ADFS alternative

AD FS is winding down.
Your Active Directory isn’t.

Microsoft’s investment has moved to Entra ID, leaving AD FS in maintenance mode — but not every organization can or wants to move identity to a cloud-only IdP. Monosign layers modern SAML 2.0, OIDC, and WS-Fed federation on top of the Active Directory you already run, adds the MFA, conditional access, and lifecycle AD FS never had, and deploys in minutes.

Fully-loaded trial tenant in five minutes. No credit card, no sales gate.

AD stays the source of truth

AD FS’s whole appeal was being native to Active Directory. Moving to a cloud-only IdP shifts identity’s center of gravity out of your directory. Monosign federates on top of the AD you already run — users, groups, and passwords stay where they are; you gain the modern protocols.

Everything AD FS did — and what it never could

WS-Fed for the legacy relying parties, SAML 2.0 and OIDC for everything modern, Kerberos for integrated Windows sign-on. Then the parts AD FS left to add-ons or never had: MFA up to passkeys, conditional access policies, SCIM provisioning, and a 7,000+ app catalog.

Your infrastructure or ours

Monosign runs self-hosted on your infrastructure or as SaaS — same product, same price. Teams that cannot or will not go all-in on a cloud IdP keep full control of where identity lives, without staying on software that is no longer moving forward.

Side by side

Monofor vs AD FS,
feature by feature.

At the federation core the two overlap — that is the point, migration is low-risk. The difference is everything AD FS never grew: MFA, conditional access, lifecycle, and a product that is still being invested in.

Actively developed product
Roadmap, releases, new capabilities
Monofor
AD FS
Maintenance mode
SAML 2.0 federation
Monofor
AD FS
OpenID Connect / OAuth 2.0
Modern app and API flows
Monofor
AD FS
Partial
WS-Fed for legacy relying parties
Monofor
AD FS
Kerberos / integrated Windows authentication
Monofor
AD FS
Active Directory as source of truth
No directory migration required
Monofor
AD FS
MFA built in
TOTP, push, FIDO2 passkeys, adaptive step-up
Monofor
AD FS
Via add-ons
Conditional access policies
Risk, network, device, and time conditions
Monofor
AD FS
Basic claim rules
User lifecycle & SCIM provisioning
Joiner–mover–leaver automation
Monofor
AD FS
Pre-built app catalog
7,000+ SAML / OIDC integrations
Monofor
AD FS
Manual relying-party setup
Self-hosted or cloud
Same product, same price
Monofor
AD FS
Self-hosted only (Windows Server)
Deploy in minutes
Monofor
AD FS
Farm + proxy topology
Comparison based on publicly available information as of July 2026. AD FS is a trademark of its respective owner; Monofor is not affiliated with or endorsed by it. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

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FAQ

Common questions.

Can we keep Active Directory as the source of truth?
Yes. Monosign is designed to federate on top of your existing directory. Users, groups, and passwords stay in AD; Monosign synchronizes continuously and layers modern federation, MFA, and conditional access on top — no directory migration required.
Does Monosign support the WS-Fed applications our AD FS farm serves today?
Yes. Monosign speaks WS-Fed alongside SAML 2.0 and OIDC/OAuth 2.0, so relying parties built for AD FS — including older Microsoft-stack applications — can be re-pointed without code changes.
Can we migrate gradually, or is it a cutover weekend?
Gradually. Federation migrations are naturally incremental: each relying party is re-pointed from AD FS to Monosign one at a time. Users keep signing in with their AD credentials throughout, and both systems can run side by side until the last app moves.
Do we have to move to the cloud?
No. Monosign deploys self-hosted on your infrastructure or as SaaS — same product, same price. That is exactly the gap this migration usually exposes: Microsoft’s successor to AD FS is cloud-only, and Monofor is not.
What do we gain beyond replacing AD FS?
MFA from TOTP to passkeys, conditional access policies, SCIM provisioning and lifecycle automation, a 7,000+ app catalog, and audit reporting — capabilities that in the AD FS world required add-ons or simply did not exist.

Ready to start managing
identities the right way?

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