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Active Roles by One Identity vs Quest Identity Defense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 29, 2026

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

Active Roles by One Identity
Ranking in Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Active Directory Management (1st)
Quest Identity Defense
Ranking in Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Recovery (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) category, the mindshare of Active Roles by One Identity is 7.8%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Identity Defense is 1.2%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Active Roles by One Identity7.8%
Quest Identity Defense1.2%
Other91.0%
Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
 

Featured Reviews

Puru Solanki ( ITIL. CISM , CCSP ) - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Head at Citadel Global
Automation has streamlined onboarding and governance and delivers faster, more secure access
Overall, we are very satisfied with Active Roles by One Identity, but there are a few areas that could be improved. The user interface could be more modern and intuitive, especially for new administrators. Some advanced configuration and policy settings have a steep learning curve and could be simplified. We would also like to see more built-in integrations with cloud platforms and SaaS applications, along with additional out-of-the-box reporting templates. These improvements would make the product even easier and more flexible for organizations managing hybrid environments. One thing that would make our daily work even smoother is having more ready-to-use templates for common administrative tasks and reports. This would reduce the need for customization and help teams get up and running more quickly. Additionally, faster and simpler synchronization for hybrid and cloud environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations managing both on-premises and cloud identities. More detailed documentation and guided setup for advanced features would help new administrators learn the platform faster and more easily. One additional improvement I would like to see for Active Roles by One Identity is a better built-in dashboard with more real-time insights into identity and access activities. It would be helpful if upgrades and migrations were simpler and required less planning. Finally, expanding native integrations with more cloud services and third-party applications would make the platform even more versatile and reliable. These enhancements would improve the overall user experience while keeping the product's strong security and automation capabilities.
SachinSharma4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Identity monitoring has improved and security teams now detect and investigate threats faster
Quest Identity Defense could be improved by providing more customizable dashboards, more detailed real-time alerts, and better integrations with other security tools such as SIEM and endpoint security solutions. Automated investigations and response workflows could also help reduce manual efforts and speed up threat resolution. Overall, these improvements would make identity threat detection more efficient and easier for security teams to manage. I would to see more advanced automation for threat investigation and response, along with customizable dashboards and more detailed real-time alerts. Better integration with SIEM, endpoint security, and other identity management tools would also be valuable. These improvements could reduce manual investigation efforts, improve threat visibility, and help security teams respond to identity-related threats more efficiently. Additional improvements could include more seamless integration with existing SIEM and security tools, better customization of alerts, and more detailed reporting for Quest Identity Defense. I would also like to see improved visibility into identity-related risks and clearer explanations of AI-generated alerts to help security teams investigate faster. Overall, continued improvements in automation, usability, and reporting would make the solution even more effective for enterprise security teams.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The delegation of administrative access in Active Roles by One Identity has impacted my IT operations by reducing almost sixty percent of human work."
"ARS probably saves us at least two weeks out of every month."
"Secure access is the most valuable feature."
"The biggest thing for us is Active Roles saves a lot of man-hours in keeping groups up-to-date manually or trying to write some sort of script that you have to run, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Instead of when every time somebody joins a department, then somebody has to remember to put in a request to add "meet user Joe" to this group, the solution does it automatically for us. Therefore, it saves our business and IT staff time because they do not have to process requests since Active Role can do it for them."
"One Identity Active Roles has had a very positive impact on the organization, especially in terms of efficiency, security, and compliance."
"One Identity Active Roles has made things more organized and secure across the company, and it has also reduced the need to contact IT administrators directly, saving time for both me and the IT staff."
"Since we have implemented One Identity Active Roles, we have seen significant improvements, with faster user management, better control over Active Directory, reduced errors, and improved security."
"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."
"Quest Identity Defense helped improve our identity security by providing better visibility into user accounts, privileged access, and suspicious authentication activities."
"For any organization that is looking for a stable and reliable solution for identity management, Quest Identity Defense would be the best tool for them."
 

Cons

"First is the user interface and experience. While it is functional, it can feel complex for a new user and less intuitive, especially for onboarding a new user."
"It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows."
"Another issue we have with the product is that we run a lot of custom tasks. You have to program them to run on one particular host and there's no automatic failover to a second host. If that host is down when a task is supposed to run, it has to wait until the next time it runs when that host is up."
"One Identity Active Roles is very helpful, but a few improvements could make it even better, such as simplifying the user interface to make it more user-friendly, especially for new users, and making setup and configuration easier."
"One area where One Identity Active Roles could be improved is troubleshooting and visibility."
"Web console – it should have more customization options in terms of look and feel of the landing page."
"There is always room to improve the user interface for increased clarity. I believe enhancements to the console are also necessary because it is more confusing than the web interface."
"One Identity Active Roles is very useful, though there are a few areas where it could be improved, such as the user interface, policy creation, and reporting; it requires good knowledge of Active Directory."
"I did not give it a nine or ten because there is still room for improvements in integration with other security tools, reporting, and ease of configuration."
"I gave it a nine only because there is still room for improvement around usability or customization, making some of the more advanced capabilities easier to use and to understand the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is on the higher end."
"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 pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
28%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business100
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
Our experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Active Roles by One Identity has been very positive. Although Active Roles by One Identity is not the lowest-priced solution, we believ...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
Overall, we are very satisfied with Active Roles by One Identity, but there are a few areas that could be improved. The user interface could be more modern and intuitive, especially for new adminis...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
Active Roles by One Identity is our main solution for simplifying and automating user account management in our Active Directory environment. We use it for tasks like user provisioning, deprovision...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Identity Defense?
Regarding the licensing and setup cost, I was not involved. The implementation team was responsible for that. When we looked at the pricing part, it was reasonable for any enterprise that wants an ...
What needs improvement with Quest Identity Defense?
The navigation part is pretty well-designed and not a clunky kind of dashboard or any navigation tools that we have. The platform has a lot of information on security capabilities, but new users ma...
What is your primary use case for Quest Identity Defense?
Quest Identity Defense serves as our primary tool to monitor privileged and tier two and tier one level identities and identify risk configurations, investigate suspicious changes, and improve our ...
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity, Astrix Security, Entro Security and others in Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM). Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.