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Head to head · Auth oauth · October 2026 research run

Microsoft Entra Agent ID vs Nango

Microsoft Entra Agent ID scores 74.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Nango's 67.7 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Nango leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do auth oauth.

Microsoft Entra Agent IDMicrosoft · HTTP API BB74.4/100#63 of 722 NangoNango · HTTP API B67.7/100#199 of 722

Which one, for what

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 78
  • Security & auth, 83 against 67

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No incidents deducted, where Nango loses 5 points for them

Watch for

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

Nango B

Good for A product that connects many users to many SaaS APIs and wants tokens, refresh, syncs and a per-tenant MCP surface in one place, with source you can read.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 90 against 80

Watch for

Audit trail only on Enterprise, and logs kept 15 days on every plan

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMicrosoft Entra Agent IDNangoEdge
Reliability16%209178Microsoft Entra Agent ID +13
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28785Microsoft Entra Agent ID +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.27174Nango +3
Security & auth14%17.58367Microsoft Entra Agent ID +16
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Nango +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88090Nango +10
Transparency & trust7%8.87476Nango +2
Negative events≤150-5
Total74.4 · BB67.7 · B

Facts side by side

FactMicrosoft Entra Agent IDNango
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMicrosoftNango
Hosted endpointhttps://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/servicePrincipals/microsoft.graph.agentIdentityhttps://api.nango.dev
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuthOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Microsoft's terms. Microsoft.Identity.Web and the Auth SDK sidecar source are MITElastic License 2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-302026-09-30
Terms last updated2025-10-01no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-01no date given
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity787 stars469k npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

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.

Nango

1,000+ APIs with OAuth, API key and client-credentials auth handled. Audit trail only on Enterprise, and logs kept 15 days on every plan.

Before you call either

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

Nango

  1. Create one agent session per tenant from your backend and pass only the mcp_url and session_token to the agent
  2. Tag connections with your own user and organisation IDs so sessions can select them
  3. Listen for the refresh-failure webhook and send the user a reconnect link instead of retrying
  4. Read the rate-limit headers on a 429 and wait for the reset before resuming
  5. Run 0.71.6 or later when self-hosting, and keep the runner port off the network

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Microsoft Entra Agent ID or Nango?

Microsoft Entra Agent ID scores 74.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Nango's 67.7 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Nango leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Do Microsoft Entra Agent ID and Nango need an API key?

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

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

Yes. Microsoft Entra Agent ID has a hosted endpoint at https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/servicePrincipals/microsoft.graph.agentIdentity and Nango at https://api.nango.dev.

Other comparisons with Microsoft Entra Agent ID or Nango

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