Manav vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID
Entra Agent ID locks you to Azure. Manav follows the human anywhere. If your agent fleet runs on Microsoft alone, Entra works. If it runs anywhere else, the lock-in starts to bite.
What Entra Agent ID does
Microsoft's Entra Agent ID, GA, gives agents a first-class identity within the Microsoft Graph and Azure ecosystem. Per-agent identities with role assignments, conditional access, and integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform, and Azure AI. For Microsoft-only fleets the integration is thoughtful and shipping.
The lock-in math
Entra Agent ID is excellent inside the boundary it owns. Across the boundary it is harder.
- Agents calling AWS Bedrock, Anthropic API, Google Vertex, or any non-Microsoft tool need a translation layer.
- Cross-tenant scenarios (B2B agent collaboration) require federation overhead Microsoft hasn't solved cleanly.
- The audit log lives in Microsoft Graph — exporting it into a vendor-neutral format for regulators is a project, not a switch.
For an Azure-resident workload, this is not a real cost. For a multi-cloud workload — which is the norm today — it adds up.
Comparison
| Entra Agent ID | Manav | |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-cloud agent identity | Translation required | Native |
| MCP-native | Via custom adapter | Yes |
| Self-sovereign identity | No (tenant-locked) | Yes |
| Work attestation (Layer 3) | Not in scope | Native |
| Survival of vendor disappearance | Tenant-dependent | Open protocol |
| Cost of agent identity | Bundled with Microsoft 365 | Per-verification + license |
| EU AI Act Article 14 fit | Build-on-top | Native primitive |
| Onboarding friction (Microsoft-shop) | Low | Medium |
| Onboarding friction (multi-cloud) | Medium | Low |
Use Entra when
Your agent fleet runs primarily on Azure, your IDP is already Entra, and your roadmap does not include significant cross-cloud agent activity. The integration depth is worth the lock-in.
Use Manav when
Your agents span clouds, you need cross-tenant federation, your auditor is going to be vendor-skeptical, or you want the human's identity and work history to outlive their employment with you. The cross-platform property is the point.
The realistic deployment
Many enterprises will run both. Entra for the Microsoft-internal agent surface, Manav for the cross-cloud and cross-tenant flows. The key is to keep the human's primary identity and work attestations in the portable layer (Manav) while letting platform-specific identity (Entra) handle the in-cloud orchestration. The human's audit trail stays coherent across the two.
Common objections
Buyers reasonably ask: do we have to choose? No. Most production stacks run both — the incumbent for the layer it owns, the new category for the layer the incumbent does not. The category split is real; the integration is clean; the procurement question is sequencing, not selection.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just use the incumbent for both? Because the incumbent was built for the previous problem. The fact that the workflow looks similar masks an architectural mismatch the incumbent cannot fix without rebuilding. We respect the incumbent; we do not pretend they ship the answer.
Where does the incumbent still win? In its native category. Use the incumbent where it was designed to operate; use the new layer where the new category begins. Most production stacks end up running both, with a clean handoff between them.
How long until we have to choose? You don't, mostly. The clean integration runs both side-by-side. The choice arrives only when a procurement contract forces consolidation, and by then the data on which layer is doing the work is usually clear.
Where to start
To go deeper, read manav vs okta for the architectural diff and hati vendor map for the broader vendor map. Most procurement teams converge on the same composition — incumbent plus the new layer — once they have walked both.
Adjacent reading
For the broader vendor map, see the HATI vendor map and the honest buyer's guide. For the architectural diff that drives the comparison, see the seven layers of trust. The three together let you compose the right stack rather than picking the wrong single vendor.
Where Entra leads, and where Manav follows
Microsoft's Entra suite owns the enterprise identity perimeter, and that is unlikely to change in the next decade. We are not trying to displace it. The question is what sits inside the Entra perimeter and is signed for the regulator. Entra answers "who logged in." Manav answers "who delegated this action." The first is a session question; the second is an authority question. The first satisfies your IT department; the second satisfies your auditor. Buyers who believe they have to choose are misreading the integration. The clean architecture publishes the Entra-issued identity into Manav as the authoritative human upstream of every agent, then lets Manav handle the action-level audit. The two products together produce the artifact compliance asks for. The buyer who picks Entra and tries to make it do action-level audit is making the wrong tool do the wrong job, and the audit will eventually surface the gap.
Entra owns the agent in Azure. Manav owns the human across every cloud they ever use.