Active Roles by One Identity vs IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] comparison

One Identity and IBM are both solutions in the User Provisioning Software category. Additionally, 100% of One Identity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Active Roles by One Identity

Read 90 Active Roles by One Identity reviews

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3,373 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [...

Read 29 IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] reviews

93% willing to recommend

Active Roles by One Identity

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 20, 2026

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] and Active Roles by One Identity are both products in the identity and access management category. Active Roles by One Identity has the upper hand, offering superior features and a user-friendly deployment process with significant ROI benefits.

Features: IBM Tivoli Access Manager offers robust access management, centralized access controls for various platforms, and enhances security through single sign-on and reverse proxy components like WebSEAL. Active Roles by One Identity provides dynamic group management, automation of identity lifecycle tasks, and advanced auditing, with a seamless integration across hybrid environments, improving both efficiency and security.

Room for Improvement: Tivoli Access Manager may require complex deployment and lacks some modern flexibility and cloud support. It could benefit from improvements in user interface and ease of management. In contrast, Active Roles could enhance its customization capabilities and provide more straightforward support for multi-cloud environments. Users also desire more granular reporting options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Active Roles by One Identity is easier to deploy with its cloud compatibility and support services. Tivoli Access Manager often demands detailed configurations and longer deployment timelines, which can challenge its adaptability in cloud environments compared to the more straightforward setup of Active Roles.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Tivoli Access Manager generally offers attractive pricing which can appeal to certain budgets. However, Active Roles provides a compelling ROI due to its robust feature set and efficiency. Despite a potentially higher initial cost, the long-term value delivered by Active Roles offers a favorable cost-benefit balance, aligning with sustainable business growth goals.

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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

Active Roles by One Identity

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

User Provisioning Software (3rd), Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (1st)

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

3.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Varun Mehra

collaboration support engineer at a retailer with 11-50 employees

Automation has transformed onboarding and access control and now streamlines daily governance

While One Identity Active Roles is a strong identity and access management solution overall, there are a few areas where it could improve. One challenge we experienced was the initial setup and configuration complexity. Deploying workflows, policies, and delegation models require careful planning and a good understanding of the Active Directory environment. For organizations without experienced administrators, the learning curve can feel quite steep in the beginning. The user interface could also be more modern and intuitive. Some administrative tasks require navigating through multiple menus and the overall experience could be simplified for faster day-to-day management. Another area for improvement is reporting and customization. While the auditing features are good, creating highly customized reports sometimes requires additional efforts or scripting knowledge. More built-in reporting templates and easier dashboard customization would be helpful. We have also noticed that troubleshooting workflows or synchronization issues can occasionally take time because the logs can be very detailed and technical. Better diagnostic tools and simpler error explanations would improve the operational experience. That said, once the platform is properly configured and maintained, it performs reliably and delivers strong automation, delegation, and governance capabilities. One additional area where One Identity Active Roles could improve is cloud integration and hybrid environment management. While it works well with Active Directory and the Microsoft environment, organizations moving heavily towards cloud-first infrastructure may want even deeper and more seamless integration with modern SaaS platforms and identity providers. Performance optimization in large environments could be improved. In very large enterprise deployments with complex workflows and multiple managed domains, some administrative actions and synchronization tasks can occasionally feel slower than expected. Another point is documentation and onboarding resources. The product is feature-rich, but some advanced configurations require going through extensive documentation. More practical examples, guided setup wizards, and easier to follow best practice guides would help new administrators adopt the platform faster. Overall, the core functionality is solid, and most of the pain points are related more to usability, complexity, and modernization rather than the reliability. One additional improvement I would mention is around integration flexibility with third-party ITSM and DevOps tools. While the platform integrates well within Microsoft-centric environments, broader out-of-the-box integration and simpler API workflows for non-Microsoft ecosystems would make deployment and automation easier for organizations using diverse infrastructure. Another area is upgrade and migration simplicity. In enterprise environments, version upgrades and environment migration sometimes require careful planning and testing. Streamlining that process with more automated compatibility checks and migration assistance would reduce operational overhead.

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it_user711612

Senior Consultant at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Reverse proxy provides central control over authentication and authorization.

It is a single product that caters for all the business needs throughout the organization. It provides a seamless integration that in turn encourages most of the applications to use the SSO features Reverse proxy is the most valuable feature as it provides central control over authentication and…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"Overall, One Identity Active Roles has had a positive impact on our organization by making identity and access management more efficient and secure."

"One Identity Active Roles takes us less time, probably half the time, to complete delegations that are very granular and complex, compared to having to use native tools and scripts."

"Active Roles provided us to do all these operations automatically and reduced our workload very significantly."

"ARS probably saves us at least two weeks out of every month."

"It provides automatic provisioning/update/deprovisioning workflows from a source system to a target system."

"One Identity Active Roles has significantly reduced both the complexity and workload of administrative tasks related to Active Directory; many repetitive tasks are automated, so admins spend much less time on routine activities."

"Active Roles by One Identity has resulted in a noticeable improvement in the efficiency of Active Directory administration, with routine user provisioning and de-provisioning tasks now completed 30 to 50% faster by using automated standardized workflows, along with a reduction in manual configuration errors and fewer access-related requests."

More Active Roles by One Identity pros

"Tivoli Access Manager's proxy product (WebSEAL) is extremely fast."

"It is a very stable and good product."

"We have managed to automate the creation of all employees, and the company's clients and then assign the accounts/accesses according to business need."

"I like the primary function of this product allowing the administration of user/network accounts with a fair amount of ease."

"It is a totally secure way of accessing clients through various application portals for more than ten EU countries, just by using single sign-on."

"The SSO, URL-based access control, OAuth 2 and OIDC are the most valuable features."

"Flexibility to connect with different environments and product stability are the best features."

"IBM directory server offers the best roll-out experience."

More IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] pros

Cons

"One Identity Active Roles can be improved with a more modern and user-friendly interface, better reporting and analytics, simplified workflow customization, faster performance in large environments, and stronger cloud and hybrid identity integration capabilities."

"Another improvement I would like to see is better troubleshooting capability when dealing with complex delegation models or workflow-related issues."

"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."

"A few improvements I would like to see in One Identity Active Roles are mainly around usability, reporting, and modern integration."

"The way you can search groups could be better."

"I did not rate One Identity Active Roles at the highest level because areas such as user interface modernization, workflow complexity, troubleshooting experience, reporting capabilities, and cloud integration still have room for improvement."

"Many users feel the user interface is not very modern or intuitive, and it can take time to get used to navigating the console and workflows."

"One Identity Active Roles is a strong product, but like any enterprise tool, there are areas where it could be improved."

More Active Roles by One Identity cons

"The profiling element is incredibly robust, but also equally as complex, it requires an off-site course to be able to understand the context or the plethora of options available."

"Multi-factor authentication with social integration needs to improve."

"What I don’t particularly like is the flow duration."

"There is only a single step-up authentication path, but I have sometimes seen the need for several steps or a divergent path."

"The self-service portal needs improvement."

"An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for the newer appliance versions for hosting the virtual appliances on AWS will help."

"Older TAM versions are not compatible for connecting to a DB."

"We have had stability issues lately with the hardware and SAN that the product runs on."

More IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."

"The pricing is on the higher end."

"It's fairly priced."

"It's expensive."

"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 pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."

"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

14%

Outsourcing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	96
Midsize Enterprise	16
Large Enterprise	45

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?

I wasn't directly involved in the pricing or licensing decisions, so I cannot comment on the exact cost. For our operations, I believe the investment was considered worthwhile because the product r...

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What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?

I think One Identity Active Roles is a mature and reliable solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The biggest one is the management interface, which feels dated compared to...

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What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?

Our main use case for One Identity Active Roles is to simplify and standardize Active Directory administration across multiple business units while reducing the amount of manual work handled by our...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Active Roles by One Identity

August 2026

Download Active Roles by One Identity product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL]

July 2026

Download IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager

Overview

One Identity Active Roles enhances Active Directory management by automating essential tasks and improving security through efficient delegation and role-based access control.

One Identity Active Roles offers advanced features for managing Active Directory environments, aiding in automating user provisioning, group management, and de-provisioning. It integrates seamlessly with Microsoft environments and provides centralized management for both on-premises and cloud identities. By improving operational efficiency and reducing manual errors, it enforces robust governance across organizations. Active Roles includes auditing and reporting tools that strengthen compliance and security monitoring. Companies find the setup could be simplified with better documentation, more customization options in reporting, and expanded cloud integration, particularly with Azure. Improved workflows and deeper native connectors are needed for seamless automation. Price adjustments and user-friendly analytics with intuitive dashboards are recommended for better usability.

What are the key features of One Identity Active Roles?

Automation of Active Directory tasks: Streamlines processes such as user provisioning and de-provisioning.
Role-based access control: Ensures secure delegation of administration tasks.
Auditing and reporting: Enhances compliance with security monitoring capabilities.
Integration with Microsoft: Seamlessly manages on-premises and cloud identities.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Operational Efficiency: Reduces manual errors and streamlines active directory tasks.
Security and Governance: Enforces policy-based controls for secure user management.
Compliance: Strengthens monitoring and compliance through advanced auditing.
Usability: Suggests enhancements in workflow and analytics for better management.

Many industries deploy One Identity Active Roles for automating user lifecycle management, especially in Active Directory environments. It significantly eases operations by automating onboarding for new hires, managing role changes, and modifying access. The platform efficiently handles tasks like password resets and compliance audits while empowering teams to securely manage user access without requiring full administrative rights.

One Identity

IBM Tivoli Access Manager is a robust and secure centralized policy management solution for e-business and distributed applications. IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL is a high performance, multi-threaded Web server that applies fine-grained security policy to the Tivoli Access Manager protected Web object space. WebSEAL can provide single sign-on solutions and incorporate back-end Web application server resources into its security policy.

IBM

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies

Essex Technology Group Inc.

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