Okta Platform Reviews

• Supporting SaaS implementations from corporate login.  
• I'm a consultant and have worked with Okta at two clients. Both had started to leverage Okta for single sign-on to SaaS services and internal systems. One was more advanced, the other was only doing limited federation and not taking advantage of the power of Okta.

Okta improved both organizations where I've worked with it: 

• Better Single Sign-On (reducing the number of passwords)
• Improved accountability (to know what users were doing, and where they were working on Identity and authentication services)
• Authentication (where Okta's own MFA solutions or work in combination with Duo were very useful for strengthening the security of major systems)

Okta's great for their federation capabilities where it lets the IT team enable business with anyone using common federation features across SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, and internal applications. The Multi-Factor Authentication capability lets you address one of the biggest challenges around security - MFA to make it hard for adversaries to get into your systems.

Better multi-factor authentication integration and support, it's around v2.0 and will need a 3.0 release for maturity.

We use it as an SSO hub for applications to be added/removed from users' profiles and troubleshooting, as well as an active directory. 

I work at a service desk providing IT support to PayU international and Naspers.

It made things a lot easier, especially with passwords. You have one password that you have to remember, not a thousand for each application that you use for work.

We can have all our applications in one central base where you can log into it and access it without having to enter your password for each application. This is because it saves your credentials and updates them accordingly.

On the admin side, we can create our own passwords instead of generating one, which is usually difficult to explain to a user. Otherwise, the application is pretty awesome.

We used this solution for provisioning more than one and a half LAC users and integrating more than 300 applications. SSO and MFA has been implemented on almost all applications. MFA options used: RSA token, Okta Verify, etc.

Integrating more than 300 applications is quite tough. With the help of Okta and its outstanding user friendly UI, things went fairly easily.

• The ease of JIT provisioning.
• Wide range of MFA options. I prefer "Okta Verify" out of them all.
• Last, but not least, the ease of writing rules.

RESTful Web Service calls and their response seem a bit slow.

Okta is not just an identity provider (IdP) since, with the help of SAML, it can also be a service provider (SP), which then allows it to integrate with a different identity provider. In other words, it provides SSO. In my organization, we use Okta as a centralized solution for our multiple platforms. With just one login users are able to access any associated platforms without having to log in multiple times.

All our logins work seamlessly without having to log in multiple times. With multiple applications, you tend to forget your credentials for some of the applications. Some applications have different password policies. With Okta, all of these is centralized. You only need one password, one setup, one policy and one login.

Other than Okta being an easy and awesome integration tool, one of the best features it has is the provisioning and deprovisioning, which makes management way easier. You don't need to be too technical to understand how it works.

They also have a good knowledge base that helps end-user to self-serve.

Maybe the interface could use some work but, for the most part, the tool is pretty cool.

I rate Okta 10 out of 10 for being an awesome IdP. The API alone is amazing, not to mention the features and integration they have. Compare to other IdPs, Okta uses a dashboard that displays all the associated/linked services, which is really helpful when you have multiple services. It's really an easy tool and their support is great.

We use Okta primarily for user-provisioning and as an SSO portal for access to our applications.

Our organization has a fairly high turnover rate so having an automated process for provisioning and de-provisioning of accounts saves a lot of time from an administration perspective.

The feature that is most valuable to me is the automated user provisioning that we set up using Okta as a major part of that process. We put the process in to save time and increase accuracy in the user-provisioning process. Most everything is driven from our HR system thereby limiting manual input and duplication of work when provisioning accounts. Accounts are disabled as soon as the account is terminated in the HR system.

We still had to write several internal programs/scripts to complete the user-provisioning process. Okta does not have the ability to provision mailbox accounts for on-premise Exchange or in a hybrid O365 environment. The Group Push function from Okta to AD did not work reliably in our environment.

In terms of rating Okta, it is always hard for me to say, as I have not used any other product to perform the functions we use Okta for, so I really don’t have a comparison. There are some things that Okta does very well – SSO being one of those so for that part I would rate it as a nine or 10 out of 10. For the provisioning part, we did have several issues that we have to work through, so for that aspect, I would rate it somewhere around a six to eight out of 10.

• SSO integration with an on-premise Active Directory environment
• Universal Directory synchronization and leverage UD to integrate with other cloud federated applications
• O365 SSO integration

O365 integration, moving away from straight LDAP integrations for applications that reside in the cloud to true SAML functionality. Provides better security posture by using SAML and MFA.

• UD
• SSO functionality
• MFA and Adaptive MFA functionality
• Ability to link multiple Directory databases with UD

UD attribute mapping, Okta group rules, and dynamic usage could use improvement. More in-depth functionality and features to integrate with RADIUS solutions.

We use Okta for single sign-on (SSO) of multiple applications, access management, and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Prior to implementing Okta for our environment, we had our users (15,000-plus) contact the Service Desk to reset their passwords if forgotten or they were locked out. Even though we had a self-service password reset solution in place, it was not user-friendly and effective. Particularly, in the case of a lockout, you could not log in to the computer to use the self-service solution and had no other option than to call the Service Desk team.

However, once we implemented the self-service password reset (SSPR) through Okta, we directed the users to use it themselves and everyone found it easy. Also, Okta, being a cloud-based web solution, you can log in from anywhere, anytime with a device that has internet access. It became a simple process and, obviously, the number of calls to the Service Desk came down drastically, reducing our man-hours and cutting costs. This was a big money saver, which was much appreciated by our clients.

The Single Sign-On and MFA features are most valuable.

The Identity Management part can be improved a bit.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

I would give tech support a 10 out of 10. They are really awesome. Even for a free/demo account, if you raise a case they are very fast to respond and their support options are excellent.

CA SiteMinder. Our client decided to switch to a cloud-based IAM solution instead of an on-prem solution.

Setup is not at all complicated. It is as simple as watching the instruction videos for setup and then doing it yourself.

Pricing might be high, but it comes down when the number of people using the product goes up. Check Okta's website for exact pricing or contact their sales team for exact figures.

We did evaluate SailPoint, SecureAuth, and ForgeRock and finally decided to go with Okta because of its user-friendly environment, high stability, and ease of implementation.

If you are not concerned by the cost and are looking for a secure IAM solution with great stability and excellent support, then go for it.

• User provisioning
• User deprovisioning
• App assignment
• SAML integrations

We are able to deploy solutions rapidly and also have a better idea on licensing as we can easily see who has access, who has been accessing and also who is not using an app.

I would like to see further integrations with applications and services such as Office 365.

Between my last two jobs, I have used it for about seven years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues whatsoever.

We have not encountered any stability issues; this is a very stable platform.

With over 2500 users, we have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is excellent. We don't have to worry when we have an issue; they are always on top of it.

Technical support is 9/10; very professional and solid.

I have had experience with Ping and ADFS but not at the places I have worked; only with customers.

We do a lot with Okta but the setup was still very easy.

An in-house team implemented it.

We do things much faster and have a much better understanding of utilization and licensing. We are more agile and, therefore, more productive and faster to act.

It's worth the investment. Make sure you fully utilize Okta, even if it takes professional services.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated Ping and ADFS.

• SSO
• Lifecycle management (provisioning / deprovisioning)
• Mobility management

We've integrated our HRIS system with our Active Directory/Office 365 using Okta. We're able to shift away from Active Directory as a master and allows us to be more mobile with our remote employees. Account creation and disabling people on time has made our team more productive.

• A couple of improvements with the lifecycle management that will help companies that don't have an HRIS system to help manage contractors and contingent workers would be to add ways to disable their accounts once a certain time point is designated.
• Also, an improvement to the reporting capabilities can make running reports easier and more customizable.

I have used it for four years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues. The support team has been amazing.

There was just one small downtime with the DNS attack that affected many cloud companies.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is excellent.

Techncial support is excellent.

We did not previously use a different solution. Okta was the industry leader.

We implemented it in house with the consulting team.

The Okta application network is a huge component of the company that will grow with the industry. If customers are asking for things, then Okta will consider adding it.

The platform’s most valuable feature is the universal directory, where we can create different identities and build policies. It is flexible and easy to install.

They could provide collaboration with Microsoft for conditional access and other features. They could work on reducing bugs as well.

We have been using Okta Workforce Identity for five years.

We receive technical support through third-party suppliers. They provide good support services.

The platform can be deployed on the cloud.

The product generates a return on investment in terms of documentation quality and support services provided by Okta.

The product is expensive compared to other vendors.

We are evaluating a few products for our customers.

The impact on user provisioning and de-provisioning processes with Okta Workforce Identity varied depending on the application. Customized applications help in automatic identification. However, it only facilitates provisioning and not de-provisioning. The security posture has significantly eased various aspects of IAM. The integration capabilities of Okta have provided benefits, especially compared to Azure.

I rate it a seven out of ten.