# Keycard vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID

> Microsoft Entra Agent ID scores 74.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keycard leads on payments & pricing. Both do auth oauth. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-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

Microsoft Entra Agent ID scores 74.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keycard leads on payments & pricing. Both do auth oauth.

- Keycard: grade C, 56.2/100, rank #492 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/keycard.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/keycard.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

### Keycard (C)

Good for: A security-minded team building agents that need their own identities, policy on every delegation and an audit trail per hop, and that is comfortable on an Early Access product.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

Watch for: Early Access with sign-up by request, and no terms of service page

### 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:
- Reliability, 91 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 61
- Agent ergonomics, 71 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 44

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

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 | Keycard | Microsoft Entra Agent ID | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 91 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +56 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 87 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 71 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 86 | 83 | Keycard +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 20 | Keycard +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 80 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 44 | 74 | Microsoft Entra Agent ID +30 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **56.2 · C** | **74.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Keycard | Microsoft Entra Agent ID |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Keycard Labs | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.keycard.ai` | `https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/servicePrincipals/microsoft.graph.agentIdentity` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs), Apache-2.0 (keycard-python API client), platform closed, BYOC or on-prem on Enterprise | 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 | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-10-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 1 stars, 52 npm/wk | 787 stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Keycard.** Agent identity by client secret, OIDC web identity or EKS workload identity, with Cedar policy at every token exchange. Early Access with sign-up by request, and no terms of service page.

**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

### Keycard

1. Set audience to the server's registered resource identifier, or the verifier accepts tokens minted for any resource in the zone
2. Check `AccessContext.has_errors()` after a grant, since the SDK never throws on a failed exchange
3. Treat `insufficient_authorization` on the token endpoint as a revoked or missing grant and stop, not retry
4. Keep credentials short-lived, because revocation only stops the next issuance
5. Pin keycardai-mcp to a major version, since 1.0.0 and 2.0.0 shipped a day apart

### 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, Keycard or Microsoft Entra Agent ID?

Microsoft Entra Agent ID scores 74.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keycard leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Keycard and Microsoft Entra Agent ID need an API key?

Keycard takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Microsoft Entra Agent ID uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Keycard and Microsoft Entra Agent ID without installing anything?

Yes. Keycard has a hosted endpoint at https://api.keycard.ai 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/keycard-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "keycard", "b": "microsoft-entra-agent-id"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare keycard microsoft-entra-agent-id`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/keycard.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-entra-agent-id.json

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