Microsoft Entra External ID vs. WatchGuard AuthPoint

It is not easy to calculate the actual ROI due to the difficult quantification of all factors, but it certainly contributed a lot in protecting, monitoring and controlling access to our system. It also made it much easier to detect vulnerable external users with simple and "easy to hack" passwords they use on multiple apps.

While I cannot speak of the functionalities that we do not use, the 2nd factor authentication has been great. It's actually secure, I can control it all remotely, users don't mind the extra step, and management feels more at ease knowing that we have full access control. The VPN for remote connections is fast and stable, it stays connected during network oddities and has plenty of bandwidth.

Incentivized

• One of the things that Microsoft Entra External ID does really well is creating user logins, accounts and profile. It is very easy to create them, manage them and delete them. It is fast and reliant.
• Limit access or authorization feature. We can allow different levels of authorization and access. So that not all the employees would have access to all the data. Only some relaible employees would have access and power to change anything.
• Mutli factor authentication feature is also a really good feature to secure data. Even overseas vendors need MFS to login which gives double protection to our data.

Incentivized

• Works well with the free Authpoint client and the OpenVPN clinet.
• Token management is simple and hosted completely in the cloud to reduce overall complexity
• Setup was simple and and staighforward
• Suppports several authentication methods we have used both RADIUS and SAML effectively, but ADFS, IDP, RDWeb, and RESTful API, and other custom apps are supported.
• Geofencing for RDP has been very useful as it is independant of our firewall geofencing. This is quite useful for organizations like us who do not Geofence at at the firewall level so as to provide global access to resources on the DMZ.

Incentivized

• Troubleshooting diagnostic logs effectively requires VS Code
• Group and role management requires additional effort
• The programming model (XML) could use some developer experience love

Incentivized

• Integration with on-premise AD is not working, even after speaking with the support team, it could not get resolved. There is no better documentation on this topic as well
• Integration with Azure AD is not supported without the presence of on-prem AD
• Logs information is not precious, it provides a generic code in some cases, making it harder to troubleshoot.
• The Watchguard AuthPoint App in AppStore has some issues, after it's activated there is no approval request being sent to the phone, and there is no way to troubleshoot this, the only way to make it work is by uninstalling the app and reinstalling it again.

Incentivized

We are very happy with Authpoint and see no reason to make any change to it. If only there was a policy to set minimum password strength requirements and to force users change their password every xx days, then it would be a 10!!!

Incentivized

I find it easy to use. The usability is great. Every department uses it for different purposes. Everyone access information relevant to them. Since we've started to use this we have seen less security incidents.

Incentivized

After initial setup, it practically runs itself. Onboarding new users is fast and easy as it should be. The AuthPoint mobile app is small and simple to use. The only reason I do not give it a 10 is that I frequently get complaints from end users that the AuthPoint app is "constantly downloading". In fact, it's not downloading anything and that what the users are seeing in the app is a timer for the 6-digit code that changes every minute.

Incentivized

Has rarely been unable to use; if that were the case, it was operator error

Incentivized

No apparent problem besides a couple of times that systems weren't working

Incentivized

WatchGuard support is always quick and reliable. They have urgency levels that you are able to select when creating your support ticket, and they respond in accordance to the severity that you have set. I have never had an issue with getting someone on the phone in the same business day, even for very low priority issues.

Incentivized

It was an Onsite demo at the ditributor with the benefits of Watchguard Authpoint. Was very nice to see the abilities of the product. This Demo was a few years back, since then Authpoint changed allot. It is very nice for partners that you can get this demo without any aditional cost.

Incentivized

We use the online training for all our employees. There are both sales and technical trainings available and there even is a technical certification. You can use this for the Watchguard Partner Program which can give you aditional benefits. Every now and then you have a webinar that discusses multiple Watchguard products.

Incentivized

the first time it takes more effort. It is helpful to already understand how each authentication type works. Then it's much easier to understand the MFA solution that you implement. It is useful to check the release notes from time to time and update the key parts of the Watchguard Authpoint. Authpoint Gateway, Logon App, RDWeb... Also, it's useful to set up notifications when something goes wrong or sometimes check the statistics of how many requests are being approved/denied, etc.

Incentivized

The best selling points for Azure Active Directory B2C that stand out from the competition are:

• Pricing, both at small and very large scale (and in between), is hard to beat
• The seamless integration with Azure should make Azure Active Directory B2C the first choice of CIAM platform for anyone building on Azure
• Full compatibility with Azure AD's audit log format means Azure Active Directory B2C can be easily integrated into your SIEM tooling

Incentivized

WatchGuard AuthPoint is easier to manage on a company-wide scale than Google Authenticator. We do use AuthPoint in conjunction with the Microsoft Authenticator but for different services. WatchGuard also has other features available, like dark web monitoring and device management, should we decide to move further services over to WatchGuard, with Google Authenticator does not have

Incentivized

We are a medium-sized company. We don't need rapid scaling.

Incentivized

• Having monthly active users billing was cost-effective.
• Helped with the IT support that was already managing the Azure platform of the company; this helped to manage the costs better and optimize them.

Incentivized

• We currently have 300 users on Authpoint, and most of them use insecure passwords. Authpoint gives us peace of mind that we don't have to police individual employee passwords.
• In line with the comment above, with so many people in our organization using insecure passwords, I'm sure that Authpoint has already saved us from many potential security breaches.
• Security breaches can cost a lot of money. Preventing them saves the company money and helps to achieve our bottom line.

Incentivized