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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] vs SAP Identity Management 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
SAP Identity Management
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (7th), Identity Management (IM) (16th)
 

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…
FM
Sales Executive at Minsait
Identity management enhances connectivity and productivity with streamlined access and robust security, offering time-saving processes and facilitating seamless integration with other BI tools
One area that could be improved with SAP Identity Management, other than support, is user engagement from an implementation perspective. It would be beneficial for SAP to extend their events and workshops that are currently performed for partners to their final customers, as many customers want to know what's new and what else they can do without solely depending on the partners. For SAP support in Brazil, everything is in English, which poses a difficulty for many customers. The support could be improved for the specific needs in Brazil, as many customers have difficulty accessing the support center due to the language barrier. This feedback is specific to Brazil, though it's unclear if SAP receives similar feedback from other countries. It could certainly be enhanced with Portuguese documents, among other improvements.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SAML 2.0."
"Tivoli Access Manager (or IBM Security Access Manager) is a fully featured web authentication, sso and authorization product."
"The Verify feature: A push method which customers are going for."
"It is a good solution for anyone to take to their enterprise and get a buy in."
"Since its birth it is an unbelievable stable product."
"Tivoli Access Manger lets you separate security from applications and manage at one place."
"It is a simple-to-deploy solution, with many features that are supported out-of-the-box without complicated setup."
"OAuth 2 is now the de facto standard for API protection and scoped authorized delegation. IBM TAM now supports OAuth 2 and can act as fully compliant OAuth 2 authorization server."
"What I like about SAP Identity Management is that it's stable for experienced users and suitable for access management, not just for SAP accounts, but for Active Directory, including file sharing and process sharing."
"NW IDM is extremely flexible, and with a small amount of effort you can integrate the basic provisioning for most of the commonly used modern systems."
"Rather than implement a basic SSO, this solution assisted us with setting up two-factor authentication."
"The most valuable feature is the user experience for managing information."
"What I found most valuable in SAP Identity Management is process automation. The solution also gives transparency about what is happening and why which I find beneficial. Another feature I found valuable in SAP Identity Management is integration. It has very good integration."
"With SAP IDM we have stopped manually managing all changes in user accounts after his/her transferring between organizational units."
"The tool's most valuable features are its access control and approval of access requests. The self-service password reset feature is efficient. Role management capabilities streamline user access by assigning and revoking roles."
"Some processes that they used to perform in two to three days now take one to two hours, which has been really beneficial for them regarding the time saved."
 

Cons

"The pricing is always costly."
"Complex to install and run."
"The self-service portal needs improvement."
"Web Portal Manager does not implement the full set of functions found in the command line"
"Looking at their roadmap, they have a broad grasp of the security features which the industry needs."
"There is only a single step-up authentication path, but I have sometimes seen the need for several steps or a divergent path."
"The whole product could be made into one suite instead of multiple components which are essentially a part of the same infrastructure."
"It was complex for us as we have multiple domains."
"One of the areas for improvement in the solution is its user interface which needs to be up-to-date and fancier, in particular, have better visualization in terms of the tabs and buttons. The user interface of SAP Identity Management should be improved based on the latest trends."
"For SAP support in Brazil, everything is in English, which poses a difficulty for many customers."
"It needs to have the SSO for the HANA modules that SAP is releasing."
"I find SAP Identity Management complicated to use. Maintaining it is also complex."
"I have encountered issues with the host authentication feature."
"What needs improvement in SAP Identity Management is its compatibility with third-party applications. We'd like to get connectors or plugin settings to make it easier to manage other applications, whether SAP or non SAP applications. As SAP Identity Management is not compatible with non SAP applications, some of the clients are looking for other IDM applications such as SalePoint and Saviynt, so this is an issue we've observed in the solution."
"I believe they could make a lot of improvements on SAP IDM. There is also a lack of startup connectors to different systems, and they could have better cloud integration connectors for SAP IDM."
"Research and marketing need to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"The licensing cost varies depending on the specific requirements and deployment size."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"When evaluating the price of any product, I first look at how it meets my business requirements and if it meets requirements adequately and predictively. Currently, I don't see this from SAP Identity Management, so pricing for it is expensive, in my opinion."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with SAP Identity Management?
One area that could be improved with SAP Identity Management, other than support, is user engagement from an implementation perspective. It would be beneficial for SAP to extend their events and wo...
What is your primary use case for SAP Identity Management?
The use cases for SAP Identity Management include the logistics company, and we also have a beverage company that is using SAP Identity Management. We did not make the migration for them, but we im...
What advice do you have for others considering SAP Identity Management?
My clients use SAP Identity Management for managing access rights efficiently based on user roles. I have experience with other IAM tools, having worked for Oracle three or four years ago, but I ca...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager
SAP NetWeaver Identity Management, NetWeaver Identity Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
State of Indiana, Automotive Resources International (ARI), Alliander N.V., Chemion Logistik GmbH, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH)
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity, SailPoint, Microsoft and others in Identity Management (IM). Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.