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, they need to publish customer- or partner-facing apps, 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.

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

App Proxy authenticates users against Microsoft Entra ID. That is the design — it is an Entra ID feature. If part of your estate runs on Okta, Ping Identity, Cisco Duo, Auth0, Amazon Cognito, or Keycloak — or you're mid-migration between providers and need both to work at once — App Proxy can't front those applications.

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

App Proxy is built for workforce access — users who exist in your Entra tenant. Publishing a customer portal, dealer portal, or member-facing application to external consumer identities is not its scenario.

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. Because the App Proxy service is shared infrastructure, Microsoft enforces transactions-per-second limits per application and connector group. Exceed them and users see an App Proxy error page with HTTP 429 "Too Many Requests" - the page itself instructs administrators to review estimated transactions per second against "the allowed limit for Application Proxy." The available mitigations are retry logic with backoff and connector scaling; the service-side allowance is Microsoft's, not yours - there is no capacity tier to purchase when a busy application outgrows it. For high-traffic applications, bulk file transfers, or usage spikes, that ceiling is the complaint that sends administrators looking for alternatives.

Both issues are the flip side of App Proxy's genuine architectural virtue: 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. That is real value - but it is exactly why every request must transit Microsoft's shared service: the cloud endpoint is the front door, and the connector tunnel is the only path in. A proxy that deploys inside your network inverts the trade: you do operate the ingress point yourself, and in exchange internal traffic stays internal. The authentication hop goes to your IdP once per session; application traffic never leaves your network. Throughput is your sizing decision - you scale the proxy containers to the workload rather than sharing a multi-tenant allowance. If an application is internal-heavy, high-volume, or both, this difference is measured in every page load and every peak hour.

Where does Microsoft Entra Private Access fit?

Any 2026 evaluation of App Proxy alternatives runs into Microsoft Entra Private Access, generally available since late 2024 as part of Global Secure Access. It is Microsoft's zero-trust successor for private application access — broader protocol support than App Proxy, and notably it shares the same private network connector infrastructure.

The category distinction matters first: Entra App Proxy and Datawiza Access Proxy are both web application proxies — they publish HTTP/HTTPS applications. Private Access is a different kind of product: network-level ZTNA that reaches both web and non-web resources — RDP, SSH, SMB file shares, databases, any private TCP/UDP service — through the Global Secure Access client. That breadth is its point, and it comes with the corresponding model: users run the GSA client on managed devices, and it carries separate Global Secure Access licensing on top of your Entra tier. That fits managed-workforce ZTNA. It does not fit unmanaged devices, external users, customer-facing portals, or teams that specifically want a clientless model — and it remains Entra-ID-only.

Datawiza is clientless and application-layer: users need a browser, nothing installed, any identity provider. The two solve overlapping but different problems — if your requirement is full-protocol private network access for managed workforce devices in an all-Entra shop, evaluate Private Access seriously. If your requirement is publishing web applications with MFA, SSO, and granular policy — across IdPs, to internal and external users, without agents — that is the problem Datawiza was built for.

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 access to non-web resources — RDP, SSH, databases, file shares — on managed workforce devices in an all-Entra environment, Microsoft's own Entra Private Access is the natural next step, since App Proxy (like any web application proxy) covers HTTP/HTTPS only. For publishing web applications across multiple identity providers, to external users, with URL-path-level policy, or without Windows connectors or client software, Datawiza Access Proxy is the purpose-built alternative — clientless, IdP-neutral, and deployable in your own network.

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

No. App Proxy authenticates against Microsoft Entra ID only. To publish applications behind Okta, Ping, Duo, Auth0, or another provider — or to run several providers side by side — you need an IdP-neutral proxy layer such as Datawiza Access Proxy.

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 web applications (HTTP/HTTPS) for remote access through Microsoft's cloud service, with no client required. Private Access, part of Global Secure Access, is Microsoft's newer client-based ZTNA offering that reaches both web and non-web resources — RDP, SSH, file shares, databases — with separate licensing and a required client on the user's device. Both are Entra-ID-only. Datawiza, like App Proxy, is a web application proxy — but clientless, IdP-neutral, and deployable inside 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?

The App Proxy service enforces transactions-per-second limits per application and connector group; exceeding them triggers throttling and the 429 error page. Mitigations are retry logic and connector scaling. The service-side allowance itself cannot be increased or purchased. High-volume applications that regularly hit the limit typically need a proxy whose capacity they control, such as a self-hosted access proxy sized to the workload.

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, and it's the most common deployment. Entra ID (with Conditional Access and Entra MFA) remains the identity authority; Datawiza enforces it in front of applications App Proxy can't serve — customer-facing apps, path-level policy, non-Windows environments, or apps that must stay off the Azure traffic path.

The bottom line

Entra App Proxy is the right tool when your world is Entra ID workforce users, P1/P2 licensing, Windows-friendly infrastructure, and app-level access decisions. The moment the evaluation includes another identity provider, external users, internal-only traffic paths, path-level authorization, or a container-native stack, you're outside its design — and that's not a knock on App Proxy, it's a scoping fact Microsoft's own documentation supports.

If your requirements land in that second list, see how Datawiza Access Proxy publishes the same applications — clientless, IdP-neutral, deployed where you choose, with MFA and path-level policy enforced in front of every request.