Top 8 Okta Identity Governance Alternatives To Try In 2024

Okta strengthens connections between people and technology, offering features like MFA, sign-on policies, and role-based access. However, as IT teams' requirements evolve, you, as an IT manager, need to explore alternatives that offer additional features. Doing so lets you find an ideal solution for your IT team, enabling them to streamline identity governance more effectively and efficiently.

Okta Identity Governance is a cloud-based platform that simplifies identity governance and access management. It helps your IT team manage user lifecycle, enhance security, and streamline access to resources across multiple systems. With intuitive features and advanced analytics, it offers comprehensive visibility and control over user access. Plus, it provides reporting and compliance capabilities to meet industry standards and regulations.

Even if it offers a variety of advantages, it still falls behind due to its shortcomings, such as

• Users need to verify themselves to log in on a mobile device frequently. This process becomes time-consuming, as it often prompts for verification multiple times a day, interrupting the entire flow of work.
• The setup and login processes are tedious and confusing; IT teams often have difficulties and spend a significant amount of time, around 15 minutes, to complete the login procedure. This complexity and time-consuming nature can be frustrating and impacts their productivity.
• Also, users encounter frequent and unexpected logouts without any clear reason, requiring them to go through the login process repeatedly. Even when using the same device in the same location for an extended period, two-step security verification is still required, which becomes irritating.
  
  Though it's not a compulsion to stick with one tool, you can always choose a substitute to avail full functionality that will meet your IT team's specific requirements while ensuring the safety, and security of your organization's SaaS app data. Hence, this blog lists alternative tools that might work better for your teams than Okta.

Here’re The Best Okta Identity Governance Alternatives

Below is a list of a few Okta Identity Governance alternatives that will help your IT teams streamline the access request management, access certification, and user lifecycle management process.

1. Zluri

Is your IT team struggling to manage access permissions, maintain data security, and ensure compliance? Look no further, as Zluri has the ultimate solution for you. Introducing Zluri's modern identity governance and administration (IGA) solution, designed to streamline user lifecycle management, access request processes, and access certification workflows, enabling your IT team to govern access seamlessly.

With a strong focus on efficiency, compliance, and data security, Zluri's IGA Solution empowers your IT team to manage user identities, access privileges, and certifications seamlessly.

But how does Zluri achieve this? Here are some remarkable capabilities that Zluri offers, enabling your IT team to manage access management while effortlessly meeting all compliance requirements effectively.

1. Identify User Access & SaaS App Data Seamlessly With Zluri's Data Discovery Engine Zluri is better than competitors at discovering data since it is primarily a SaaS management platform. This background has given Zluri a unique advantage, making it highly effective in identifying SaaS app data. One area where this expertise proves exceptionally valuable is in the area of user access data identification.

In a simple way, Zluri helps your IT team to analyze and discover all the SaaS apps and users related data seamlessly. How does it obtain these insights? With Zluri’s 5 discovery methods, i.e., single sign-on and identity providers, finance and expense management systems, direct integration with apps, desktop agents (optional), and browser extensions (optional), your team can gather all the data related to user access and SaaS apps.

With the help of these methods, your team can easily identify who has access to which applications, which are active users, what permission is granted to them, whether the employee accessing the apps falls under critical users, and more.

Having access to such granular contextual data enables your IT team to conduct access reviews effortlessly. The review process becomes more efficient, minimizing oversight risk and ensuring access privileges align with user roles and comply with regulatory requirements.

2. Zluri’s Automation Engine: Enables Your IT Team To Ensure User Access Aligns With Their Role Throughout Their Tenure

Zluri, with its user lifecycle management platform, empowers your IT team to effectively oversee employee access throughout their entire journey within the organization. It facilitates precise access provisioning, streamlined access modifications for evolving needs, and effortless access revocation when necessary. Let's find out how Zluri streamlines and automates the access management process.

• Securely Grant And Revoke Access Upon Onboarding/OffboardingWith Zluri, your IT team no longer has to invest their productive time in tedious manual processes and the risks associated with overlooked permissions. Zluri is here to automate everything, freeing up your IT team from the repetitive task of managing access permissions. With Zluri, you no longer have to waste time on manual onboarding and offboarding. Instead, you can automate these processes effortlessly.How does Zluri do it? Well, your IT team can create and customize workflows for onboarding and offboarding. These workflows allow them to securely grant access to SaaS apps and data to multiple new employees simultaneously with just a few clicks. They can assign access based on new hires' job roles, positions, and departments, ensuring employees have access to all the required apps and data from day one. And when it's time for an employee to depart from your organization, access can be promptly revoked. This makes your team more efficient, boosts productivity, and maintains a secure environment for user identities and SaaS app data.How to create workflows in Zluri?Your IT team can easily create an onboarding workflow by following the given below steps:
• Step 1: From Zluri's main interface, click on the workflow module and select the onboarding option from the drop-down list. Proceed by clicking on New Workflow.

• Step 2:  Select the user for the onboarding box will appear; from there, select the employee(s) whom you want to onboard. Also, you can search for a particular employee in the search bar. Once done selecting the employee, click on continue.

• Note: you can even select multiple employees; this helps onboard multiple new employees in one go
• Step 3: With its intelligent feature, Zluri would suggest some apps under recommended apps based on the employee's department, role, and seniority. Choose any of those, then execute the required action for the selected applications.

• Step 4: To execute certain actions, you need to Click on Edit Task and enter the required details. Your team can schedule the actions to execute the workflow on the day of onboarding. In order to save the actions, click on Save Task, and the actions will automatically be saved.

• Also, your team can add your employees to channels or send an automated welcome greeting using Zluri's in-app suggestions. The actions can vary for different applications and are mentioned under recommended actions.

• Step 5:  Finally, click on Save as Playbook to save the workflow. Then, you'll get a dialogue box with instructions to name the playbook. Add a name, proceed further by clicking on Save Playbook, and the onboarding workflow is ready.

• For added efficiency, Zluri offers automated playbooks (i.e. collections of recommended applications for automation) that can be customized for different roles, departments, and designations. This feature streamlines the onboarding of new employees, making it as easy as a few clicks to set up their access.

• Note- Apart from that, your team can set automation actions, such as by triggering if and but conditions, they can grant Kissflow access to all the employees of the finance department.  Now let’s see the steps to create an offboarding workflow:
• Step 1: From Zluri's main interface, click on the workflow module and select the offboarding option from the drop-down list. Proceed by clicking on New Workflow.

• Step 2: A pop-up labeled 'Select the user for offboarding' will appear. Select the employee(s) you want to offboard, or you can look for them in the 'search box. Click on continue after selecting the employee.

• Step 3: Your team will be able to view all the applications your employee can access. Now when you click on the app, Zluri will display some suggested actions under recommended actions. Select any of those or multiple actions, and then execute the required action for your chosen applications.

• Step 4: To add other actions, click Add an Action, fill in the required details, and proceed by clicking on Save Task; the actions will be saved.

• Step 5: Save the workflow by clicking Save as Playbook. A dialogue box will appear, instructing to name the playbook.

• Add a name, click Save Playbook, and the offboarding workflow is ready.

• Ticketless Access Request Management: With Zluri Your Employees Can Quickly Gain Access To Required Apps Now comes a critical phase where the risk of access mismanagement arises. We know how access requirements keep on changing, it can be due to changes in role, department, or position of employees, or they may simply need access to certain apps for specific tasks. So it's crucial for the IT team to keep track of all these changes and assign employees the right access to new or required apps. However, manual approving access can take up to a day. To address this concern Zluri introduces ticketless access request management, it automates the entire access approval process, saving your IT team and employees productive time. Let’s see how Zluri’s ticketless access approval process works.Zluri offers an Employee App Store (EAS), a self-serve model that offers a curated collection of IT-approved and verified SaaS applications. This app store is designed to provide employees with the flexibility to choose from the EAS, granting them instant access to their preferred applications, without having to wait for days.

• Employees can raise access requests, and approvers can review and grant or deny access based on defined policies. This ensures that access privileges are granted in a controlled and auditable manner.But how will your team come to know about changes in employee roles? Zluri offers a seamless solution for keeping your team informed about changes in employee roles. By integrating with your organization's HR system, Zluri automatically retrieves updated employee data and presents it on a centralized dashboard. This easily accessible information helps your IT admins to efficiently verify employee details before managing access privileges.

• Whether granting or removing access, your team can ensure that access aligns with the current roles and responsibilities of employees, enhancing security and maintaining a well-managed access environment.Now let’s see how your employees can raise an access request in EAS:
• Step 1: Your employees will receive an icon on the Zluri main interface's upper right corner; click on that, and a drop-down menu will appear; from there, click Switch to Employee View.

• Step 2: Overview dashboard will appear by default; now click on 'Request Access to an Application

• Step 3: Your employees will see a dialogue box where they need to enter the application name they require access to. Then, click on Continue.

• Step 4: Some applications will not be used in the organization. However, your employees can still request that application. Click on continue, and another dialogue box will appear, showing similar applications that are being used in the organization.

• If your employees want to opt for a similar application, they can simply click on the application or click on Ignore and Continue to proceed forward with your request.

• Step 5: Further, they have to fill in the required details like selecting the license plan, subscription duration, and description of why they need the application and attach supporting documents. Once filled, click on Confirm request.

• Note: Additionally, if the request has been modified in any way or if one of the approvers suggests any substitutes for the application, your employee can check it in the \"Changelogs.\"

• And that's it. The app access request has been submitted. Furthermore, your team need not worry about how to monitor these processes because, with Zluri, nearly everything is possible; your IT team can get a 360-degree view in a centralized dashboard with the help of its monitoring capabilities which employee has been granted access to which applications, the level of permission assigned, which access are recently revoked, and more. Moreover, by gaining such visibility, your IT team can detect suspicious user activities, like unauthorized access attempts, and take immediate action or implement security measures to safeguard sensitive SaaS app data from breaches or cyberattacks.

3. Be Audit-Ready with Zluri's Access Certification Capabilities

The next crucial step in access management is access reviewing, which ensures that every user has the appropriate level of access to apps and data, maintaining data security. However, manual access reviewing can be time-consuming and inefficient, requiring IT teams to gather user lists, user statuses, access patterns, and all the apps to which users have access.So what Zluri does is it provides you with access review capabilities to streamline the access certification process, providing a structured and automated approach to review and validate user entitlements. This further helps your IT team ensure access privileges are regularly audited, unauthorized access is detected, and compliance requirements are met.This was just an overview; Zluri is not only restricted to these few access review capabilities; it has more to offer, which is exclusive and sets it apart from the competitors. So, let’s explore them one by one.

• Unified Access ReviewZluri's unified access review feature allows your IT team to easily determine which users have access to various SaaS apps and data. It gathers these valuable insights from its centralized access directory, where all user access-related data is stored. With these insights, including user roles (admins or regular users), department information, and more, your IT team can thoroughly review access privileges and ensure they align appropriately with each user's role and responsibilities.Additionally, to keep things running smoothly, Zluri’s activity & alerts capabilities come into play. This feature provides real-time information about the last activities users performed and notifies IT teams about any new logins. With the help of these insights, reviewers can make quick and informed decisions during access reviews, ensuring the right people have the right access at all times.
• Automated Access Review Zluri simplifies access reviews by fully automating the process. Just log in to Zluri, create a certification, and choose the apps and users you wish to review. From there, the reviewers will conduct the review and update you on the results via email. By automating this process, you can achieve results that are 10 times better than manual methods and save your IT team's efforts by 70%. Let's explore how this automation works in detail.
• After accessing contextual data through Zluri's unified access feature, your team can take it a step further by establishing access rules based on these insights. For instance, if an individual holds an admin role on Salesforce, you can effortlessly create a review policy designed specifically for that situation.
• Following that, the schedule certification feature comes into play, enabling your team to generate certifications based on the gathered information. This empowers you to take actions aligned with the insights you've obtained. For instance, you can utilize data such as last login, departments, user status (active or inactive), and more to make well-informed decisions during the review process. These decisions may include determining whether the user's current access should be maintained or if any modifications are required.

With Zluri's context-rich information, your team can confidently take actions that align with your access management policies. This intelligent and efficient approach ensures that the right users have the appropriate access, all while maintaining data security.

• Secure access orchestration/auto-remediation After completing the access review, necessary changes will take place as per the set actions during certification creation, so all these actions, like access modification or removal, are part of secure access orchestration. The seamless process ensures access is managed securely and efficiently, safeguarding your organization's data and resources. For example, while creating a new certification in Zluri, your team will come across configuration action under which they need to create deprovisioning playbooks and modification playbooks. If the reviewers decline the access permissions, the deprovisioning playbook will automatically run, and the same goes for the modification playbook. Also, for both scenarios, the reviewers need to provide relevant reasons stating why the access permission is declined or modified. Point to note-These actions will take place automatically post the review; that's why this process is also known as the auto-remediation process.

Furthermore, Zluri also offers integration features that are quite beneficial at the time of gathering access data. By leveraging these integrations, Zluri enhances the access review process and improves the overall security posture of the organization.

For instance, when reviewing critical components like the Identity System and core applications, Zluri seamlessly integrates with platforms such as Salesforce, Okta, Azure, and others. These integrations play a vital role in gathering crucial data from the identity system and SaaS apps, providing valuable insights, and streamlining the review process.

Also, Zluri generates reports that are commonly associated with audit logs or audit trails. These audit reports serve as valuable documentation to share with auditors or keep as a reference for future reviews. And, audit trails act as roadmaps, showcasing the changes made during previous reviews.

For instance, if an employee's access level was downgraded from admin to user, it becomes crucial to review and ensure that the access remains appropriate, or if there were any subsequent changes back to admin. Understanding the reasons behind such upgrades is essential for maintaining proper access control.

So Zluri automatically generates reports on such changes, which further helps in the reviewing process.

Pros

• Zluri offers features for periodic access reviews and certifications, enabling managers and data owners to validate access rights. It also provides analytics, reporting, and auditing functionalities to identify high-risk access privileges, ensure compliance with policies and regulations, and prevent security breaches
• Zluri replaces password-based authentication with single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA), providing a more secure way to access applications. This reduces password fatigue, enhances security, and improves the overall employee experience
• With Zluri, your IT team gets real-time alerts on suspicious activities such as unauthorized access attempts or security breaches, allowing them to take immediate actions to protect the SaaS app data from potential security risks

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.8/5
• Capterra: 4.9/5

2. JumpCloud

JumpCloud offers conditional access capabilities, allowing your IT team to customize access requirements based on dynamic and situational properties, ensuring robust security. With JumpCloud's conditional access policies, your team can control access to SaaS apps and data effectively.

By implementing these policies, your team can enforce additional authentication factors or restrict access based on factors such as network or device trust. This proactive approach enhances security by adapting access controls to the specific context and risk level.

Additionally, enforcing conditional access policies across all identities helps protect SaaS app data and ensures compliance with SOC, HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI frameworks. JumpCloud's granular control over user and administrator access supports your team in meeting compliance requirements effectively.

Pros

• JumpCloud prioritizes robust security measures, offering features such as MFA, SSO, and fine-grained access controls. This emphasis on security enables your IT team to enforce strong security practices, safeguard sensitive data, and mitigate risks effectively. With JumpCloud, maintaining a secure access environment becomes easier and more reliable
• With JumpCloud, you can easily see and control who can access which devices. It helps organize user-profiles and automatically installs software based on user roles and device types. If users face any problems, you can remotely assist them in solving them. It simplifies device management and provides support to ensure a smooth user experience

Cons

• One major drawback of JumpCloud is the absence of a search bar and sorting functionality, making it difficult to locate specific applications. Users are forced to scroll through numerous pages. This lack of search and sorting features gets frustrating and time-consuming, hindering user productivity and causing unnecessary irritation
• At times, the LDAP functionality in JumpCloud can be unreliable, resulting in occasional and unpredictable connection errors. These intermittent issues disrupt the smooth operation of LDAP-based processes and create frustration for users

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.5/5
• Capterra: 4.7/5

3. Saviynt

With Saviynt, your IT team can leverage its powerful identity warehouse, enabling frictionless access and establishing a robust security framework with Zero Trust in your hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Saviynt's advanced governance capabilities and cloud identity warehouse help your IT team mitigate security risks by detecting and preventing unauthorized access attempts. It provides complete visibility into identity and access, empowering better decision-making through AI/ML-driven recommendations, automated provisioning, and remediation.

Pros

• The platform's ability to analyze complex access and usage data offers valuable insights, while integrations with popular tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams simplify access request management. Saviynt also simplifies access management through roles, rules, and policies

Cons

• One downside of Saviynt is its occasional instability and bugs. Users have reported instances where certain workflows or functionalities work initially but break unexpectedly, even without any system changes. This inconsistency can lead to disruptions in the access management processes and hinder productivity

Customer Rating

• G2: 3.5/5
• Capterra: 4.5/5

4. Microsoft Entra Identity Governance

Microsoft Entra Identity Governance helps your IT team ensure efficient identity creation, access updates, and access removal for employees through automation. Further, your team can automatically assign SaaS apps and data access based on roles, seniority, and departments while maintaining Separation of Duties to prevent access mishandling.

Furthermore, Microsoft Entra leverages automated insights to assess and maintain appropriate access for employees, preventing excessive, unnecessary, or misused access to crucial SaaS apps and data. Also, time and approval-based role activation further mitigates security risks, improving both employee efficiency and overall security posture.

Pros

• With Microsoft Entra, new employees gain timely access to necessary applications on their first day, enhancing productivity, while access is promptly revoked when employees leave the organization. This helps increase the productivity and efficiency of both your employees and your IT team
• With Entra, setting up Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is straightforward. This allows your IT team to effectively address the issue of weak passwords by implementing stronger authentication methods and empowering users to reset their passwords securely. By doing so, your team can enhance the overall security posture and help protect sensitive app data from unauthorized access

Cons

• One drawback of Microsoft Entra is that access to the cloud can sometimes be slow due to additional security measures in place. This can occasionally result in slower access speeds for users. Additionally, in the event of downtime for CloudKnox, it may prevent users from accessing the cloud entirely, causing disruptions in workflow and productivity

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.2/5

5. One Identity

One Identity enables your IT team to grant access rights based on defined roles, rules, and policies. These solutions provide standardized processes for onboarding and offboarding employees, ensuring access to SaaS apps and data is efficiently managed as users' responsibilities evolve.

Furthermore, access certification is streamlined through these solutions, encompassing user identity management, privilege control, and security configuration across the enterprise. This includes managing user application access, unstructured data, and privileged accounts.

Also, its access request functionality allows employees to request access to various network resources, physical assets, groups, and distribution lists. Access rights and permissions are controlled throughout the entire identity lifecycle using predefined approval processes and workflows.

Pros

• One Idenity's auditing capabilities ensure ongoing compliance by providing detailed, real-time reports. These reports include identity governance and administration data, such as resource inventory, access history, and reasons for granting and terminating access. This supports auditors in assessing compliance with regulatory requirements
• It simplifies privileged governance by defining roles, establishing associated policies, implementing access approval workflows, and conducting periodic attestation of privileged access

Cons

• One major limitation of One Identity is that the customization of the web portal is not straightforward, which can be challenging for users without advanced technical knowledge or web development skills

Customer Rating

• G2: 3/5

6. Oracle Identity Governance  

Oracle Identity Governance provides comprehensive user lifecycle management and robust access entitlement controls for both on-premises and cloud environments. It offers efficient access requests and provisioning workflows, flexible role-based access control, and intelligent role-mining capabilities.

The platform enables your IT team to meet compliance objectives through granular entitlement management and customizable certification campaigns. With support for on-premises and cloud deployment, including Docker and Kubernetes, and seamless integration with Oracle Access Governance, your team can reduce compliance risk and enhance security posture.

Pros

• Running Oracle Access Governance alongside Oracle Identity Governance in a hybrid mode enables streamlined access entitlement renewal or revocation. This integration eliminates manual and error-prone processes, saving time and enhancing security by allowing organizations to respond promptly to emerging security risks
• To meet compliance objectives, Oracle Identity Governance provides granular management of entitlements. Your IT team can accelerate compliance processes through customizable certification campaigns focusing on specific users, roles, applications, or entitlement parameters. This enables audit-driven assessments, allowing organizations to identify high-risk entitlements and address regulatory compliance requirements, such as those outlined by SOX and GDPR

Cons

• It doesn't sync properly with Active Directory (AD); IT teams have encountered issues with Oracle Access Manager (OAM) connecting and loading users' credentials from Microsoft AD. This causes disruptions in user authentication and access management, leading to delays and inefficiencies in the overall system
• At times, the software fails to recognize the company password, requiring users to reset it in order to log in. This can be frustrating and time-consuming, as it adds an extra step for users to regain access to their accounts, disrupting the entire workflow and productivity

Customer Rating

• G2: 3.7/5
• Capterra: 4.4/5

7. IBM Security Verify Governance  

IBM Security Verify Governance IBM Security Verify Governance offers capabilities for provisioning, auditing, and reporting on user access and activity throughout their lifecycle, ensuring compliance, and providing valuable analytics to your IT team. With streamlined provisioning and self-service requests, onboarding, offboarding, and employee management become more efficient.

Furthermore, the solution also eliminates the manual effort required for IT audits through closed-loop compliance, data governance features, and GDPR-specific controls.

Additionally, IBM Security Verify Governance enables accurate access decisions and quickly empowers risk and compliance managers to identify violations, including those related to SAP systems.

Additionally, by automating labor-intensive processes and the identity lifecycle, this solution significantly reduces operational costs. Access certification campaigns can be run through a customizable, self-service dashboard, ensuring accurate and up-to-date access reviews. Additionally, role analysis functionalities enable easy management of users, roles, entitlements, and assignments.

Pros

• Its identity analytics component provides visual insights into risky users and insider threats, helping detect behavior anomalies and allowing your IT team to suspend compromised accounts
• Its password management feature lets your employees conveniently store all their passwords and credentials in a secure vault. Instead of memorizing multiple passwords, they only need to remember the master password to access all the SaaS app data and systems they have authorized access to. This simplifies password management and enhances security

Cons

• The deployment process is very time-consuming. Depending on the project and scope, implementing IBM can require a significant investment of time and effort
• Certain authorization questions are quite long, due to which employees need to spend more time understanding and answering them accurately. This slows down the overall process and impacts the productivity

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.3/5

8. SailPoint Identity

With SailPoint Identity, your IT team strengthens your security posture by securing every identity with access to your organization's SaaS apps and data. Further, it automates access management, eliminating backdoor access from former employees and unauthorized third parties.

Additionally, SailPoint easily detects unauthorized access attempts, enabling your team to promptly respond and implement preventive measures. It also resolves policy violations, including separation of duty (SoD) conflicts, ensuring adherence to compliance standards.

It also provides your IT team with complete visibility into access risks through regular audits, allowing them to identify and proactively address potential vulnerabilities. Also, with SailPoint, your team can effectively track access transitions and maintain a robust security posture.

Pros

• SailPoint provides your employees with self-service capabilities, allowing them to independently reset passwords and request app access. This reduces helpdesk calls and streamlines ticket approval, saving time for both employees and the IT team
• It allows your IT team to create a workflow without the need for coding. They can trigger actions to automate manual tasks like managing the user lifecycle. By doing so, your team can reduce the error, save productive time and improve their efficiency

Cons

• SailPoint adapters are comparatively more complex to use, so it takes time for your IT teams to understand how it works, interrupting the ongoing process. The access manager's report capabilities and dashboard provide a limited insightful overview
• Another major drawback of IdentityIQ is its task-based approach, which introduces delays in processing updates from authoritative sources. This can be problematic in larger environments with multiple daily updates, making it difficult to achieve real-time operations consistently

Customer Rating

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.2/5