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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] 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

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
One Identity Active Roles
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Active Directory Management (1st), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (4th)
 

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…
IO
Cybersecurity Consultant at CyberBackbone
One Identity Active Roles makes it easier to maintain a detailed auditing workflow
I want One Identity Active Roles to improve in the area of user interface, modernizing it to feel more like a SaaS tool and to have user-friendly navigation. I also want One Identity Active Roles to improve in their policy configuration area, which requires advanced expertise, and in the area of reporting, I want the reporting to be more basic, visible, and have the ability to export and customize options. The areas needing improvement for One Identity Active Roles include the reporting, the dashboard, and simple policy configuration. I would appreciate improvement in policy configuration and making the reporting system more basic for user interface usage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has helped them to improve and control web and mobile application security."
"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."
"Single Sign-On functionality is valuable because the core purpose of the product is to allow universal (or bespoke) SSO for application suites."
"The SSO, URL-based access control, OAuth 2 and OIDC are the most valuable features."
"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."
"Tivoli Access Manager (or IBM Security Access Manager) is a fully featured web authentication, sso and authorization product."
"Before the solution was implemented it took around 2-3 weeks to get all the necessary account information for a new employee in my organization, and since implementation this now only takes a few minutes."
"It provides good scalability and reliability, not to mention the overall availability of the service."
"I advise others looking into using One Identity Active Roles to utilize it because the automation in workflow is perfect, and the ability to provide detailed auditing and assist in internal audits is excellent."
"The ease of managing on-prem and cloud-based directories through a single pane of glass is good."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"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."
"One Identity Active Roles has helped my organization reduce the number of incorrect privileged accounts through the management unit feature and enables comprehensive group membership management with features not available in Active Directory, such as adding multiple secondary owners and dynamic groups."
"It provides automatic provisioning/update/deprovisioning workflows from a source system to a target system."
"It has eliminated a lot of tedious IT tasks, especially when people leave, with ten or 15 scripted actions that Active Roles always does the same way and at the same time."
"We have eased the burden on the support desk and reduced the risk of them doing something they shouldn't."
 

Cons

"The pricing is always costly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Installation and configuration. If you don’t know the requirements of the supporting components, it could be complicated to install and this has been improved in the later versions that are renamed to IBM Tivoli Security Access Manager."
"The user interface looks like it was designed for technical personnel only."
"It was complex for us as we have multiple domains."
"One Identity Active Roles can be improved by simplifying the setup process since a small team in a small business requires implementation without extensive IT support."
"The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial."
"Integration capabilities are somewhere in the middle; it is not easy to integrate, but it is not the hardest thing out there."
"The way you can search groups could be better."
"I want One Identity Active Roles to improve in the area of user interface, modernizing it to feel more like a SaaS tool and to have user-friendly navigation."
"Additional documentation about the Angular web interface is needed."
"I've had a difficult time getting it to cooperate with Azure in the cloud and, while the support staff are very good and very knowledgeable, what they assist with just on a call doesn't go deep enough to help with a number of issues. The answer that comes back is that we'd have to start an engagement with Professional Services, which is fine but that takes time to schedule and it takes budget."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"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 licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"It's fairly priced."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare 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 Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
I am aware of the pricing; it is on the expensive side, though pricing is not my department.
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles can be improved by simplifying the setup process since a small team in a small business requires implementation without extensive IT support. Additionally, the pricing cou...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles is used primarily to simplify and automate Active Directory user and permission management. The solution automates routine tasks such as account creation, password reset, ...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager
Quest Active Roles
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
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 SailPoint, One Identity, Omada and others in User Provisioning Software. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.