Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Cloud Identity Service vs Okta Workforce Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 2, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cloud Identity Service
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (5th), Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (5th), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Identity Service is 0.3%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 17.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1054431 - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent support, beneficial integration, and low maintenance
I have found IBM Cloud Identity Service to be highly scalable. It can handle thousands of users. IBM solutions are truly enterprise-grade. You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses. The implementation effort, it's hard to find that cost-benefit.
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

"One of the most valuable features of IBM Cloud Identity Service is that it delivers integrations with the commercial SaaS software that's available."
"It is multiple identity and access management, so all of the applications are valuable. It's also part of the automated process."
"It is stable. We can automate many of our daily operations with it, and we don't have to manage many things manually."
"The ease of deployment, ease of use, and speed of delivery is what I like about Okta Workforce Identity. It is very easy to use. For a lot of software, you need to be trained extensively and have a very technical background. Okta Workforce Identity is quite simple. You can integrate any software into Okta. They've got a network of 7,000 applications that easily integrate into it."
"The tool helps improve our security and productivity."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It has a wide range of MFA options. I prefer "Okta Verify" out of them all."
"I like the tool's workflows, which is user-friendly. It can integrate with different applications. I particularly like that users are delighted to access their applications without the hassle of entering their username and password each time. It truly enhances user-friendliness."
"Workforce Identity's best features include its user-friendliness and easy setup."
"The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are MFA, and SSO, which have high security."
"The support for YubiKey is really good because you don't actually have to type in your username and password."
 

Cons

"Everything can be more stable and secure. There could also be more account features. I would like to be able to do more things through it to manage users' accounts."
"The initial setup is complex, it's not straightforward. It takes months because it's not straightforward."
"IBM Cloud Identity Service is going in the right direction with the product. They need to keep building out the integrations and having the library is very critical."
"Support could be a bit faster."
"RESTful Web Service calls and their response seem a bit slow."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"The product does not offer enough integration capabilities."
"There is a need for Okta to provide an end-to-end solution without needing a separate product like Zscaler for multifactor authentication."
"The only aspect in which it can be improved is that the interface could be cleaner. I found this even when I was trying to do my certification exam because the certification is hands-on. You find yourself fumbling around a little bit to find simple things. This happens even when you start to get familiar with the product."
"The initial setup can be complex at first."
"SSO and MFA for improved end-user experience, and protection against password spray attacks, account password self-service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive for non-enterprise companies. IBM's always going to be a little more expensive, you're going to be paying a premium. However, depending on the organization's needs, there's probably a benefit there to do even with the price being the way it is."
"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."
"The price of the solution is good."
"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"The licensing is per user per month and includes full technical support."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"The licensing model is fine for general service usage. However, the charges for API features and API tokens can be quite high."
"Okta has fairly competitive pricing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
We are facing one issue with Cypress test cases. Whenever I write Cypress test cases, we encounter problems with logging in through Okta. There is no proper documentation on integrating test cases ...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baxter Healthcare, 
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 IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.