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Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy vs Okta Workforce Identity comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Google Cloud Platform Cloud...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (8th)
Okta Workforce Identity
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (5th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Kodanda Ramji C.S - PeerSpot reviewer
Involves an initial setup phase that is straightforward in nature
My company evaluates whether the product is capable of fulfilling the requirements of our customers, and we may even do it with the other OEM tools in the market. Based on the use cases given to my company by its customers, we evaluate whether Azure, AWS, or GCP can be helpful. Among the three cloud options, the ones that are able to fulfill our company's customers' requirements will be evaluated, and their report will be submitted to the manager. Based on the costing part, customers can decide which OEM tool would be the best for them. My company does technical and financial evaluation of the products. As there were no operational changes and only initial implementation was required, which was a part of the PoC phase, there wasn't much of an impact on the user experience. All the three service providers, like GCP, Azure and AWS are used to meet the same requirements. I would say that the same benefits are made available to users by all the service providers. The differentiation part can be considered only on the basis of the costs. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"It is a stable platform."
"The solution is easy to install and use."
"The solution has many features for stability and security."
"We do not need to learn anything new to use the product."
"The app provides ready-made services that we can talk to without issue."
"It is totally awesome in terms of scalability. Its scalability was the main reason for moving to Google Cloud. It also comes with a lot of features. We are satisfied with the features it has."
"If you have a good understanding of infrastructure, this solution is perfect."
"Google Cloud Platform has the best feature for real-time collaboration."
"The initial setup of Okta Workforce Identity is straightforward. I was able to get an environment ready within half a day."
"We face no challenges in integrating the product with our legacy systems."
"The most valuable feature in Okta Workforce Identity is the single sign-on, universal directory, and lifecycle management."
"The solution so far has been very stable."
"Its simplicity and its integration with various vendor-agnostic platforms are the most valuable features."
"The solution can scale very well."
"Okta controls all the users. It has context-based access from the user and type of device. It identifies the risk and can do a step of authentication when that user is trying to access some sensitive application from an unknown device."
"It is dependent on the evolution of your user base. It depends on usage per user, so the more sign-ins there are, the more expensive it becomes, so it works best for smaller companies from a financial perspective."
 

Cons

"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Its pricing could be better."
"The solution should have better integration."
"The support can be more efficient. Google has different layers of support, like layer one, layer two, and layer three, but normally, the response from layer one is not very useful."
"Google is not well supported in France."
"The platform’s stability and scalability need improvement."
"The solution's AI integration could be improved."
"The stability regarding voice commands in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The solution is a bit complex and could be made easier to use."
"Sometimes, it just fails to get some documents, and then it resumes normally. Google should work to enhance the overall features of the solution."
"A room for improvement in Okta Workforce Identity is its price. It could be cheaper. The biggest benefit of the solution is that everything works securely without extra steps, so you're saving on your workforce's time and effort because your applications work smoothly and securely, but you'd need to pay some amount of money for that. Another area that could be improved, though not necessarily regarding Okta Workforce Identity, is the SSO applications because so many of the source applications charge extra money to put the SSO to work, which means you have to buy a more expensive license. Nowadays, SSO is a mainstream functionality and it should be out-of-the-box in those applications because it's so easy to set up."
"The lifecycle management part can be improved. It should also have identity governance and the ability to choose a specific factor authentication at the application level. Its licensing and pricing can also be improved."
"The guest user access could be improved."
"We had some implementation issues."
"Its pricing needs improvement."
"The solution's user interface needs to be improved and made easy."
"They also have single sign-on (SSO). When we bought Okta Workforce Identity a year and a half ago, I was also looking at SSO, but not much documentation was available for SSO. The documentation for SSO should be a little more robust for somebody who is implementing it for the first time."
"The initial setup can be complex at first."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy is expensive."
"When comparing the price of GCP to other solutions it provides more value for the money."
"The licensing costs us $100,000 so pricing could be better."
"My organization makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the tool."
"The customer purchases an annually sponsored license."
"I think the price of Google Cloud Platform is reasonable. However, Microsoft is the most cost-effective solution for us because of Azure's integration. And we already have licenses for Windows Server and the databases, so the price is attractive."
"I think that the cost is metered based on the data, but I don't have the details."
"The product is free."
"This solution is costly. Pricing is decent if you have less users, but it significantly goes up the more users you have, with its cost not justified."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"The product has a user-based license model."
"It is costly for large companies."
"The pricing for Okta Workforce Identity could still be improved or made cheaper. It costs from 50 to 100 euros a year per user. Okta Workforce Identity has different packages you can choose from, and my previous company had all of them, particularly the full Okta suite."
"The product's price is high. For each feature, a certain payment is required."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"Price-wise, Okta Workforce Identity is a cheap solution. The overall cost depends on the license since you can negotiate with Okta or any of Okta's partners only if you opt for many licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What do you like most about Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy?
I can access the information whenever I want. It's integration is easy. The tool's GUI is easy to use with an IT back...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy?
There are different pricing plans depending on data volumes and services, but it's comparable to other providers. The...
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy?
Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy should improve stability.
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta should have at least a local presense for countries that align with or comply with GDPR or data sovereignty, so ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
GCP Cloud IAP, Google Cloud Platform Cloud IAP, Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.