Difference Between Azure.Identity and Microsoft.Identity.Client Namespace

Question

Hello,

I am wondering what the difference is between these two namespaces from Microsoft:

Azure.Identity in Azure SDK for .Net:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/azure.identity?view=azure-dotnet

and Microsoft.Identity.Client in Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) in Entra ID:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.identity.client?view=msal-dotnet-latest

I have read the overviews of both of these and they seem nearly identical. Wondering what the difference of these are and the use cases of each?

Thanks,

Karl Gardner

Answer 1

Yes they are different.

Azure.Identity is Specialized for Azure services authentication. It simplifies getting tokens azure resources with a focus on managed identities and service principals.

While MSAL is for various Microsoft services and custom APIs and provides user auth flows, token acquisition and various app support. It is suitable for user flows where you need to sign in a user and access resources.

See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/azure.identity?view=azure-dotnet

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.identity.client?view=msal-dotnet-latest

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Regards,

Abiola