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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
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (4th)
OpenText Identity Manager
Ranking in User Provisioning Software
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the User Provisioning Software category, the mindshare of One Identity Active Roles is 5.6%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Identity Manager is 3.2%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Provisioning Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
One Identity Active Roles5.6%
OpenText Identity Manager3.2%
Other91.2%
User Provisioning Software
 

Featured Reviews

Grzegorz Kosela - PeerSpot reviewer
solution architect/ engineer at APEX.IT Sp. z o.o.
Task automation simplifies user and delegation management while offering a customizable interface
Currently, task automation, like provisioning, deprovisioning, and reprovisioning, is very effective. When a user moves from one organization to another, it automatically changes their group membership and performs similar functions. Secondly, the granular delegation feature is very nice and much simpler and easier than it is natively in Microsoft. Two years ago, One Identity Active Roles was under Dell. It was quite poor. However, now, there have been notable improvements, such as faster system processing, better logging, enhanced information, and a more user-friendly interface. Once it was sold by Dell, things got better. The interface became a bit more user-friendly. The Angular user interface is much more flexible for adjusting to customer needs, and a completely new and customizable one can be created, aligning with all settings and scripts required by a customer. The ease of managing on-prem and cloud-based directories through a single pane of glass is good. I'd rate it nine out of ten. The solution's ability to provision and deprovision resources and directories like Azure AD is very simple, especially when you can integrate with the HR system and grab some data from HR. It's actually fully automatic. I don't need to even touch it. It's helped increase operational efficiency by 50%. It's helped decrease security problems around privileged accounts. We were able to decrease the number of privileged accounts and have been able to delegate more effectively. We decreased the number of high-level permissions that administrators had. For example, if someone is a DNS administrator, he has access only as far as the specific actions he needs to handle. We don't need to give away such high privileges for such a daily job. It's helped clarify roles and access. It's helped reduce identity-based breaches. If someone leaves a company, we can easily undo provisioning and close accounts. We can generate reports to see which people have which permissions and at what times. We've just integrated with our HR system. It helps us follow activated and deactivated users. I'd rate the granular controls on offer ten out of ten. We've saved on manpower in terms of the work of the administrators. There's good reporting and functionality, and it's very transparent. You can connect more than one directory and manage everything from one pane. You can do many things from one interface.
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

"The biggest thing for us is Active Roles saves a lot of man-hours in keeping groups up-to-date manually or trying to write some sort of script that you have to run, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Instead of when every time somebody joins a department, then somebody has to remember to put in a request to add "meet user Joe" to this group, the solution does it automatically for us. Therefore, it saves our business and IT staff time because they do not have to process requests since Active Role can do it for them."
"It is very intuitive and close to the native tools. Since it is web-based, it does not require extensive training for our end users."
"The solution improved our organization's security posture by framing the end users and ensuring that capabilities that could cause mistakes are hidden from the web interface."
"The access templates help set up granular permissions and the web portal to manage Active Directory."
"Active Roles helped reduce our identity-based breaches."
"Secure access is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are Password Reset Alerts, Password Sync, and SQL connectors."
"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."
"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."
"NetIQ does not have a limit on the number of users."
"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 main value lies in the simplicity of implementation, as well as its customized look and feel."
"The product is easy to use."
"It's a very flexible tool, so you can synchronize multiple sources of data and you have multiple connections to various kinds of systems."
 

Cons

"For mid-sized to small companies, I do not know if it would be that useful, considering the tool's purpose."
"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."
"If One Identity Active Roles has to be positioned for all customers, not just the entities which are being regulated, then the pricing has to be normalized."
"The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial."
"Additional documentation about the Angular web interface is needed."
"For ActiveRoles, it would be good if the product supports multi-scripting language. You can use only VBScript."
"There are some features that we think should be included in their next release. We think these things would take them to the next level: the ability to completely force or limit any dynamic group processing to specific servers, change-tracking reporting of virtual attributes, and the ability to use files as inputs to automation workloads. These things have also been talked about. Knowing them, they're probably working on them."
"There is always room to improve the user interface for increased clarity. I believe enhancements to the console are also necessary because it is more confusing than the web interface."
"Areas for improvement are further enhancing the access granting process to reduce time and improve accuracy."
"There's no huge thing missing, because it's already comprehensive. Now and then, however, there might be a minor issue."
"The solution architecture is somewhat complex. For some components, the necessary resilience is not inherent."
"The vendor must provide an easier console for configuring things for smaller customers."
"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."
"NetIQ Identity Manager could improve by updating the user portal, it is out of date."
"The interface is old and outdated, and the design software seems archaic."
"It needs some modern features. They should improve and modernize their management interface. It has been created over years and by different persons. You can see different applications, different management consoles for different things. There should be an integrated interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's expensive."
"It's fairly priced."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"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 on the higher end."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"The solution is quite affordable."
"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."
"You just need to be aware that the more systems you connect, the more license fees you have to pay."
"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."
"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 price of the solution is a bit high and could be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise19
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?
Regarding the pricing of One Identity Active Roles, it is definitely on the expensive side compared to solutions for what it does. It is a necessary need for us. I don't know One Identity Active Ro...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
One of the things I would like to see more robust is the change history. One Identity Active Roles can only monitor changes that happen in the console, and the logs don't go back longer than thirty...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles is used for delegated access. It helps with RBAC controls and allows us to manipulate across our facilities which OUs in Active Directory they can manage, along with dynam...
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: December 2025.
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