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Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager vs One Identity Active Roles comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Fortra's Powertech Identity...
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (35th)
One Identity Active Roles
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Identity and Access Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager is designed for Privileged Access Management (PAM) and holds a mindshare of 1.0%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
One Identity Active Roles, on the other hand, focuses on Active Directory Management, holds 11.9% mindshare, up 6.8% since last year.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager1.0%
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager10.4%
Delinea Secret Server4.5%
Other84.1%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
One Identity Active Roles11.9%
Netwrix Auditor10.6%
ManageEngine ADManager Plus10.1%
Other67.4%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer910470 - PeerSpot reviewer
Practice Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Inexperienced support for old product, but good flexibility for use case customization
HelpSystems Powertech is scalable if you throw more servers at it. Then you can distribute the load, which is a Microsoft SQL Server backend, and as long as you allocate enough resources to those things, then it is scalable. That's good enough. It would be an entire organization that uses it. So at a hospital for example, a healthcare system, a bank, and it would be the entire workforce on it. I haven't see a lot of customer's specific use cases, but it is for the whole workforce, everyone. The CEO of the company to the janitor. In terms of maintaining it, that requires application administrators or system administrators. There is a manual process to update the product, at least with the on-premise version.
Mahesh Malve - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Development Executive at DigitalTrack Solutions Ind Pvt Ltd
Automation has transformed user lifecycle tasks and now enforces consistent secure access
While One Identity Active Roles is a strong platform, a few improvements would make it even better. 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. Another improvement area is the learning curve and setup complexity. One Identity Active Roles is very powerful, but initial configuration, especially for policies, workflows, and delegation, can be complex and require experienced resources. From an integration perspective, although it supports multiple systems, organizations would benefit from more out-of-the-box connectors and smoother cloud integrations such as Azure Active Directory and software-as-a-service applications, as some setups currently require customization. In terms of reporting, while auditing is strong, generating business-friendly reports can be challenging. Users have mentioned the need for better dashboards and easier report generation. There are also some performance considerations, especially in large environments, such as slower PowerShell execution or delays in dynamic group processing in certain cases. Overall, improvements in user interface, ease of use, integration, reporting, and performance optimization would significantly enhance the product experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"HelpSystems Powertech's feature that I have found most valuable is its flexibility."
"HelpSystems Powertech's feature that I have found most valuable is its flexibility. It is able to be extended. A lot of the products these days, especially the ones on the cloud, are limited and can't handle all the use cases. Often there is not even a way to customize the application to meet uncommon use cases and HelpSystems provides an infrastructure that lends itself to the ability to be customized."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted my organization by reducing a lot of manual AD administration work, improving access control, and helping standardize user management processes across the organization."
"One Identity Active Roles has helped us improve security with smooth processes."
"The best part of this Active Roles is the workflow engine. It features an industry-leading workflow automation feature. It's a visual PowerShell that allows task interruption."
"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."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted the organization by significantly improving efficiency through automating repetitive tasks and saving time for the IT team."
"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."
"Overall, One Identity Active Roles has significantly reduced the complexity and workload in Active Directory administration in our organization."
"We have eased the burden on the support desk and reduced the risk of them doing something they shouldn't."
 

Cons

"I would not necessarily recommend customers use it."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the support of the product. It's hard to get support for it. I think this is emblematic of the fact that they don't have a lot of employees who have long-term experience with it."
"We don't get a lot of communication from the One Identity side. I don't know who our account representative is, and that is kind of not good since we have had some turnover there."
"Scripting options in different languages."
"Integration capabilities are somewhere in the middle; it is not easy to integrate, but it is not the hardest thing out there."
"The main improvement I would suggest for One Identity Active Roles is making the UI and policy configuration more intuitive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I know they have increased support for Entra ID and mentioned providing support for AWS. A way to connect to various directories and integrate with cloud directories would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"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."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"It's fairly priced."
"It's expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
I had a great experience with the setup cost, pricing, and licensing costs because the sales team of the vendor is really helpful during the entire procurement of the solution, and we are grateful ...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
I do not see anything that needs to be changed as of now concerning the organization's needs because it is working very well and it is providing great features with great processes. The initial set...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
When a new user is created, predefined rules automatically apply naming standards and assigned groups. This reduces manual tasks while ensuring consistency across all operations. It prevents and av...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Powertech Identity & Access Manager, Powertech Identity & Access Manager, BoKS, BoKS ServerControl, Fox Technologies ApplicationControl, ApplicationControl
Quest Active Roles
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Integris Health
City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.