An Alternative to Entra App Proxy: When Datawiza Access Proxy Is the Better Fit

Microsoft Entra Application Proxy is a capable service, and for some organizations it is the right answer. As a Microsoft partner, we say that without hedging: if every application you need to publish is used by Entra ID workforce accounts, your team is comfortable running Windows-based connectors, and application-level access control is enough, App Proxy does its job well — outbound-only connectors, no inbound firewall rules, Conditional Access in front of everything.

This post is for the evaluations where that description doesn't hold. In our experience, organizations searching for an Entra Application Proxy alternative (many still know it by its former name, Azure AD Application Proxy) have one of five concrete reasons: they need an identity provider other than Entra ID for some applications, their customer or partner identity requirements go beyond Entra B2B guest access, they need internal traffic to stay internal, they need URL-path-level authorization rather than app-level allow/deny, or they can't (or don't want to) run Windows Server connectors. We'll take each in turn, cover where Microsoft Entra Private Access fits, and give you the comparison table to make the call.

A July 2026 SharePoint exploitation wave shows why proxy choice matters: patch and rotate keys first, then use an identity-aware access layer to remove anonymous exposure. See CVE-2026-50522: SharePoint machine key theft for the current response pattern.

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Watch the Entra App Proxy Alternative Demo

This demo shows an end user signing in to an on-premises application through Datawiza with Microsoft Entra ID SSO, MFA, and Conditional Access. It illustrates how you can keep Entra ID while evaluating Datawiza as your application access proxy.

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First, what Entra App Proxy actually requires

Three facts frame every comparison, all from Microsoft's current documentation:

• Licensing. Application Proxy requires a Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 subscription. If your users aren't licensed at that tier, App Proxy isn't included in what you're paying for.
• Connectors run on Windows Server. The Microsoft Entra private network connector must be installed on Windows Server 2016 or later, with at least two connectors per group recommended for high availability. If your infrastructure is Linux and containers, App Proxy introduces a Windows footprint you'll patch and operate indefinitely.
• Traffic transits Microsoft's cloud. User requests terminate at the Application Proxy service in Microsoft's cloud, which routes them down to your connector. Entra pre-authentication sits in front by default — the app is not openly exposed — but every session, including a user sitting fifty feet from the server, travels out to the Application Proxy service and back.

None of these is a flaw. They are architectural choices, and they define who App Proxy fits.

Reason 1: You need identity providers beyond Entra ID

Application Proxy’s native preauthentication uses Microsoft Entra ID. Passthrough can publish an app without Entra preauthentication, leaving sign-in to the application; that request path does not receive Entra preauthentication or Conditional Access protection from Application Proxy. Datawiza is useful when you want the proxy itself to integrate directly with different OIDC/SAML providers.

Datawiza Access Proxy is identity-provider-neutral. It integrates with Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Entra External ID, Azure AD B2C, Okta, Ping, Duo, Auth0, Cognito, Google, Keycloak, and other OIDC/SAML providers, and can serve different applications from different IdPs behind one proxy layer. This is also what makes it useful during identity provider migrations: applications move between providers by configuration change, not re-integration.

Reason 2: Customer- and partner-facing applications

Application Proxy supports external partners through Microsoft Entra B2B guest access. Evaluate guest onboarding and tenant-based application assignment against your customer or partner identity requirements. Datawiza provides additional choices for directly connecting customer identity providers or retaining an application’s local accounts.

Datawiza handles both workforce and customer-facing patterns: Entra External ID and Azure AD B2C integrations for consumer identity, plus built-in MFA for portals that keep their own local logins. For apps with existing local accounts, Datawiza adds an MFA challenge after the user signs in with their existing credentials, enforced before they reach the application — no user migration required.

Reason 3: Internal users and traffic that stays internal

Because App Proxy sessions transit the Application Proxy service, internal users accessing an internal app hairpin out to Microsoft's cloud and back. Microsoft's own modern answer for private application access is Entra Private Access (more below); App Proxy itself was designed for remote access.

Datawiza Access Proxy deploys inside your network — on-premises, in your VPC, or in any cloud — and you decide what is exposed. Internal traffic stays internal. Internet-facing apps are published deliberately, on hostnames you control. For organizations with data-residency constraints or latency-sensitive internal applications, this is frequently the deciding factor.

Reason 4: URL-path-level access control

App Proxy grants or denies access at the application level: a user assigned to the app gets the app. Many real applications need finer policy — finance sees /reports, support sees /tickets, admins see /admin, and everyone else sees none of it.

Datawiza enforces policy at the URL-path level using user, group, and attribute conditions, and can enrich those attributes at runtime from external sources — LDAP, SQL databases, or REST APIs — when the identity provider's token doesn't carry everything policy needs. One application, many audiences, one enforcement point.

Reason 5: Deployment beyond Windows

The Windows Server connector requirement is a practical blocker for teams standardized on Linux, containers, and Kubernetes. Datawiza ships as a lightweight container: run it on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, or Windows, in any cloud or data center, and manage configuration from a central console. No dedicated Windows machines, no agent on the application servers, no code changes to the applications themselves — the same no-code MFA and SSO model across every app.

The performance question: latency and throttling

Two distinct complaints show up repeatedly in Microsoft's support forums and admin communities - and both trace to the same architectural fact: Entra Application Proxy is a shared, multi-tenant cloud service that every request must transit.

Latency. In one representative Microsoft Q&A case, on-prem workstations connecting directly to an IIS server saw no latency at all - only the users coming through App Proxy did - and neither adding connectors nor raising the backend timeout fixed it. This is not a bug; it is the architecture doing what it is designed to do. Microsoft's network topology documentation is candid: all proxy solutions introduce latency, and with App Proxy every request travels from the user to the Application Proxy cloud service in your connector group's region, down to a connector on your network, to the application - and back out the same way. For a remote user, those hops roughly follow the path their traffic would take anyway. For an internal user sitting near the server, the same page load now round-trips through a Microsoft datacenter. Microsoft's tuning guidance - region-optimized connector groups, connectors placed near apps, ExpressRoute - helps the remote case; it cannot remove the structural hairpin for internal users.

Throttling. Microsoft documents a maximum of 500 transactions per second per Application Proxy application and 750 per Microsoft Entra organization. Exceeding limits can return HTTP 429. Monitor request volume and connector health, use appropriate retry/backoff, and assess service limits separately from connector capacity. Confirm high-volume requirements with Microsoft.

Both issues are the flip side of App Proxy's architectural advantage: connectors establish outbound-only connections to Microsoft's cloud service, so you publish applications without opening inbound firewall ports or placing anything internet-facing in a DMZ. The cloud endpoint is the front door, and the connector provides the path to the application. A proxy deployed inside your network changes that trade: you operate the ingress point yourself, and internal application traffic can stay internal. Authentication requests go to your configured IdP as required by the session and policy. With a customer-managed proxy, size and scale the deployment for the workload; capacity still depends on the proxy, network, identity provider, and backend application.

Where does Microsoft Entra Private Access fit?

Microsoft Entra Private Access is another option to evaluate for private application access. It is part of Global Secure Access and shares Microsoft’s private network connector infrastructure. Its scope includes web and non-web resources, so compare it separately from clientless web application proxies.

The category distinction matters first: Entra App Proxy and Datawiza Access Proxy are web application proxies for HTTP/HTTPS applications. Entra Private Access reaches web and non-web resources, such as RDP, SSH, file shares, and databases, through the Global Secure Access client and has separate licensing. Microsoft also documents external-user access and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenarios, with device, identity, tenant, and licensing prerequisites. Evaluate those requirements against your users’ devices and identity setup. This remains a different deployment model from clientless browser-based web publishing.

Datawiza is clientless at the application layer: users access protected web applications through a browser, with supported identity-provider integrations. If your requirement includes private access to non-web resources, evaluate Private Access and its client, device, identity, and licensing prerequisites. If your requirement is publishing web applications with SSO and granular policy across identity providers, user populations, and deployment locations, evaluate Datawiza Access Proxy against that scope.

Entra Application Proxy vs. the Datawiza Alternative: Side-by-Side

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to Entra Application Proxy?

It depends on which constraint you're solving. If you need private access to non-web resources such as RDP, SSH, databases, or file shares, evaluate Microsoft Entra Private Access together with its client, identity, device, and licensing prerequisites. App Proxy and Datawiza Access Proxy cover HTTP/HTTPS applications. For web applications where you want direct integrations with multiple identity providers, customer identity choices, URL-path-level policy, or deployment without Windows connectors or client software, evaluate Datawiza Access Proxy.

Does Entra Application Proxy work with Okta or other identity providers?

Application Proxy’s native preauthentication uses Microsoft Entra ID. Passthrough can publish an app without Entra preauthentication and leave sign-in to the application; it does not provide Entra preauthentication or Conditional Access protection from Application Proxy for that request path. Datawiza is an option when you want the proxy itself to integrate directly with different OIDC/SAML identity providers.

Is Entra App Proxy included in my Microsoft license?

App Proxy requires Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 (included in bundles such as Microsoft 365 E3/E5). Tenants below that tier don't have it. Check Microsoft's Entra pricing page for current terms.

What's the difference between Entra App Proxy and Entra Private Access?

App Proxy publishes individual HTTP/HTTPS web applications through Microsoft’s cloud service without requiring client software on the user’s device. Entra Private Access, part of Global Secure Access, reaches web and non-web resources through the Global Secure Access client and has separate licensing. Microsoft also documents external-user and BYOD scenarios with prerequisites. Datawiza Access Proxy is a clientless web application proxy with direct support for multiple identity providers and deployment in your own network.

Why is Entra Application Proxy slow for internal users?

Because every request routes through the Application Proxy cloud service and back, even when the user and the application are on the same network. Microsoft documents this hop architecture and offers tuning such as region-optimized connector groups, connector placement, and ExpressRoute, which helps remote users most. The internal-user hairpin is structural. An access proxy deployed inside your network avoids it entirely, since application traffic stays local after authentication.

Why does Entra Application Proxy return 429 "Too Many Requests" errors?

Microsoft documents a maximum of 500 transactions per second per Application Proxy application and 750 per Microsoft Entra organization. Exceeding these limits can return HTTP 429. Monitor request volume and connector health, use appropriate retry/backoff, and assess service limits separately from connector capacity. Confirm high-volume requirements with Microsoft when evaluating the fit.

Can Entra App Proxy restrict access to specific URL paths within an app?

App Proxy applies access decisions at the application level. Path-level authorization — different rules for /admin, /reports, /api within one app — is a Datawiza Access Proxy capability, evaluated per request with user, group, and attribute conditions.

Can I use Datawiza and keep Entra ID as my identity provider?

Yes. Entra ID remains the identity provider, with its configured Conditional Access and authentication policies, while Datawiza provides the web-application access layer. Evaluate this combination when you want URL-path-level proxy policy, container deployment, or a customer-managed application traffic path. Review the supported login and authorization flow for each application.

The bottom line

Entra App Proxy can be a good fit when Entra preauthentication or Passthrough meets your identity needs, Windows-based connectors fit your infrastructure, and Microsoft’s cloud traffic path meets your requirements. It also supports Entra B2B guest access. Evaluate Datawiza when you want direct integration with different identity providers, additional customer identity options, local routing for internal application traffic, URL-path-level policy, or container deployment. Choose based on the complete identity, application, and network design.

Bring your application URL, identity provider, and access requirements to discuss whether Datawiza Access Proxy fits your environment.

See it with your application