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One Identity Active Roles vs OpenText Identity Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

One Identity Active Roles
Ranking in User Provisioning Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (4th)
OpenText Identity Manager
Ranking in User Provisioning Software
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (15th), Identity Governance Administration (IGA) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the User Provisioning Software category, the mindshare of One Identity Active Roles is 6.4%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Identity Manager is 3.8%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Provisioning Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
One Identity Active Roles6.4%
OpenText Identity Manager3.8%
Other89.8%
User Provisioning Software
 

Featured Reviews

IO
Cybersecurity Consultant at CyberBackbone
One Identity Active Roles makes it easier to maintain a detailed auditing workflow
I want One Identity Active Roles to improve in the area of user interface, modernizing it to feel more like a SaaS tool and to have user-friendly navigation. I also want One Identity Active Roles to improve in their policy configuration area, which requires advanced expertise, and in the area of reporting, I want the reporting to be more basic, visible, and have the ability to export and customize options. The areas needing improvement for One Identity Active Roles include the reporting, the dashboard, and simple policy configuration. I would appreciate improvement in policy configuration and making the reporting system more basic for user interface usage.
reviewer2401464 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Updates systems quickly and does not have a limit on the number of users
NetIQ does not have a limit on the number of users. The tool is secure by nature. It can have more than one billion users. Event-based systems know what has to be changed. SQL-based systems can only change using time and date. Event-based systems provide immediate results, while SQL-based systems need time to sync. It is totally different from a security perspective. Event-based systems can update all the systems in seconds or minutes. Other systems do it within 24 hours. The basic event-based system is AI-driven. It has some kind of robotics and programming. Other tools need programming. I like systems that have prebuilt ideas of security. NetIQ has been in the market for a long period. It has all the systems and connectors. There is not much coding. We just need to configure the products. We need not do any programming. I haven't seen any other product that needs only configuration to do the job. Most products in the market are SQL-based. They need programming. Some service providers who sell other products to customers do not sell NetIQ because they can make more money by selling solutions that need more consultancy and programming. More hours lead to more money.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In comparison to native Active Directory tools, using Active Roles for delegation is so much better. It uses an access template and that makes it easy to see who can access what. In fact, you can do that for many objects as well."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"Because of Active Roles, we're able to synchronize on an even more regular basis. It enables us to provide even more information to the Active Directory, which helped us to group our users in a more consistent manner."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted my organization by providing a consistent and easy to understand interface for Active Directory, whether you are reading it or whether you are actively managing Active Directory."
"It's valuable to us in that it resembles the native tools that most people have grown accustomed to... Active Roles resembles traditional tools, such as from Microsoft. That is really good because it eases the way people interact with the tool."
"Another good feature is the change history. It's centralized in a single place and allows us to manage people's Active Directory domains from a central location. We can also drill down into individual objects in a troubleshooting or even an auditing situation. We can show evidence to auditors by drilling down into the individual history. It gives you all the history of what happened around an individual object. That is something that would be almost impossible to do in Active Directory, or extremely complicated."
"With the use of the sync service we were able to import information from multiple external systems and populate them within our space and leverage them for downstream systems."
"Active Roles improved the management of users, groups, and AD objects in the organization."
"I like the eDirectory feature."
"The main value lies in the simplicity of implementation, as well as its customized look and feel."
"The most valuable features are Password Reset Alerts, Password Sync, and SQL connectors."
"The access request management has improved significantly in terms of its user interface. What sets it apart from competitors like SailPoint is that it's an event-based solution rather than schedule-based. That's a key differentiator."
"The most valuable feature of NetIQ Identity Manager for identity synchronization is the ability to provide users with all necessary access on day one through automated provisioning, facilitated by approval workflows."
"The most valuable features of NetIQ Identity Manager are the synchronization of different directories, such as Active Directory. We have many Active Directory systems, not only one."
"It's a very flexible tool, so you can synchronize multiple sources of data and you have multiple connections to various kinds of systems."
"The most valuable feature of this solution has been the ability for us to integrate a lot of external systems, and the automatic transfer of a lot of identity information. Additionally, the customization is very good."
 

Cons

"The possibility to request group membership, similar to the past, was disabled and moved to Identity Manager."
"The user interface needs to be more modern and scalable. There are certain screen resolutions where the product is unusable."
"I have not seen a return on investment or any relevant metrics and I cannot imagine we would have saved any employees or any full-time equivalents for One Identity Active Roles."
"I want One Identity Active Roles to improve in the area of user interface, modernizing it to feel more like a SaaS tool and to have user-friendly navigation."
"For ActiveRoles, it would be good if the product supports multi-scripting language. You can use only VBScript."
"Customer support is rated six. Sometimes having a fix for a bug takes too much time. While in production, issues tend to take a while to resolve."
"The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial."
"The user and group management in Azure AD could be better. Our focus these days is dynamic sharing with several on-prem Microsoft applications like SharePoint."
"The vendor must provide an easier console for configuring things for smaller customers."
"There's no huge thing missing, because it's already comprehensive. Now and then, however, there might be a minor issue."
"NetIQ Identity Manager could improve by updating the user portal, it is out of date."
"We have another system that is using the SAML system, and we also integrate with Active Directory only. If NetIQ Identity Manager can integrate directly, we would not need to use the Active Directory directory."
"The solution architecture is somewhat complex. For some components, the necessary resilience is not inherent."
"The integrations must be made easier."
"Areas for improvement are further enhancing the access granting process to reduce time and improve accuracy."
"If it could be operated in such a way that anybody could use it, with just the user interface, and there's no need for programming, then that would be a great improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"It's fairly priced."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"The pricing is high. I have not been involved with the renewal or cost aspect, but I know it is not cheap by any means. However, it is very useful for our environment."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"It would easily help them in getting more market and more customers if more consultants knew about their software. If they could keep it free for schools for teaching purposes, it would be good. I had to pay myself to get it and use it for training. Their competitors are giving it for free. I had to pay for it myself. They are losing market to their competitors."
"Micro Focus is flexible when it comes to price. The cost varies from customer to customer. There are no additional costs, though. Everything is included."
"The price of the solution is a bit high and could be reduced."
"I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being low price and ten being high price. It is significantly more cost-effective than the major players in the market."
"The solution is quite affordable."
"You just need to be aware that the more systems you connect, the more license fees you have to pay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
I am aware of the pricing; it is on the expensive side, though pricing is not my department.
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
Integration capabilities are somewhere in the middle; it is not easy to integrate, but it is not the hardest thing out there. Certain automations, possibly web apps, could be improved or simplified...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles is used for provisioning and directory management.
What do you like most about NetIQ Identity Manager?
The most valuable feature of NetIQ Identity Manager for identity synchronization is the ability to provide users with all necessary access on day one through automated provisioning, facilitated by ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetIQ Identity Manager?
The pricing depends on whether we buy the solution as a service or a license. The license is expensive. If we buy it as a service for a large number of users, it is the cheapest tool we can get. Th...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Identity Manager?
The tool is used mostly in big systems to understand what is happening. There are not many technicians who know how to use the product. The vendor must provide an easier console for configuring thi...
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
Novell Identity Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Sheetz
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity Active Roles vs. OpenText Identity Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
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