No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

One Identity Active Roles vs SolarWinds Access Rights Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 2024

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

One Identity Active Roles
Ranking in Active Directory Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (1st)
SolarWinds Access Rights Ma...
Ranking in Active Directory Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of One Identity Active Roles is 12.3%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is 5.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
One Identity Active Roles12.3%
SolarWinds Access Rights Manager5.0%
Other82.7%
Active Directory Management
 

Featured Reviews

Varun Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
collaboration support engineer at a retailer with 11-50 employees
Automation has transformed onboarding and access control and now streamlines daily governance
While One Identity Active Roles is a strong identity and access management solution overall, there are a few areas where it could improve. One challenge we experienced was the initial setup and configuration complexity. Deploying workflows, policies, and delegation models require careful planning and a good understanding of the Active Directory environment. For organizations without experienced administrators, the learning curve can feel quite steep in the beginning. The user interface could also be more modern and intuitive. Some administrative tasks require navigating through multiple menus and the overall experience could be simplified for faster day-to-day management. Another area for improvement is reporting and customization. While the auditing features are good, creating highly customized reports sometimes requires additional efforts or scripting knowledge. More built-in reporting templates and easier dashboard customization would be helpful. We have also noticed that troubleshooting workflows or synchronization issues can occasionally take time because the logs can be very detailed and technical. Better diagnostic tools and simpler error explanations would improve the operational experience. That said, once the platform is properly configured and maintained, it performs reliably and delivers strong automation, delegation, and governance capabilities. One additional area where One Identity Active Roles could improve is cloud integration and hybrid environment management. While it works well with Active Directory and the Microsoft environment, organizations moving heavily towards cloud-first infrastructure may want even deeper and more seamless integration with modern SaaS platforms and identity providers. Performance optimization in large environments could be improved. In very large enterprise deployments with complex workflows and multiple managed domains, some administrative actions and synchronization tasks can occasionally feel slower than expected. Another point is documentation and onboarding resources. The product is feature-rich, but some advanced configurations require going through extensive documentation. More practical examples, guided setup wizards, and easier to follow best practice guides would help new administrators adopt the platform faster. Overall, the core functionality is solid, and most of the pain points are related more to usability, complexity, and modernization rather than the reliability. One additional improvement I would mention is around integration flexibility with third-party ITSM and DevOps tools. While the platform integrates well within Microsoft-centric environments, broader out-of-the-box integration and simpler API workflows for non-Microsoft ecosystems would make deployment and automation easier for organizations using diverse infrastructure. Another area is upgrade and migration simplicity. In enterprise environments, version upgrades and environment migration sometimes require careful planning and testing. Streamlining that process with more automated compatibility checks and migration assistance would reduce operational overhead.
Rafal-Stas - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Greeneris Sp. z o.o.
Has good pricing options and is easy to manage and deploy
It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy. It's easy to understand to work, and customers also tell us that there are a lot of options even too many sometimes for them. Sometimes the product is even too big for them at the beginning. The product also has a good payload with pricing. That's why the customers choose this solution. The price and the quality and options have a good ratio.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I highly recommend all organizations to consider this as one of the best solutions."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted my organization by providing a consistent and easy to understand interface for Active Directory, whether you are reading it or whether you are actively managing Active Directory."
"Active Roles helped reduce our identity-based breaches."
"Secure access is the most valuable feature."
"Overall, One Identity Active Roles has helped us move toward a more automated, secure, scalable identity management model, aligning IT operations more closely with business needs."
"Active Roles provided us to do all these operations automatically and reduced our workload very significantly."
"The AD and AAD management features of this solution are really good... They offer added value by showing more fields such as password age and the statuses of some things that we normally wouldn't see."
"Overall, beyond just making tasks easier, it adds a strong layer of control, security, and visibility of AD operations."
"It's pretty easy to manage, and quite easy to deploy."
"The solution can be used to audit the whole on-premises environment, including Active Directory, file servers, and other Microsoft services."
 

Cons

"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."
"Some advanced configuration and workflow can feel complex, so simplifying setup and management would improve the overall experience."
"It's a fairly stable product but not perfectly reliable."
"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."
"Most of the time it just works."
"I believe the initial setup could be more simplified to allow for better and faster deployment."
"The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial."
"There are a couple of areas where One Identity Active Roles can be improved. One area is the overall user interface and experience, as the UI is sometimes very complex, so simplifying workflows for non-stakeholders would be helpful."
"The GUI could be improved because this GUI was invented ten years ago, and now we have a modern user interface. This GUI is a bit older than expected in this market."
"Configuring the solution with online services, like Microsoft Exchange Online, is difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"It's fairly priced."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing of the solution is fine. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution is fine. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Active Directory Management solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for One Identity Active Roles are enterprise-oriented and typically based on the number of managed users or accounts. While setup requires moderate implementa...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles can be improved with a more modern user interface, better reporting and analytics capabilities, simplified workflow customization, improved troubleshooting tools, and stro...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
One Identity Active Roles serves as our centralized Active Directory administration platform for identity lifecycle management, including automated user provisioning, delegated administration, role...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
SolarWinds ARM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Accenture, Emerson, Lockheed Martin, Nielsen, NTT
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity Active Roles vs. SolarWinds Access Rights Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.