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Active Roles by One Identity vs Opal comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 20, 2026

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
Ranking in User Provisioning Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (1st)
Opal
Ranking in User Provisioning Software
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (20th), Access Management (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the User Provisioning Software category, the mindshare of Active Roles by One Identity is 4.8%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Opal is 1.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Provisioning Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Active Roles by One Identity4.8%
Opal1.1%
Other94.1%
User Provisioning Software
 

Featured Reviews

Puru Solanki ( ITIL. CISM , CCSP ) - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Head at Citadel Global
Automation has streamlined onboarding and governance and delivers faster, more secure access
Overall, we are very satisfied with Active Roles by One Identity, but there are a few areas that could be improved. The user interface could be more modern and intuitive, especially for new administrators. Some advanced configuration and policy settings have a steep learning curve and could be simplified. We would also like to see more built-in integrations with cloud platforms and SaaS applications, along with additional out-of-the-box reporting templates. These improvements would make the product even easier and more flexible for organizations managing hybrid environments. One thing that would make our daily work even smoother is having more ready-to-use templates for common administrative tasks and reports. This would reduce the need for customization and help teams get up and running more quickly. Additionally, faster and simpler synchronization for hybrid and cloud environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations managing both on-premises and cloud identities. More detailed documentation and guided setup for advanced features would help new administrators learn the platform faster and more easily. One additional improvement I would like to see for Active Roles by One Identity is a better built-in dashboard with more real-time insights into identity and access activities. It would be helpful if upgrades and migrations were simpler and required less planning. Finally, expanding native integrations with more cloud services and third-party applications would make the platform even more versatile and reliable. These enhancements would improve the overall user experience while keeping the product's strong security and automation capabilities.
Mohammed Mudasser - PeerSpot reviewer
AI/ML Engineer at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automated access reviews have improved least privilege and simplified identity governance
The best features Opal offers are automated access reviews, centralized visibility, and just-in-time access. I especially appreciate the ability to enforce time-bound access and automatically revoke privileges, which makes least privilege management much more practical. The automated access reviews have made the process much more efficient by giving us a structured way to review and revoke unnecessary permissions. Instead of manually checking every entitlement, we can focus on exceptions and higher risk access, which makes the review process more manageable and consistent. I would also add that the context Opal provides during access reviews is valuable. You can see the access relationship and risk rather than simply approving or denying it blindly. This makes the decisions more informed and gives the team a much better audit trail.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One Identity Active Roles has impacted our organization positively because the biggest benefit has been reducing manual administration through automation and standardized workflows, so tasks such as onboarding, offboarding, group assignments, and access requests are now much faster and more consistent than before, helping create a more structured identity management process across the organization."
"We have eased the burden on the support desk and reduced the risk of them doing something they shouldn't."
"The AD and AAD management features of this solution are really good... They offer added value by showing more fields such as password age and the statuses of some things that we normally wouldn't see."
"Heavily Automates - it will automate the entire provisioning, re-provisioning, de-provisioning and undo-de-provisioning tasks Complete Audit Trail - it gives an audit trail for each and every activity Increase in accountability – various tasks can be enabled for approval."
"We have two staff members and so per staff member, Active Roles saves us 0.2 FTE."
"One Identity Active Roles has made things more organized and secure across the company, and it has also reduced the need to contact IT administrators directly, saving time for both me and the IT staff."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted our organization by making Active Directory management much more efficient, reducing manual work, improving control over permissions, and providing better visibility into changes, which has helped both security and compliance efforts."
"Over a decade, this solution has done its job; it's a very stable system, easy to implement, easy to upgrade, and has very low operation maintenance costs."
"Previously, my phone usage was around nine hours and fifteen minutes or more, but it has significantly reduced to around six hours and thirty minutes to seven hours, meaning two and a half to three hours has been reduced after using Opal as my primary screen time blocker."
"Opal has positively impacted my organization by reducing stress and increasing effectiveness for all our employees; it works better so all our employees have more time to sleep and they can investigate more."
"The clearest outcome I have seen is less manual effort during access reviews and better control over unnecessary or standing access, which improves the overall security posture."
 

Cons

"One area where One Identity Active Roles can improve is simplifying complex workflow and approval management in large enterprise environments."
"Another issue we have with the product is that we run a lot of custom tasks. You have to program them to run on one particular host and there's no automatic failover to a second host. If that host is down when a task is supposed to run, it has to wait until the next time it runs when that host is up."
"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."
"The initial setup of One Identity Active Roles can be more simplified."
"One area is the user interface and administrative experience. While the platform is feature-rich, some workflows and configuration screens can feel complex for new administrators, especially in large enterprise environments with extensive policy configurations."
"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."
"The third area for improvement, which is the weakest portion of ARS, is the workflow engine, which was introduced a few years ago. It's slow and not very intuitive to use, so I would like to see improvement there."
"Opal can be improved in some ways."
"The core platform is already strong, but I would appreciate more flexibility in customizing workflows and access review policies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's fairly priced."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"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."
"It's expensive."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
26%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business99
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
To improve Active Roles by One Identity, I would like to see more automation around role assignment and access reviews, along with better reporting and an easier-to-use dashboard. While the integra...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
My main use case for Active Roles by One Identity involves managing user access and roles across different applications while ensuring users have the right permissions based on their responsibiliti...
What needs improvement with Opal?
The core platform is already strong, but I would appreciate more flexibility in customizing workflows and access review policies. Better reporting and analytics around access trends and risk would ...
What is your primary use case for Opal?
The main case I am using Opal is for identity and access governance, particularly managing application access and enforcing least privilege policies. I use it to streamline access requests, approva...
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Active Roles by One Identity vs. Opal and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.