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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] vs Okta Platform comparison

 

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 Tivoli Access Manager [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Platform
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (3rd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user711612 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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

"Provided more secure computing."
"IBM directory server offers the best roll-out experience."
"SAML 2.0."
"It has helped them to improve and control web and mobile application security."
"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."
"Since its birth it is an unbelievable stable product."
"Capabilities of advanced security are enhanced to support strong, flexible authentifications and authentications based on risks as well as critical internet vulnerabilities."
"It provided a secure and robust end to end security solution."
"The pass-through authentication is very useful."
"I find the provisioning features and the integration with other applications useful."
"We face no challenges in integrating the product with our legacy systems."
"The best features of Okta Platform are fast authentication and smooth integration with AD groups."
"The most valuable feature in Okta Workforce Identity is the single sign-on, universal directory, and lifecycle management."
"The most valuable features depend on a customer's needs. Our customers generally find multi-factor authentication very useful."
"Implementing Okta has reduced a lot of IT work; I would say it saves hours and hours of work when it comes to single sign-on and the same for user onboarding, offboarding, and group settings."
"As far as our security team is concerned, the ease of implementing multifactor authentication is definitely the biggest value for our organization."
 

Cons

"The license model is pretty complex."
"I have not tested the stability yet."
"Initial setup was complicated because TAM was implemented as a part of the IDM solution."
"This product is also available in the appliance offering which has not yet matured and has many issues."
"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."
"The initial set-up is a bit complex for a novice as the Linux version of it needs you to be somewhat good with Linux."
"You must be skilled to use Tivoli Access Manager."
"It was complex for us as we have multiple domains."
"Okta is like a luxury product, and it's not the most affordable one."
"The only issue with Okta Customer Identity is after the upgrade process; we have some issues with the integration between Okta Customer Identity and Jamf."
"We've not had any problems with Okta."
"We faced some challenges during the Okta Identity Workforce deployment. Integrating with AWS and other cloud services posed some limitations with federated options. For instance, features like automatic user addition from AWS to the tool were missing, requiring manual intervention. The API is limited compared to the manual configuration possible through the UI."
"Okta Platform's pricing model can be expensive for smaller organizations, affecting user feature accessibility."
"If that phone or device gets stolen, somebody else can log into the system using that code."
"When I started, there were some UI challenges. The UI could be improved to make it better because I had to watch many tutorials to become familiar with their UI flow and integrations."
"If the organization is big, I can say Okta Platform is affordable; however, for small-scale industries, I would not recommend it, but for medium and enterprise organizations, it is good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"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."
"The product's price is high. For each feature, a certain payment is required."
"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is fair for what it offers."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise63
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager
Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
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 Okta, Microsoft, Cisco and others in Single Sign-On (SSO). Updated: July 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.