One decides who gets in. The other writes down who was meant to.
JumpCloud is an identity provider. It is the thing people log in to, the thing that pushes policy to their laptops, the thing that turns their access off on their last day. MunkiWho is a record: who exists, what groups they are in, which folders those groups reach, what they hold. It does not log anyone in and cannot turn anything off.
Both call themselves a directory, and they are not competing for the same job — so this page starts by saying which job you have.
- You need somewhere for people to actually log in — SSO, MFA, LDAP or RADIUS — and you do not have Entra ID or Google Workspace doing it.
- You want to manage the devices themselves: policies, patching, remote lock and wipe, across Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Offboarding must do something — disable the account, revoke the sessions — not just record that it was done.
- You want provisioning automated from an HR system into the apps people use.
- You are replacing Active Directory rather than documenting it.
- You already have an identity provider and the problem is that nobody can say what the access in it is supposed to be.
- Folder permissions on SharePoint and file shares need a "who can reach this?" that resolves through groups.
- Licences, hardware, onboarding checklists and runbooks should sit next to the people they belong to.
- An access review should be a question you can ask, not a project you have to run.
- You want the whole team reading it for a flat price, without buying a seat for each of them.
What each one does
Green means it does it; red means it does not; amber means partly, with the caveat in the cell. This table has more red in our column than most, and that is accurate.
| Capability | MunkiWho | JumpCloud |
|---|---|---|
| Enforces access, or records it? | Records What access is meant to be. | Enforces It is the identity provider. |
| People log in through it (SSO, MFA) | No It uses SSO for its own admins; it does not provide it. | Yes — the core |
| LDAP, RADIUS | No | Yes |
| Device management and policy | No Nothing is installed on any machine. | Yes — Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Automated provisioning and deprovisioning | No A checklist records it was done; nothing does it. | Yes |
| Groups with nested membership | Yes Security, M365, distribution, shared mailbox. | Yes |
| Folder permissions on SharePoint and file shares, with "who can access this?" | Yes Resolved through membership; denies reported separately. | Not its data It manages its own directory, not what a file server does with it. |
| Software licences with seats and expiry | Yes | SaaS app usage on some tiers |
| Asset register with maintenance log | Yes | Managed devices only |
| Onboarding and offboarding checklists | Yes, per person, with status | Automated, not a checklist |
| Knowledge base | Yes | No |
| Password generation and one-time links | Yes — MunkiKey | Password resets for its own accounts |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Yes, read-only, nine tools | Via its API |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Cloud only |
| Priced by | Directory size, unlimited logins | Per user |
Recording is not a weaker version of enforcing
It is tempting to read the table above as "JumpCloud does everything MunkiWho does and then acts on it". It does not, and the reason is the thing MunkiWho is for. An identity provider holds what access is. It cannot hold what access was meant to be, because the moment you write that into it, it becomes what is. The gap between the two — the group somebody was added to for a project in 2023 and never removed from, the share a contractor can still reach — is exactly what an access review is looking for, and it is only visible if the intended state lives somewhere the live state cannot overwrite.
That is why MunkiWho does not sync from your identity provider today, and why when it does, it will show the differences rather than silently adopting them. It is filled in by you, and it is worth something precisely because it is.
The file server is not the directory's problem — until it is yours
An identity provider knows that Dana is in the Finance group. It does not know that the Finance group has modify on the Payroll share, that Sales is explicitly denied, or that Dana was also granted full control directly by somebody in a hurry. That lives on the file server or in SharePoint, spread across a tree, and no identity tool reads it. MunkiWho's folders record it, and "who can reach this?" resolves the whole thing to a list of people with the route each one came in by. Denies are kept separate because whether a deny beats an allow is the platform's rule, not the directory's.
Where JumpCloud wins, honestly
If you need a place for people to log in, MunkiWho is not a candidate and nothing on this page should suggest otherwise. If offboarding has to do something — kill the sessions, lock the laptop, pull the app licences — JumpCloud does that on a schedule and MunkiWho records that a human did it. If you manage the devices themselves, JumpCloud is an MDM and we install nothing anywhere.
The honest framing is that JumpCloud is a system of enforcement and MunkiWho is a system of record, and a well-run IT team usually has one of each. If you can only afford one, and you have no identity provider, buy the identity provider.
Priced by directory size
Unlimited logins on every band — not a seat per user. Full pricing →
Try it beside what you have
Export your users from the identity provider, import them, add the groups and shares that matter, and run your next access review from the record instead of from the console.
Get MunkiWhoQuestions people ask before choosing
We already use Entra ID. Do we need either?
Will MunkiWho sync from JumpCloud or Entra ID?
Can MunkiWho turn off a leaver's access?
All of them are on the comparison index, each one opening with the case for the other product.
Comparison reviewed September 2026 against JumpCloud's publicly available documentation. JumpCloud is a trademark of its owner and is used here only to identify the product being compared; MunkiWho is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Products change — verify anything that matters to your decision on the vendor's own site, and tell us if something here has gone out of date.
Stop guessing who has what.
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