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IBM Cloud Identity Service vs Okta Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

IBM Cloud Identity Service
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
31st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Platform
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (3rd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Identity Service is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Platform is 8.6%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Okta Platform8.6%
IBM Cloud Identity Service0.9%
Other90.5%
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1054431 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Excellent support, beneficial integration, and low maintenance
I have found IBM Cloud Identity Service to be highly scalable. It can handle thousands of users. IBM solutions are truly enterprise-grade. You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses. The implementation effort, it's hard to find that cost-benefit.
SN
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
Automated lifecycle management has cut onboarding times and now drives secure, clean access
Although I am a fan of Okta Platform overall, there are areas where it could improve security outcomes and reduce admin friction. My top improvement areas include the system log and analytics upgrade, which are great for point troubleshooting, but trending and root cause analysis across large tenants still require exporting to SIEM. Verbose queries and long-range retention costs can add up. Additionally, while certificate rotations are better than most, the process is still manual for busy portfolios, especially concerning multi-SP SAML certificate rotations and app metadata drift. Two more buckets of potential improvements for Okta Platform involve user experience and security. There is the issue of push fatigue and prompt sprawl, where users receive multiple prompts across different apps and sessions. I arrived at the rating of eight because the core controls are strong and reliable, but a few operational UX and UI gaps prevent it from being rated higher. The reasons for not giving it a nine or ten include ongoing issues concerning safety and change safety, the complexity of group rules and mappings, and the lack of robustness in policy management. Additionally, there remains a need for more manual involvement than necessary, especially for large portfolios and dual certificate rotation, along with proactive SP data metadata validation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is multiple identity and access management, so all of the applications are valuable. It's also part of the automated process."
"One of the most valuable features of IBM Cloud Identity Service is that it delivers integrations with the commercial SaaS software that's available."
"IBM Cloud Identity Service is highly stable."
"It is stable. We can automate many of our daily operations with it, and we don't have to manage many things manually."
"The most valuable feature of Okta is its security."
"We've implemented it for the clients and they're quite happy with it."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"It offers very helpful support. The technical team is very helpful."
"Okta has more when it comes to the policy level. It has distinctive features where you can do a mix and combination to have users access applications for various business cases."
"The stability is fantastic and has never been down."
"If anyone asks for a suggestion, I will definitely suggest Okta Platform."
"One of the features that I have found to be very valuable is its interoperability and compatibility with all types of resources, whether it's networking, infrastructure, or applications. That is, it is compatible as well as interoperable, as far as the federated authentication is concerned."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex, it's not straightforward. It takes months because it's not straightforward."
"IBM Cloud Identity Service is going in the right direction with the product. They need to keep building out the integrations and having the library is very critical."
"Everything can be more stable and secure. There could also be more account features. I would like to be able to do more things through it to manage users' accounts."
"You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses."
"When it comes to Okta Workflow, when there are too many flows running at once, those get delayed."
"It's not compatible with on-premises installations, unless you host it as a SaaS."
"One feature I can mention is that there should be an optional registration option for multiple MFA factors."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the support system, they are too slow."
"The error logging could be improved. Okta doesn't provide enough details when you are troubleshooting an issue. It's often difficult to fix it from our end, so we always need additional support from Okta."
"The integration process takes a bit longer than we would want it to."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Okta Platform is that it is expensive and complicated."
"It's not compatible with on-premises installations, unless you host it as a SaaS. We were not able to do that. For example, imagine a scenario where the cloud is not available. Then, Okta will not work for you. That use case will readily fail because it doesn't have an on-premises installation that you can use to authenticate or provide identity and access management. If you have a purely on-premises solution that is not connected to the internet, then this will not work. This is one area that can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive for non-enterprise companies. IBM's always going to be a little more expensive, you're going to be paying a premium. However, depending on the organization's needs, there's probably a benefit there to do even with the price being the way it is."
"This solution is costly. Pricing is decent if you have less users, but it significantly goes up the more users you have, with its cost not justified."
"Okta Customer Identity is not an expensive solution."
"The product's price is high. For each feature, a certain payment is required."
"The price of the solution is good."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"The pricing for Okta Workforce Identity could still be improved or made cheaper. It costs from 50 to 100 euros a year per user. Okta Workforce Identity has different packages you can choose from, and my previous company had all of them, particularly the full Okta suite."
"The solution is really expensive."
"The price of this product could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise65
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Currently, in Okta Workforce Identity we get the two-digit authentication code. Instead of getting the two-digit authentication code, if we had an option to do fingerprint verification, that would ...
What is your primary use case for Okta Workforce Identity?
I don't have many details about Okta Workforce Identity. I use the tool just to sign in to different applications that we have. We basically set up Okta Workforce Identity in our mobile phone. We d...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baxter Healthcare, 
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Okta Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.