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AWS Directory Service vs Okta Workforce Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 2, 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

AWS Directory Service
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Access Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of AWS Directory Service is 1.7%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 13.1%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

Basa Saiteja - PeerSpot reviewer
A valuable access management system with a user-friendly and straightforward setup
The solution is scalable, and we can scale according to our needs. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. In our organization, our access to our AWS comes from IAM. We use AWS consoles using our credentials and don't have route access, so each person will log in through our IAM programmatic access, and everyone on our team can work on cloud. Over 10,000 people in our organization utilize the solution.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate AWS Directory Service nine out of ten."
"The AD Connector is very good and easy to implement."
"AWS handles everything on the backend requiring minimal legwork from our team. We only require a dedicated database administrator while depending on Amazon for RDS."
"The support is very good. I would rate the technical support as a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is that because it's all in the cloud, you don't need to manage the infrastructure."
"Two-step authentication is very useful and important."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Directory Service is cost-cutting features."
"The pricing is very good because it is low and there is no management cost."
"Valuable features include UD, SSO functionality, MFA and Adaptive MFA functionality, ability to link multiple Directory databases with UD."
"The provisioning functionality has been the most valuable. This solution has good performance, fast integration and is very responsive."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The product is easy to use."
"What I found most valuable in Okta Workforce Identity is that it worked together with VMware Workspace One, so there was this device check at the same time. My company used the trusted device method that enabled you to define that only the trusted devices including the Workspace One agent were able to access the applications directly without an additional authentication step."
"The support for YubiKey is really good because you don't actually have to type in your username and password."
"I find the provisioning features and the integration with other applications useful."
"The most valuable feature in Okta Workforce Identity is the single sign-on, universal directory, and lifecycle management."
 

Cons

"I would like to grant partial access to a table contained in a database without having to provide full access to the whole database."
"Our only complaint is that you cannot integrate your Exchange server. Or, if you are planning to install an Exchange server on your Amazon EC2 instance, then you need to configure Active Directory on EC2 instance. We would like for this limitation to be lifted."
"AWS could improve the number of regions. Azure has passed them. The ned more consistency, as far as the Northeast is concerned."
"Currently, there is no option to integrate our on-premises Cisco AWS Directory Service, requiring some manual configuration."
"We had a problem with the schema uploading and setting up the directory when we are migrating our users from on-premises to cloud infrastructure."
"Currently, there is no option to integrate our on-premises Cisco AWS Directory Service, requiring some manual configuration. If AWS Active Directory Service provided additional domain controller functionalities, like other on-premises Active Directory, it would be very helpful."
"To get CloudWatch to monitor your memory and storage, you have to do some configuration within your server, which sometimes results in errors."
"Can be improved by including on-premises access for services through Identity Access Management."
"In some setup cases, there are issues with attributes not going in properly."
"Support could be a bit faster."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the support system, they are too slow."
"We had some implementation issues."
"The error logging could be improved. Okta doesn't provide enough details when you are troubleshooting an issue. It's often difficult to fix it from our end, so we always need additional support from Okta."
"There are some issues with the interface that can be improved."
"Okta could improve by making their learning materials more user-friendly."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends because with AWS there are two types of directory objects: 30,000 and 500,000. It varies. AWS provides the pricing calculators so we can get an estimate from there as per the company requirement of how many users and objects that we need to create. So we can go to that portal, put in the data, and get the quotation. There are no extra licensing fees. It's all included."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"AWS' pricing is fair, and costs can be cut if you look carefully at when you're using it."
"We pay an annual subscription fee."
"This solution is costly. Pricing is decent if you have less users, but it significantly goes up the more users you have, with its cost not justified."
"Price-wise, Okta Workforce Identity is a cheap solution. The overall cost depends on the license since you can negotiate with Okta or any of Okta's partners only if you opt for many licenses."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"It is costly for large companies."
"License is around US$20,000 annually."
"It could be a bit too pricey for small companies. Okta Workforce Identity can add a lot of benefits, but smaller companies may not have a lot of applications that need to be managed by Okta Workforce Identity. In larger organizations, there are more departments, applications, and users to manage. Okta Workforce Identity adds a bit more value to those bigger organizations. In addition to standard licensing fees, there are also additional costs for things"
"Though I don't know about the licensing model of the product, I wouldn't be surprised if Okta offers a per user license subscription model."
"The product has a user-based license model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Directory Service?
The most valuable feature of AWS Directory Service is cost-cutting features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Directory Service?
The pricing is very good because it is low and there is no management cost. You do not need to hire any system administrator to manage your Active Directory.
What needs improvement with AWS Directory Service?
Accessing the data needs improvement. Additionally, integration and compatibility with other AWS ( /products/amazon-aws-reviews ) services, network open LDAP, support for on-premise and cloud envir...
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta should have at least a local presense for countries that align with or comply with GDPR or data sovereignty, so there are no compliance or audit questions. There are integration issues with Of...
 

Also Known As

AWS Managed Microsoft AD
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Directory Service vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.