# Descope Agentic Identity Hub vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID

> Descope Agentic Identity Hub scores 78.1 (A) on agent readiness against Microsoft Entra Agent ID's 74.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Entra Agent ID leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do auth oauth.…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Descope Agentic Identity Hub scores 78.1 (A) on agent readiness against Microsoft Entra Agent ID's 74.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Entra Agent ID leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do auth oauth.

- Descope Agentic Identity Hub: grade A, 78.1/100, rank #13 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/descope-agentic-identity.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/descope-agentic-identity.json
- Microsoft Entra Agent ID: grade BB, 74.4/100, rank #63 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-entra-agent-id.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-entra-agent-id.json

## Which one, for what

### Descope Agentic Identity Hub (A)

Good for: A team that wants one vendor for both directions, holding users' third-party tokens and acting as the authorisation server for its own MCP server, with policy per agent.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 100 against 91
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 71
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No tool catalogue, so you write every provider call yourself

### Microsoft Entra Agent ID (BB)

Good for: Organisations already on Microsoft Entra that want each agent to be a governed directory identity with tokens for Microsoft Graph, Azure and their own APIs.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 78
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 74
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 67

Watch for: Conditional Access, ID Protection and governance for agents need Microsoft Agent 365, listed at $15 a user a month on yearly billing


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Descope Agentic Identity Hub | Microsoft Entra Agent ID | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 100 | 91 | Descope Agentic Identity Hub +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 87 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 71 | Descope Agentic Identity Hub +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 86 | 83 | Descope Agentic Identity Hub +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 20 | Descope Agentic Identity Hub +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 80 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 74 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **78.1 · A** | **74.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Descope Agentic Identity Hub | Microsoft Entra Agent ID |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Descope | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.descope.com` | `https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/servicePrincipals/microsoft.graph.agentIdentity` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs), platform closed | Proprietary service under Microsoft's terms. Microsoft.Identity.Web and the Auth SDK sidecar source are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-02-24 | 2025-10-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 67 stars, 354k npm/wk | 787 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.1/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Descope Agentic Identity Hub.** Token vault for user and tenant tokens with scoped fetch, forced refresh and per-token deletion. No tool catalogue, so you write every provider call yourself.

**Microsoft Entra Agent ID.** Agent identities hold no credentials of their own, and Entra refuses high-privilege roles and Graph permissions for them. The token flow is a two-step exchange that Microsoft's own docs call complex and error-prone to implement by hand, and Conditional Access, risk detection and governance for agents need a paid Agent 365 licence.

## Before you call either

### Descope Agentic Identity Hub

1. Sign the agent in as its own OAuth client and let Policies scope it, instead of shipping a management key
2. Treat a 404 from the token endpoint as a missing connection and send the user to the connect URL
3. Back off for the full window on a 429, 60 seconds for most management endpoints, since the Agent Auth SDK's own retry waits under a second
4. Ask for a tenant token, not a user token, for organisation-wide API keys
5. Install the Agent Auth SDK from github.com/descope/descope-agent-auth, since pip install descope-agent-auth and npm install @descope/agent-auth fail because neither package is published

### Microsoft Entra Agent ID

1. Request tokens in two steps. The blueprint gets an exchange token with fmi_path set to the agent identity's client ID, then the agent identity trades it for a resource token
2. Retry with exponential backoff when a create returns `400 Object with id not found` straight after creating its parent object
3. Send displayName, agentIdentityBlueprintId and a sponsor reference when creating an agent identity. All three are required
4. Don't use the interactive `/authorize` flow. Agent identities are confidential clients and can't sign in to a page
5. Keep the sidecar off any public network. Its `/AuthorizationHeader` endpoint hands out tokens to whoever can reach it

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Descope Agentic Identity Hub or Microsoft Entra Agent ID?

Descope Agentic Identity Hub scores 78.1 (A) on agent readiness against Microsoft Entra Agent ID's 74.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Microsoft Entra Agent ID leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Descope Agentic Identity Hub and Microsoft Entra Agent ID need an API key?

Descope Agentic Identity Hub takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Microsoft Entra Agent ID uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Descope Agentic Identity Hub and Microsoft Entra Agent ID without installing anything?

Yes. Descope Agentic Identity Hub has a hosted endpoint at https://api.descope.com and Microsoft Entra Agent ID at https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/servicePrincipals/microsoft.graph.agentIdentity.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "descope-agentic-identity", "b": "microsoft-entra-agent-id"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare descope-agentic-identity microsoft-entra-agent-id`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/descope-agentic-identity.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-entra-agent-id.json

## Other comparisons with Descope Agentic Identity Hub or Microsoft Entra Agent ID

- [Aembit vs Descope Agentic Identity Hub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-descope-agentic-identity.md)
- [Aembit vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md)
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- [Descope Agentic Identity Hub vs Keycard](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-keycard.md)
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- [Microsoft Entra Agent ID vs Scalekit AgentKit](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-entra-agent-id-vs-scalekit-agentkit.md)
- [Microsoft Entra Agent ID vs Stytch Connected Apps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-entra-agent-id-vs-stytch-connected-apps.md)
- [Microsoft Entra Agent ID vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-entra-agent-id-vs-workos-pipes.md)