about comparing Keycloak vs Microsoft Entra ID for your access management needs.
Keycloak: Open-source IAM solution for SSO, MFA, and identity federation. built by keycloak. Core capabilities include Single sign-on (SSO), Multi-factor authentication with passkeys and recovery codes, Identity federation with external providers..
Microsoft Entra ID: Cloud-based identity and access management solution for enterprises. built by Microsoft. Core capabilities include Multi-factor authentication (MFA), Single sign-on (SSO), Passwordless authentication..
Both serve the Access Management market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.
Both tools share capabilities in single sign-on (sso). Keycloak differentiates with Multi-factor authentication with passkeys and recovery codes, Identity federation with external providers, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and SAML 2.0 protocol support. Microsoft Entra ID differentiates with Multi-factor authentication (MFA), Passwordless authentication, Risk-based conditional access policies.
Keycloak is developed by keycloak. Microsoft Entra ID is developed by Microsoft. Vendor maturity, funding stage, and team size can be important factors when evaluating long-term viability and support quality.
Keycloak and Microsoft Entra ID serve similar Access Management use cases: both are Access Management tools, both cover MFA, Single Sign On, Authentication. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.
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