Directory Services

What a Directory Service Does

A directory service is the software that manages user identities in your organization. Every employee has an account. That account controls what they can access, what policies apply to their devices, and how they authenticate to the applications your business depends on.

If you have more than about five people sharing technology, you need a directory. Without one, you're managing individual accounts in each application independently — a practice that scales badly, creates security gaps, and turns offboarding into a multi-hour manual process.

The Major Players

Microsoft Active Directory (On-Premises)

The oldest and most widely deployed enterprise directory. Active Directory (AD) runs on Windows Server infrastructure inside your physical network and has been the backbone of enterprise IT since 1999. It uses LDAP for directory queries, Kerberos for authentication, and Group Policy for enforcing device and user policies.

Active Directory is powerful and deeply understood, but it's fundamentally an on-premises technology. It assumes users are in the office, connected to the network directly. The shift to remote work and cloud applications has created friction — connecting AD to cloud applications and remote users requires additional infrastructure (Azure AD Connect, ADFS, VPN) that adds complexity and operational overhead.

Best suited for: larger organizations with significant Windows on-premises infrastructure, legacy application dependencies, and IT teams with deep AD expertise.

Microsoft Entra ID (Formerly Azure AD)

Microsoft's cloud-native identity platform. It's not a direct replacement for on-premises AD — different protocols, different architecture — but for organizations starting fresh or moving fully to the cloud, Entra ID is Microsoft's answer to "directory in the cloud."

Entra ID handles SSO to thousands of applications, conditional access policies, MFA enforcement, and device management via Intune. If your organization uses Microsoft 365, you're already partially on Entra ID — your M365 accounts live there.

Best suited for: organizations committed to the Microsoft ecosystem, or those supplementing on-premises AD with cloud identity capabilities (hybrid environments).

JumpCloud

JumpCloud is a cloud-native directory-as-a-service. It manages users, devices, and access — cross-platform, from day one — with no on-premises server required. It speaks LDAP, RADIUS, SAML, and SCIM, and handles Windows, Mac, and Linux natively.

For many small and mid-sized organizations, JumpCloud is the right answer: no infrastructure to maintain, true cross-platform device management, built-in SSO, and per-seat pricing that scales with headcount.

Best suited for: organizations with 10–500 users, mixed Mac/Windows environments, cloud-first infrastructure, or teams without an on-premises footprint that would justify Active Directory.

Okta

Okta is purpose-built for identity federation and SSO at scale. It excels at being the identity layer across a large, complex application portfolio — connecting hundreds of SaaS tools, enforcing access policies, and managing identity lifecycle events. It's less a device directory and more an identity federation platform.

Best suited for: larger organizations with complex application portfolios and existing device management infrastructure, or where the primary problem is SSO across many applications rather than managing the device fleet.

Google Workspace (As an IdP)

Google Workspace can function as a lightweight identity provider for Google-first organizations. Google accounts support SAML/OIDC-based SSO, and Cloud Identity provides basic MDM. For a small organization already on Workspace, it may be enough — but it's not a full-featured directory.

Best suited for: small teams fully on Google Workspace that don't need cross-platform device management.

How to Choose

Three questions drive the decision:

What devices do your employees use? Windows-only shops have a natural path to Active Directory or Entra ID. Cross-platform environments (Mac + Windows + Linux) favor JumpCloud. Cloud-first teams with MacBooks might get by with Google's identity tools.

Where does your infrastructure live? On-premises infrastructure → Active Directory is proven. Cloud-first or hybrid → Entra ID (Microsoft-centric) or JumpCloud (platform-agnostic) are better fits.

How complex is your application portfolio? Five applications: any directory works. Fifty applications with varying SSO requirements: the sophistication of your identity layer starts to matter. Okta or a well-configured Entra ID become more compelling.

A Note on Migration

Changing your directory is not trivial. Every application tied to SSO, every device policy, every user lifecycle workflow is rooted in it. The time to choose thoughtfully is before you need to migrate.

The most common migration paths we see: on-premises AD → JumpCloud (for cross-platform, cloud-first organizations) and AD → Entra ID (for Microsoft-committed shops). Both are manageable with proper planning, but both require careful handling of application integrations and device management on the receiving end.