Cayosoft alternative for Microsoft 365
Cayosoft rolls back the directory. Who is watching the data behind it?
Cayosoft Administrator runs hybrid identity, Cayosoft Guardian records and reverts changes to it. 1Security covers what sits behind the directory: who can actually reach which files and mailboxes, which of them hold sensitive data, what every user, device, app and agent did over three years, and the compliance evidence for all of it. Keep Cayosoft for identity and run 1Security beside it for the data, or compare them side by side on your own tenant.
- Verified 25 Oct 2026
- Keep both or switch
- Free side-by-side POC
- Every claim sourced below
Fair first
What Cayosoft does well.
Written so a Cayosoft customer nods. These are real strengths, and a team that relies on them keeps them while 1Security takes the data side.
One console for hybrid identity
Cayosoft Administrator manages Active Directory, Entra ID, Exchange, Teams and Intune from one place: joiner, mover and leaver automation, group membership rules, task-based delegation with approvals, and licences assigned and reclaimed with the lifecycle.
Rollback instead of restore
Cayosoft Guardian keeps a change history for users, groups, roles, Conditional Access policies, mailbox settings, Teams settings and Intune records, and reverts a change at object or attribute level without a backup restore. Instant Forest Recovery adds a standby forest for the worst day.
Always-on change monitoring, free to start
Guardian Protector is free and read-only, with a public Threat Directory of identity threat signatures updated monthly, and a Microsoft Sentinel connector that turns Guardian threat alerts into incidents.
Agent identities in the same workflow
Since Guardian 7.2, changes to Entra Agent ID objects, blueprints, agent identities and agent users, go through the same monitoring, alerting and rollback as users and applications, with a saved query to isolate agent activity.
What it does not touch
Four questions a directory tool was never built to answer.
Cayosoft records changes to identities, policies and settings, and it does that well. The questions below are about the data those identities reach, and they are not on any Cayosoft scope list, by design.
- 01
What the data was doing while the directory looked fine
Most incidents leave no directory change behind: a valid account downloads a folder, a guest opens a contract, an agent reads a mailbox. 1Security keeps three years of who did what, from where and on which device, as standard, with the sensitivity of what was touched on every event. Guardian keeps change history for users, groups, roles, policies and settings; the file, mail and sign-in activity between those changes is not what it records.
- 02
Sensitive data in content, not only in objects
1Security scans the content of files and emails with its own engine, more than 300 detectors plus OCR for scans and photos: account numbers, contracts, identity numbers, passwords saved in files. Content is streamed through the scan and never stored. Cayosoft monitors identities, policies and workload settings; file and mail content is outside its scope on every product page and datasheet.
- 03
Anomalies, locations, devices
1Security learns what is normal for each user, app and agent and flags what breaks the pattern: sign-ins from VPN, Tor and datacenter networks, from places nobody in your company works from, from devices you have never seen, and whether Conditional Access actually covers them. Cayosoft detects through threat signatures on identity changes and reads Conditional Access as configuration; collecting sign-in logs is not documented.
- 04
Who can reach what, across files, sites, mail and agents
Guardian shows that an agent identity was created or an app permission changed. 1Security resolves what that agent, app, guest or user can actually read: every file and site through direct grants, sharing links, groups, inheritance and consents, every mailbox through delegation, and what it did with that reach. Then it lets you act on the sharing itself.
Side by side
1Security vs Cayosoft, row by row.
Three states, not two: where Cayosoft has a lighter version of something, or the better one, the row says so. Every Cayosoft cell carries a number that resolves to a public source below the table.
- 14Covered
- 2Partial or lighter
- 0Not covered
- 3Covered
- 11Partial or lighter
- 2Not covered
| Capability | 1Security | Cayosoft |
|---|---|---|
| Gaps and incidents | ||
| Activity history | 1SecurityCovered 3 years as standard, each event carrying the user, file, device, location, app and the sensitivity of what was touched | CayosoftPartial or lighter Change history for identities, policies and workload settings in AD, Entra ID, Exchange Online, Teams and Intune; not file, mail or sign-in activity7 |
| Sign-in logs and locations | 1SecurityCovered Per-user sign-ins with country, city, VPN, Tor and datacenter classification, map, Conditional Access coverage | CayosoftPartial or lighter Not documented; Guardian reads Conditional Access as configuration and alerts on risky settings19 |
| Anomaly detection | 1SecurityCovered Learns what is normal per user, app and agent; threshold you set and re-apply to history | CayosoftPartial or lighter Threat signatures on identity changes, 170+ in the Threat Directory, updated monthly; no behaviour baselines documented18 |
| Devices | 1SecurityCovered Every device touching data, unmanaged ones flagged, disable action | CayosoftPartial or lighter Intune device and policy records as monitored and recoverable objects; which devices touch files or mail is not part of change monitoring6 |
| Sensitive data detection | 1SecurityCovered Own engine with 300+ detectors and OCR, on any licence; Purview detections as a second opinion | CayosoftNot covered Not in scope: the product records changes to identities, policies and settings, not file or mail content7 |
| Email and mailboxes | 1SecurityCovered Outbound sensitive content, delegated sending, shared mailboxes, actions on messages | CayosoftPartial or lighter Mailbox settings and permissions as recoverable objects, signatures for external auto-forward and inbox rules; no mail content or flow8 |
| Administration, compliance, AI | ||
| Permission graph for files and sites | 1SecurityCovered Direct grants, links, groups, site roles, inheritance, apps, agents and guests resolved into one answer per file | CayosoftPartial or lighter One tenant-level signature for Anyone-link sharing being allowed; no file or site permission inventory18 |
| Hybrid identity administration | 1SecurityPartial or lighter Entra-side actions on users, guests, groups, licences, apps and agents through Graph; no on-premises AD, no provisioning | CayosoftCovered Administrator: AD, Entra ID, Exchange, Teams and Intune in one console; lifecycle automation, delegation with approvals, licence lifecycle2 |
| Rollback and recovery of the directory | 1SecurityPartial or lighter Every 1Security action is revertible and read back from Microsoft; no directory restore or forest recovery | CayosoftCovered Object- and attribute-level rollback across AD, Entra ID, Exchange Online, Teams and Intune; standby forest recovery4 |
| Remediation on data | 1SecurityCovered 40+ actions on sharing links, files, sites, mailboxes, users, licences, devices, apps and agents; review queue, grace period, revert, read-back confirmation | CayosoftPartial or lighter Rollback of identity, policy and settings changes plus automated remediation rules; files, sharing links and sites are not among the supported objects8 |
| Compliance mapping | 1SecurityCovered 11 frameworks on shared requirements, weekly snapshots, dated evidence packs | CayosoftPartial or lighter Names SOX, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR, NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001; audit-ready reports and access attestation, no requirement-level mapping documented20 |
| AI agents | 1SecurityCovered What each agent can reach across files, sites and email, who deployed it, its activity and anomalies, quarantine and identity actions | CayosoftPartial or lighter Guardian 7.2 monitors, alerts on and rolls back changes to Entra Agent ID objects; what an agent can read is not shown15 |
| Copilot readiness | 1SecurityCovered Dedicated screen: what Copilot reaches today, fix list, per-site indexing block, progress since the first assessment | CayosoftNot covered Not in scope: the platform covers AD, Entra ID, Microsoft 365 settings, Intune, Exchange Online and Teams changes3 |
| Fit and deployment | ||
| API and SIEM feed | 1SecurityCovered REST for logs, detections, alerts, users, compliance and readiness; MCP server with the same reads; pulled by Sentinel, Splunk or any SOC | CayosoftCovered Threat alerts and change audit as Windows Event Log events for any SIEM; Sentinel connector opens incidents; Administrator API triggers admin actions from ITSM12 |
| Deployment and residency | 1SecurityCovered SaaS, your own Azure (BYOC) or on-premise at any size; a dedicated database per tenant; nothing to install in the tenant | CayosoftPartial or lighter Guardian on a Windows Server you run (Azure Marketplace image available) with SQL, or as SaaS on Azure in the US or EU; Administrator on a domain-joined Windows Server13 |
| Microsoft licence needed | 1SecurityCovered Nearly everything on Business Basic, E1 or E3; no E5 or Purview for content scanning | CayosoftPartial or lighter Required Microsoft plans not stated; prices by quote on 12, 36 or 72-month terms1 |
- Covered
- Partial or lighter
- Not covered
Sources for every Cayosoft claim
Verified 2026-10-25- 1.Cayosoft pricing (quote-based subscriptions, 12 to 72 months) - www.cayosoft.com/about/pricing/
- 2.Cayosoft Administrator product page (hybrid AD, Entra ID, Microsoft 365 administration) - www.cayosoft.com/products/administrator/
- 3.Cayosoft Guardian Platform overview (Protector, Audit & Restore, Instant Forest Recovery) - www.cayosoft.com/products/guardian/
- 4.Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore (rollback, alerts, SIEM, reports) - www.cayosoft.com/products/guardian/guardian-audit-restore/
- 5.Cayosoft Guardian Protector (free, read-only threat detection) - www.cayosoft.com/products/guardian/guardian-protector/
- 6.Cayosoft Guardian Instant Forest Recovery (what is recovered) - www.cayosoft.com/products/guardian/guardian-active-directory-instant-forest-recovery/
- 7.Cayosoft Guardian Audit & Restore datasheet, April 2026 (monitored systems and change types) - www.cayosoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Cayosoft-Guardian-Audit-and-Restore.pdf
- 8.Objects supported by Cayosoft Guardian (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/36184004830349-Objects-supported-by-Cayosoft-Guardian
- 9.Permissions for change monitoring and rollback in Cayosoft Guardian (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/40317688252301-Permissions-for-Change-Monitoring-and-Rollback-in-Cayosoft-Guardian
- 10.Managing retention rules in Cayosoft Guardian (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/36183999037581
- 11.Cayosoft Guardian SIEM integration through Windows Event Log events (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/36184021278221
- 12.Integrating Cayosoft Guardian threat alerts with Microsoft Sentinel (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/46922063714317-Integrating-Cayosoft-Guardian-Threat-Alerts-with-Microsoft-Sentinel
- 13.Cayosoft Guardian system requirements (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/46551875975309--Planning-and-preparation-Cayosoft-Guardian-system-requirements
- 14.Cayosoft press release, 18 Nov 2025: Guardian SaaS offering - www.cayosoft.com/news/cayosoft-expands-its-industry-recognized-hybrid-identity-protection-platform-with-new-guardian-saas-offering/
- 15.Cayosoft press release, 17 Mar 2026: Guardian 7.2 agent identity change controls - www.cayosoft.com/news/cayosoft-debuts-agentic-ai-identity-change-controls-and-new-incident-response-offering-at-rsa-2026/
- 16.Cayosoft blog: agent identities in Guardian 7.2 (monitored Entra Agent ID entities) - www.cayosoft.com/?p=70927
- 17.Cayosoft Administrator Public API overview (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/45615147298957-Cayosoft-Administrator-Public-API-Overview
- 18.Cayosoft Threat Directory (threat signatures by system) - www.cayosoft.com/threat-directory/
- 19.Cayosoft threat definition CTD-000102 (Guardian monitors Conditional Access settings) - www.cayosoft.com/threat-directory/microsoft-entra-tenant-with-unsecure-configuration-of-sign-in-risk-policy/
- 20.Cayosoft use case: compliance controls for hybrid identity (named regulations, attestation) - www.cayosoft.com/use-cases/automate-hybrid-active-directory-compliance-controls/
- 21.Cayosoft Trust Center (SOC 2 Type II, sub-processors, Azure US / EU) - www.cayosoft.com/trust-center/
- 22.Cayosoft Microsoft Teams management (membership rules, telephony, settings) - www.cayosoft.com/solutions/microsoft-teams-management/
- 23.Cayosoft free tools and trials (25-day trials, Protector free) - www.cayosoft.com/resources/free-tools/
- 24.How to deploy Cayosoft Guardian from Azure Marketplace (help centre) - support.cayosoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/36184034455565-How-to-deploy-Cayosoft-Guardian-from-Azure-Marketplace
Cayosoft, Cayosoft Administrator and Cayosoft Guardian are trademarks of their owner. This comparison was written by 1Security from public documentation and was not reviewed by Cayosoft. If a row is out of date, write to us and we will fix it.
Richer administration
Beyond the gaps: the same questions, answered deeper.
Where both tools touch a topic, the difference is how far the answer goes and whether you can act on it from the same screen.
Who has access, and why
Cayosoft tells you a group membership changed. 1Security tells you what that membership now reaches: one graph across direct permissions, sharing links, group membership, site roles, inheritance, apps, agents and guests, with every external organisation resolved to a real company and reconciled with your trusted-domain settings.
Remediation under control
Guardian reverts a directory change after it happened. 1Security stages more than 40 actions on sharing, files, sites, mailboxes, users, licences, devices, apps and agents in a review queue with a grace period before they run, reverts any of them, and reads the result back from Microsoft to prove the change landed.
Compliance without manual mapping
Eleven frameworks today, more arriving: GDPR, NIS2, DORA, the EU AI Act, ISO 27001 and 42001, SOC 2, NIST CSF, HIPAA and the Polish KSC and KRiBSI acts. One requirement counted everywhere it applies, weekly snapshots, a dated evidence pack for the auditor or the investor, instead of a report that names the regulation.
AI agents and Copilot
Not the agent object: what each agent can actually read across files, sites, users and email, who deployed it, what it did, and when it broke its own pattern. Copilot readiness with a fix list and a per-site indexing block, so the rollout starts from a clean reach.
The rest of the tenant
Beyond the comparison: the whole Microsoft 365 stack, from one read-only connection.
The table covers what a Cayosoft buyer asks about. The same connection opens every screen below on day one, each answering a question your tenant cannot answer about itself today.
- Microsoft 365 Alerts ToolOne alert model across policies, activity and anomalies - with the evidence attached and the alert threshold in your hands.
- Microsoft 365 Monitoring ToolReal-time monitoring that catches a mass download while it is unfolding - across users, files, apps, AI agents and devices.
- Copilot Security ToolEvery AI agent's real blast radius - quantified before rollout, watched and constrained after.
- Shadow Device DetectionEvery device touching your data, reconstructed from real activity - including the machines that never enrolled anywhere.
- Impossible Travel DetectionLocations as identities, not IPs: country, city and network for every action, first-seen origins, travel timelines with verdicts - no E5, no P2.
- Conditional Access MonitoringDeclared Conditional Access compared against observed sign-ins: coverage verdicts, ungoverned traffic share, and the ranges your offices outgrew.
- Office 365 Access ManagementEffective access, resolved - who can reach what, through which grant, and one place to take it away.
- SharePoint Governance ToolEvery site ranked by exposure and abandonment - links, guests and Copilot access under control.
- Office 365 User ProvisioningLifecycle access from day one to offboarding - reach, dormant accounts and license reclaim in one flow.
- Microsoft 365 Audit ToolUp to three years of searchable activity history - every action tied to an actor, device and location.
- Microsoft 365 Inventory ToolEight live inventories on one permission graph - including the sites, devices and AI agents that were never registered anywhere.
- Office 365 ReportingAnswers, not exports - regulator-grade numbers, saved views and a read-only API for your SOC.
- Microsoft 365 File PermissionsWho has access to any file, and why - people, links, apps and AI agents on one map, with the fix in the same place.
- Sensitive Data DiscoveryWhere regulated data lives and everything that can reach it - two detection engines, no premium licence required.
- Office 365 Email MonitoringOutbound sensitive content, delegated-send abuse and whole-thread evidence that survives deletion.
- Purview Label CoverageWhat your sensitivity labels actually cover, and which of them protect anything at all.
- AI Agent InventoryEvery agent in the tenant with its real reach counted, its blueprint reviewed, and guardrails you can verify.
- AI Data RestrictionDeclare a data type off-limits to AI and every agent, app and user still reaching it becomes a live violation - recorded for the auditor.
- AI Spend TrackingInteractions, Copilot credits and Azure tokens in one ledger per agent - with the spend column next to what each agent can reach.
- Microsoft 365 User Access ReviewEvery identity with what it can reach, what it did, and whether it should still exist - including SharePoint-only guests that live outside the directory.
- Group Access AnalysisWhat membership in a group actually unlocks - nesting resolved, external members surfaced, blast radius counted.
- App and OAuth Consent GovernanceEvery app with a foothold in the tenant: how it got in, who let it in, and what it can actually read.
- Remediation AutomationFindings become fixes at tenant scale, counted before you enable them and staged behind a review window.
- Microsoft 365 Licence OptimizationThe seats you pay for and nobody uses - unassigned units, licences on guests, and dormant accounts still billing.
- Microsoft 365 Anomaly DetectionEvery policy, user, app and agent measured against its own baseline - with an alert line you move and see the answer to at once.
- Office 365 Sign-in LocationsEvery place your tenant is reached from, with your Conditional Access configuration laid over observed reality.
- Microsoft 365 Unified Audit LogWho did what, when, from where and on which device - retained up to three years on a standard licence.
- SharePoint Site InventoryEvery site, channel site and OneDrive in one list, ranked by external reach, abandonment and what Copilot can read.
- Microsoft 365 Activity AnalyticsThe extremes rather than the averages - a mass download inside the hour, and everything nobody has touched in a year.
- Microsoft 365 Trend TrackingAny number in the tenant followed over time, with the change and the deviation attached - and alerting on the same object.
- Microsoft 365 Compliance MonitoringReadiness for eleven regulations measured from live tenant data - with weekly snapshots and a dated evidence pack per framework.
- Microsoft 365 Security ScoreMicrosoft Secure Score beside the score measured from what actually happens - one worklist ranked by points still on the table.
- External Domain MonitoringEvery organisation your tenant exchanges data with, resolved to a real company - with drift flags and an enforceable verdict per domain.
- All featuresEvery screen in one list
Fits what you run
Native to Microsoft 365, open to the rest of your stack.
Every action runs through Microsoft Graph, roles sync from Entra, setup takes minutes, and the platform stays read-only until you decide to enable writes. There is no server to size, no database to retain and no agent to install.
A public REST API and an MCP server expose logs, detections, alerts, users and compliance status, so your SIEM, SOC or MSSP receives events that already carry the user, the file, the device, the location and who could reach what, next to the directory-change incidents Guardian already sends.
Run it as SaaS, in your own Azure subscription with our container images, or on-premise, air-gapped if needed. Each tenant gets its own database, and disconnecting removes the data within seven days.
Savings, last and measured
It runs on the licences you already have, and finds the ones you do not use.
Most of what 1Security does needs no premium Microsoft plan: content scanning without E5 or Purview, locations without premium sign-in logs, three years of history without a SIEM contract. Cayosoft reclaims a licence when a user leaves; 1Security also ranks what you pay for and nobody uses while they are still here, each item with its idle time and a reclaim action waiting in the review queue.
- Business Basicthe plan most features run on
- 3 yearsof activity history without a SIEM contract
- 0E5 or Purview add-ons needed for content scanning
- 1 queueunused licences, dead apps, orphaned sites and mailboxes, reclaimed from one place
Keep both or switch
You do not have to choose on day one.
If your team runs Cayosoft for hybrid administration, delegation, directory change history and rollback, keep it. 1Security takes data access, incidents, compliance evidence and AI reach. The two never fight over the same setting: Cayosoft reverts directory changes, 1Security is read-only until you enable actions, and its actions touch sharing, files, mailboxes, devices, licences and agents, each one revertible on its own.
The free proof of concept runs side by side on your own tenant: read-only consent in the morning, first findings the same day on a small tenant, and one meeting to compare what each tool showed.
What the side-by-side POC compares
- Sensitive data that carries no label and is reachable by guests, Anyone links or agents
- What each agent and app can actually read, next to the agent object changes Guardian recorded
- Unknown devices and locations in the last 90 days, and whether Conditional Access covered them
- Anomalies on users, apps and agents over 90 days, against the threat alerts Guardian raised
- Mail leaving with sensitive content, who can send as whom, shared mailboxes with no owner
- Licences, apps, sites and mailboxes you pay for and nobody uses
FAQ
Questions buyers ask when they already run Cayosoft.
Do I have to remove Cayosoft to use 1Security?
No. 1Security reads your tenant through its own Entra app with read-only consent and changes nothing until you enable actions. Cayosoft Administrator and Guardian keep working as before. Teams that run both leave hybrid administration, delegation, change history and rollback with Cayosoft and move data access, sensitive content, incidents, compliance evidence and AI reach to 1Security.
Does 1Security roll back directory changes like Guardian?
No, and it does not try to. Guardian reverts changes to users, groups, roles, policies and settings after they happen; 1Security reverts its own actions, which touch sharing, files, mailboxes, devices, licences, apps and agents, and reads the result back from Microsoft. The two do not overlap, which is why they run well side by side.
Which Microsoft licence do I need?
Nearly everything works on Business Basic, Office 365 E1 or Microsoft 365 E3. Content scanning, locations and three-year history need no premium plan. The few features that read premium Microsoft data, such as Purview detections or per-sign-in detail, are listed on the requirements page with what you get without them, and the free licence checker tells you before you connect.
Does 1Security store my file or email content?
No. Content is streamed into the sensitivity scan and discarded when it finishes. What persists is the detection type, the match count and a confidence bucket linked to the file, never the matched values. The data handling page lists exactly what is read and what is stored.
How does it feed our SIEM or SOC next to Guardian?
Through the public REST API: logs, detections, alerts, security alerts, users, compliance status and Copilot readiness, with scoped API keys per tenant or organisation-wide for MSSPs. The same reads are available as MCP tools. Guardian sends directory-change incidents; 1Security adds the data-side events next to them. Sentinel and Splunk pairings are described on their own pages.
How do you know what Cayosoft does and does not do?
From Cayosoft's public product pages, datasheets, help centre, Trust Center and press releases, each linked under the table with the date we last checked. Where a capability was not documented, the row says so instead of claiming it is missing. If something has changed or we got a row wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
What does the free POC include, and how long does it take?
A read-only connection to your tenant, a full scan, and a comparison meeting. A small tenant shows first results within one to two hours; a tenant with around a million files takes six to twelve hours for the first full map. Nothing is changed in your tenant during the POC, and Cayosoft keeps running untouched.
See both on your own tenant.
Book a demo, then a free side-by-side proof of concept next to Cayosoft. Read-only consent, first findings the same day, nothing changed in your tenant.
Or roll the directory back and take the data on trust.