Keymate vs Microsoft Entra ID: alternative or complement?
Where every component must run on your own infrastructure, Keymate is a self-hosted Microsoft Entra ID alternative; if your organization runs on Microsoft 365, you will most likely add it to Entra ID instead. Entra ID is stronger at signing your workforce in, and Keymate works after sign-in: it checks each request to your own applications against fine-grained access rules. Every rule change is recorded, and you can require an approver before it goes live.
What is Microsoft Entra ID?
Microsoft Entra ID is Microsoft's cloud identity service, formerly Azure Active Directory. It signs in employees, guests from other organizations, consumers, workloads and AI agents, with single sign-on, passwordless sign-in and Conditional Access, and Entra ID Governance adds access reviews, access requests and HR-driven lifecycle workflows. It is delivered as a Microsoft cloud service, with a free tier that comes with Microsoft cloud subscriptions, paid per-user tiers, the Entra Suite and standalone modules, and Entra tiers are included in Microsoft 365 plans.
Keymate vs Microsoft Entra ID at a glance, module by module
The second column names the stronger product in each area.
| Area | Stronger here | Microsoft Entra ID | Keymate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | Entra ID | Workforce, guests, consumers, workload identities, AI agents | Organizations with own admins; LDAP, AD, API-based connectors |
| Authentication | Entra ID | Passwordless, Conditional Access, ID Protection, Continuous Access Evaluation | OIDC and SAML sign-on, step-up per action |
| Authorization inside your applications | Keymate | Directory and Azure roles, Azure attribute conditions, Conditional Access | Roles, attributes, relationships, risk; decided on every request |
| Enforcement | Keymate | Conditional Access at sign-in; application proxy; network access | Access Gateway, API gateway plugins, mesh, SDK, event streams |
| Authorization Governance | Keymate | Report-only mode, What If, protected actions, backup restore | Optional approval, simulation, rollback, versioned decisions |
| Identity Governance | Entra ID | Reviews, requests, separation of duties, lifecycle, privileged roles | Joiners, movers and leavers from HR events; access reviews on the roadmap |
| Deployment | Keymate | Microsoft cloud service; data in a chosen geography | Stronger where all must be self-hosted; air-gapped (Enterprise) |
| Licensing model | Entra ID | Stronger for Microsoft 365 customers: included in their plans | Free edition to 100 users; then per user and module |
| Ecosystem | Entra ID | Thousands of gallery apps; Microsoft Graph; Microsoft 365, Azure | Any identity provider, Entra ID included, over OIDC, SAML |
- Area
- Identity
- Stronger here
- Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Workforce, guests, consumers, workload identities, AI agents
- Keymate
- Organizations with own admins; LDAP, AD, API-based connectors
- Area
- Authentication
- Stronger here
- Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Passwordless, Conditional Access, ID Protection, Continuous Access Evaluation
- Keymate
- OIDC and SAML sign-on, step-up per action
- Area
- Authorization inside your applications
- Stronger here
- Keymate
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Directory and Azure roles, Azure attribute conditions, Conditional Access
- Keymate
- Roles, attributes, relationships, risk; decided on every request
- Area
- Enforcement
- Stronger here
- Keymate
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Conditional Access at sign-in; application proxy; network access
- Keymate
- Access Gateway, API gateway plugins, mesh, SDK, event streams
- Area
- Authorization Governance
- Stronger here
- Keymate
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Report-only mode, What If, protected actions, backup restore
- Keymate
- Optional approval, simulation, rollback, versioned decisions
- Area
- Identity Governance
- Stronger here
- Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Reviews, requests, separation of duties, lifecycle, privileged roles
- Keymate
- Joiners, movers and leavers from HR events; access reviews on the roadmap
- Area
- Deployment
- Stronger here
- Keymate
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Microsoft cloud service; data in a chosen geography
- Keymate
- Stronger where all must be self-hosted; air-gapped (Enterprise)
- Area
- Licensing model
- Stronger here
- Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Stronger for Microsoft 365 customers: included in their plans
- Keymate
- Free edition to 100 users; then per user and module
- Area
- Ecosystem
- Stronger here
- Entra ID
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Thousands of gallery apps; Microsoft Graph; Microsoft 365, Azure
- Keymate
- Any identity provider, Entra ID included, over OIDC, SAML
Of the nine areas, Entra ID is stronger in five and Keymate in four.
Choose Microsoft Entra ID when your workforce already signs in through Microsoft 365 and you want a managed cloud service with access reviews, access requests, prebuilt HR connectors and privileged role activation today.
Choose Keymate when the whole platform must run on your own infrastructure and every request to your own applications needs a decision under one set of policies, with every policy change recorded.
Every capability we compared
The same list of capabilities sits behind each of our comparison pages, in the same order, grouped by Keymate's modules. Each Microsoft Entra ID cell names the Microsoft product or feature that carries the capability. "Not documented" means the Microsoft Entra ID pages we checked do not mention it, not that Microsoft Entra ID lacks it.
| Capability | Microsoft Entra ID | Keymate |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | ||
| User management & self-service | Yes: Microsoft Entra ID, with self-service password reset, Free included | Yes |
| Multi-tenant organizations / B2B tenancy | Yes: B2B collaboration with cross-tenant access settings | Yes: organizations with their own administrators |
| Delegated administration | Yes: administrative units scope admin roles | Yes: scoped administrators |
| User federation (LDAP / Active Directory) | Yes: sync from on-premises Active Directory; Domain Services for managed LDAP and Kerberos | Yes |
| Social & enterprise IdP brokering | Yes: Microsoft Entra External ID (Google, Facebook, SAML and WS-Fed, email one-time passcode) | Yes: OIDC and SAML identity providers |
| HR-driven identity lifecycle (JML) | Yes: lifecycle workflows (Microsoft Entra ID Governance) | Yes: API-based connectors for your HR system |
| SCIM provisioning | Yes: SCIM 2.0 provisioning to SaaS and on-premises apps | Not yet |
| Authentication | ||
| SSO (OIDC, OAuth 2.1, SAML) | Yes: single sign-on, Microsoft Entra ID Free included | Yes: OIDC, OAuth 2.1, SAML |
| MFA & step-up | Yes: MFA, Free included; step-up through Conditional Access | Yes: step-up per application and per action |
| Passkeys / passwordless | Yes: passkeys, FIDO2 security keys, Windows Hello for Business | Yes: passkeys (WebAuthn) |
| Adaptive / risk-based access | Yes: Conditional Access; risk-based policies with ID Protection | Yes: risk-adaptive step-up |
| Brute-force & account protection | Yes: smart lockout, always on | Yes: brute-force detection and lockout |
| Session management & token revocation | Yes: Continuous Access Evaluation, in the services that support it | Yes: token introspection and revocation |
| Login theming & localization | Yes: company branding per browser language | Yes: login themes and localized flows |
| Authorization | ||
| RBAC | Yes: built-in and custom Microsoft Entra roles; Azure RBAC | Yes |
| ABAC / policy conditions | Partial: Azure role assignment conditions, documented for Azure Storage | Yes |
| ReBAC (relationship-based) | Not documented | Yes |
| Central policy engine (PBAC) for apps & APIs | Partial: Conditional Access at sign-in; Microsoft's guidance says app authorization logic is often implemented in the application | Yes: one set of policies combining role, attribute, policy, relationship and risk models |
| Risk-adaptive authorization | Partial: Continuous Access Evaluation revokes access mid-session | Yes |
| Fine-grained PDP for APIs | Not documented: APIs evaluate the information in Microsoft-issued tokens | Yes |
| Per-request decisioning | Not documented: decided at sign-in and token issuance, plus Continuous Access Evaluation | Yes: every request decided |
| Enforcement | ||
| Gateway enforcement, no app code changes | Yes: Microsoft Entra application proxy for remote access to on-premises web apps, with Conditional Access | Yes: Access Gateway, Kong and APISIX plugins, Istio and Envoy, Kafka event streams |
| Enforcement SDKs | Partial: MSAL acquires tokens; no authorization SDK documented | Yes: TypeScript, Java and .NET SDKs |
| Authorization Governance | ||
| Approval workflow on policy changes | Partial: protected actions require step-up authentication to change Conditional Access policies; approval not documented | Yes: optional approval |
| Policy versioning & rollback | Partial: Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery restores Conditional Access policies from daily backups; version history not documented | Yes: every version kept, rollback to any of them |
| Decision explainability (why denied) | Yes: sign-in logs show which Conditional Access policies applied | Yes: the policy and condition behind each allow and deny |
| Policy change simulation | Yes: Conditional Access report-only mode and What If tool | Yes: against past decisions |
| Decision evidence & auditor reports | Yes: audit logs with old and new values, which can't be changed | Yes: decision records with the policy version |
| Real-time decision observability | Partial: sign-in logs record Conditional Access results | Yes: decision stream with OpenTelemetry export |
| Audit event logging & SIEM export | Yes: streaming to Azure Event Hubs for Splunk, SumoLogic, ArcSight and IBM QRadar | Yes: OpenTelemetry audit pipeline |
| Identity Governance | ||
| Access certification campaigns | Yes: access reviews (Microsoft Entra ID Governance) | Not yet |
| Segregation of duties (SoD) | Yes: incompatible access packages in entitlement management | Not yet |
| End-user access request catalog | Yes: access packages with multi-stage approval (Microsoft Entra ID Governance) | Not yet |
| Deployment and licensing | ||
| Self-hosted on your infrastructure | Not documented: delivered as a Microsoft cloud service | Yes: Kubernetes on your infrastructure |
| Vendor-managed SaaS | Yes: Microsoft cloud service | No managed service today |
| Air-gapped deployment | Not documented | Yes (Enterprise) |
| High availability | Yes: published SLA and monthly SLA attainment | Yes (Enterprise) |
| Pricing unit | Per user per month by plan; Workload ID per workload identity | Per user and per module, above 100 registered users |
| Free edition | Yes: Microsoft Entra ID Free, with Microsoft 365 or Azure subscriptions | Yes: free edition up to 100 registered users, every module |
| Trial motion | Free trials of P1, P2, Entra Suite, ID Governance and other plans | Free edition, no time limit |
| Published pricing | Yes: prices on Microsoft's pricing page | No figures at launch |
Microsoft Entra ID facts last checked October 17 and 20, 2026, from Microsoft's public pages (microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com). Keymate facts are from keymate.io. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it. Product names are trademarks of their owners.
Where Microsoft Entra ID is stronger
Microsoft Entra ID is stronger at sign-in and in the work around it. It also has network access products, and it comes with Microsoft 365 plans.
Identity breadth.
Entra ID covers consumer identity (External ID), guests from other organizations, verifiable credentials (Verified ID), workload identities and AI-agent identities (Agent ID). Agent ID applies Conditional Access, lifecycle and access governance to AI agents. Keymate serves employees and a business's customers and partners. It is not built for public consumer sign-up and has no decentralized identity. Governing agents as identities is on Keymate's Roadmap.
Sign-in and session security.
Entra ID secures sign-in with Conditional Access policies and Continuous Access Evaluation. Continuous Access Evaluation revokes access in near real time when an account is disabled, a password changes or the network location changes. It works in the services that support it (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams and Microsoft Graph). Passwordless sign-in uses Windows Hello for Business, FIDO2 security keys and passkeys. ID Protection detects risky sign-ins and risky users. Keymate has no identity threat detection product.
Identity governance.
Entra ID Governance ships access reviews, access requests with multi-stage approval, separation-of-duties checks, and lifecycle workflows driven by HR systems such as Workday and SuccessFactors. Separation-of-duties checks flag access packages that are incompatible with each other. Keymate's Identity Governance handles joiners, movers and leavers today; access reviews are on the roadmap.
Privileged role activation.
Privileged Identity Management activates administrator roles for a limited time, with approval. Keymate is not a privileged-access product.
Network access.
Private Access provides zero trust network access in place of a VPN, and Internet Access is a secure web gateway. Keymate has no network-access product.
Included in Microsoft 365 plans.
Identity comes with the Microsoft 365 plan the organization already pays for, and a free tier ships with Microsoft cloud subscriptions. Microsoft 365 E3 includes Entra ID P1, E5 includes P2 and E7 includes the Entra Suite.
Ecosystem.
Thousands of pre-integrated SaaS applications and integration across Microsoft's security and productivity products.
Where Keymate is stronger
Keymate is stronger once the user has signed in, and wherever every component has to run on your own infrastructure.
Relationship-based and risk-adaptive authorization, in one decision point. Keymate combines relationships and risk signals with roles and attributes in policies outside your application code. Every application asks the same decision point. Entra ID's documented authorization models include directory and Azure roles, attribute-based conditions on Azure role assignments, and Conditional Access. Details are on Authorization.
Decided on every request, enforced in the request path. If a right is revoked at 10:02, the request at 10:03 is denied. The decision is enforced in the request path by the Access Gateway, an API gateway plugin or a service mesh filter, or by an SDK call for checks only the application can make. Entra ID also revokes access mid-session through Continuous Access Evaluation, in the services that support it, and its application proxy puts Entra sign-in and Conditional Access in front of on-premises web apps. The difference is where the decision is made: Keymate decides at resource level for each request to your own applications, under one set of policies.
Policy changes can go through any approval you require, and every decision is recorded. You can simulate a change against past decisions and roll back to any kept version. Every allow and deny is recorded with the policy version and any approval behind it. How the cycle works is on Authorization Governance.
Self-hosted end to end. Every component, including the admin console, the decision point and the evidence store, runs on Kubernetes in your own data center with no cloud dependency. Air-gapped networks are supported with the Enterprise plan. The product reports nothing back to us. Entra ID is a cloud service that stores identity and access data in a Microsoft geography chosen at sign-up. Where to run each Keymate component is on Architecture.
What this page does not claim
- Access reviews, access requests, separation-of-duties checks and privileged role activation ship in Microsoft Entra ID, not in Keymate. Keymate's Identity Governance covers joiners, movers and leavers, and Keymate is not a privileged-access product.
- No benchmark, performance or availability figures for either product.
- No statement that Microsoft Entra ID lacks a capability. "Not documented" means only that the Microsoft pages we checked do not describe it.
Running both: keep your identity provider
Keymate is built to run next to Entra ID. You federate with Entra ID over OIDC and SAML, run Keymate in parallel, and move your applications behind Keymate one at a time.
In practice the split looks like this:
- Entra ID keeps sign-in. Employees sign in with Entra ID as they do today, with its Conditional Access policies, passwordless sign-in and risk detection.
- Keymate trusts Entra ID as the identity provider. Users arrive in Keymate already signed in.
- Keymate decides and enforces inside your applications. Your applications sit behind the Access Gateway, an API gateway plugin, the service mesh or an SDK, and every request is decided against Keymate policies that read the user's attributes, relationships and risk.
- Keymate records policy changes. Policy changes for your applications are recorded with any approval behind them, and every version is kept on your infrastructure. What an auditor receives is on Access evidence for audits.
How the parallel run works step by step is on Parallel Run.
Other Microsoft Entra ID alternatives
- Okta: an identity platform delivered as a cloud service run by Okta, with a directory, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, identity governance, privileged access and a fine-grained authorization service.
- Ping Identity: an identity vendor with two product lines, the PingOne cloud and self-managed software such as PingFederate, PingAccess and PingAuthorize.
- Keycloak: a free, open-source IAM project for single sign-on, OIDC, OAuth 2.0, SAML, federation and MFA, for teams ready to run, upgrade and patch it themselves.
- Red Hat build of Keycloak: Red Hat's commercially supported build of the open-source Keycloak project, for organizations already standardized on Red Hat or OpenShift.
- PlainID: a commercial, policy-based authorization platform that sits beside your identity provider and decides what users, services and AI agents may do across applications, APIs and data.
The IAM platform comparison sets eleven products side by side, with the strengths and limits of each.
Questions
Is there a Microsoft Entra ID alternative that runs on our own infrastructure?
Yes. Every Keymate component runs on your own Kubernetes, air-gapped networks included with the Enterprise plan. The product reports nothing back to us. Microsoft Entra ID is a cloud service; its tenant data is stored in a geography chosen at sign-up. Keymate covers sign-in, authorization and policy governance. It is not a consumer-identity suite, and its Identity Governance does not run access reviews today, so check those areas against your needs.
Can Keymate work with Microsoft Entra ID?
Yes. Keymate connects to Entra ID over OIDC or SAML as an external identity provider, so people keep signing in with Entra ID and Keymate decides what each request may do inside your applications. You can run Keymate in parallel and move one application at a time.
Does Microsoft Entra ID support fine-grained authorization?
Yes, within its own scope: Microsoft Entra ID authorizes with directory and Azure roles, attribute-based conditions on Azure role assignments (documented for Azure Storage data actions), and Conditional Access at sign-in. Keymate adds relationship-based and risk-adaptive policies for your own applications, decided on every request by one decision point and enforced in the request path.
Keycloak vs Microsoft Entra ID: what is the difference?
Keycloak is a free, open-source IAM project under the Apache License 2.0, which you host and operate yourself. Microsoft Entra ID is Microsoft's cloud identity service, included in Microsoft 365 plans. Keymate is built on Keycloak and adds per-request authorization, enforcement in the request path and governance of every policy change; what Keycloak gives you on its own is on Keymate vs Keycloak.
Microsoft Entra ID vs Okta: where does Keymate fit?
Microsoft Entra ID and Okta both sign in a workforce, and Keymate works next to either one over OIDC and SAML. Keymate does not replace the sign-in you choose; it decides and enforces access inside your own applications under one set of policies. Keymate vs Okta sets Keymate and Okta side by side.
Who are Microsoft Entra ID's competitors?
Okta and Ping Identity compete with Microsoft Entra ID for workforce sign-in. Keymate and authorization products such as PlainID, Cerbos and Permit.io compete for authorization inside your applications, and self-hosted options such as Keycloak and Keymate compete where the platform must run on your own infrastructure. The IAM platform comparison shows strengths and limits for eleven products.
How does Keymate compare to Microsoft Entra ID, capability by capability?
Both cover directory, single sign-on, MFA, passkeys, federation, provisioning and audit logging. Microsoft Entra ID is stronger in identity governance, sign-in risk detection, network access, prebuilt integrations and as a managed cloud service. Keymate decides every request to your own applications, enforces it in the request path and runs on your infrastructure. The full list shows all 41 rows.