Google Cloud Identity vs Okta Workforce Identity comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on May 10, 2022

We performed a comparison between Google Cloud Identity and Okta WorkForce Identity based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions tell us their installation and deployment are straightforward and simple to complete.
  • Features: Users tell us Google Cloud Identity is user-friendly and very easy to use, even for the complete novice. The GUI is intuitive and makes it very easy to complete any task. A favorite feature is the SSO (single sign-on); it can be used as an identity or service provider. There is also an organization unit feature that allows users to set specific protocols and policies based on preset group or organization criteria. Some users mention that they would like to have the ability to customize alerts and notifications, as Google's default alerts do not offer enough coverage. Users also suggest that monitoring be streamlined so that user activity can be more easily monitored.

    Okta WorkForce Identity users like that the solution integrates well with many other third-party solutions and applications. Okta simplifies employees' onboarding and offboarding to a single pane of glass, which greatly reduces admin time and helps to keep organizations secure at all times. Additionally, the SSO and MFA features are extremely beneficial in keeping organizations secure. Okta users would like to see the guest user access improved. They also feel that there should be more API integrations and that the overall interface could be cleaner and crisper.

  • Pricing: Google Cloud Identity users tell us the pricing is very competitive and very affordable. Okta WorkForce Identity users for the most part say the solution is very expensive - a luxury item. However, we did hear from several users that feel the cost, although exorbitant, is a good value for the thorough security benefits the solution provides.
  • Service and Support: Google Cloud Identity users feel the service and support could be better. Okta WorkForce Identity users are very satisfied with the service, support, and response time they have experienced.

Comparison Results: Okta WorkForce Identity is the preferred choice when it comes to Identity and Access Management solutions. Okta is easy to use, offers great integrations with numerous solutions, and is a safe, secure, and robust solution. Additionally, it is very fast, responsive, and has great performance. The SSO, MFA, and other beneficial feature sets make it a complete and reliable product. The only downside is the price.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Cloud Identity vs. Okta Workforce Identity Report (Updated: May 2023).
709,643 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"One of the most useful features was the single sign-on. You can use it as an identity provider or service provider. And you can use their organization unit feature to enable or disable some of the features for a specific group of users.""Google is always on its own. Google Cloud Identity is pretty good on every point.""It's easy to set up.""The tool provides a free service that you can integrate for laptop authentication. You also don’t need a separate Active Directory.""It is a very stable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten.""The most valuable feature of Google Cloud Identity is group access. You are able to assign policies to groups instead of users individually.""Cloud Identity is scalable enough for our needs. It's serving more than 3,000 users in our organization.""The solution is moderate to difficult to use. I found the approach was practical. Following the steps made it very easy to use."

More Google Cloud Identity Pros →

"It's easy to use and straightforward.""Workforce Identity's best features include its user-friendliness and easy setup.""The solution so far has been very stable.""It is a very scalable solution.""The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are SSO, MFA, and beneficial feature sets.""The initial setup of Okta Workforce Identity is straightforward. I was able to get an environment ready within half a day.""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 solution can scale very well."

More Okta Workforce Identity Pros →

Cons
"If you want to set up some alerts, you don't have much control over the configuration. You have to use their default alerts. And they only provide alerts for certain activities, so you cannot customize those. Monitoring isn't very helpful either.""The interface could be more user-friendly.""I want the tool to improve its support. It should also incorporate some functionalities. Currently, preparing presentations in Google is a pain point. The tool’s certain features like user provisioning are not intuitive as well. The product’s LDAP support is very poor. Clients do not trust the product due to the spam.""Google Cloud Identify could make the technology used easier to understand as a layman making it more user-friendly.""Google Cloud Identity the UI could improve.""The integration should be made easier.""Technical support is slow.""The one place it could be improved is the password vaulting. The password vaulting does not prevent the admins from reading users' passwords, and that's a debate."

More Google Cloud Identity Cons →

"We've not had any problems with Okta.""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.""A room for improvement in Okta Workforce Identity is its price. It could be cheaper. The biggest benefit of the solution is that everything works securely without extra steps, so you're saving on your workforce's time and effort because your applications work smoothly and securely, but you'd need to pay some amount of money for that. Another area that could be improved, though not necessarily regarding Okta Workforce Identity, is the SSO applications because so many of the source applications charge extra money to put the SSO to work, which means you have to buy a more expensive license. Nowadays, SSO is a mainstream functionality and it should be out-of-the-box in those applications because it's so easy to set up.""We have experienced some challenges in integrating this solution with Scope and Cognito.""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.""In some setup cases, there are issues with attributes not going in properly.""The solution’s policies are difficult to understand due to the policy methods. They use authentication. The solution’s workflow is also difficult and not very active. They need to have proper documentation on it. In the next release, I would like to see the workflows being more digestible.""The only aspect in which it can be improved is that the interface could be cleaner. I found this even when I was trying to do my certification exam because the certification is hands-on. You find yourself fumbling around a little bit to find simple things. This happens even when you start to get familiar with the product."

More Okta Workforce Identity Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "When I worked on Cloud Identity, they offered a free or enterprise version. You can synchronize and create up to 100 user identities in the free version. After that, you have to purchase a business or enterprise license. In that model, you'll be charged based on the number of users."
  • "The pricing is a bit expensive."
  • More Google Cloud Identity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is reasonable."
  • "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."
  • "This is an expensive solution but the security makes it worthwhile."
  • "The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution."
  • "The price of the solution is good."
  • "The cost per user for this solution is really high and could be reduced."
  • "The price of Okta Workforce Identity is reasonable."
  • "The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
  • More Okta Workforce Identity Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
    709,643 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also access to both Microsoft’s user community as well as around-the-clock customer… more »
    Top Answer:The tool provides a free service that you can integrate for laptop authentication. You also don’t need a separate Active Directory.
    Top Answer:It offers very helpful support. The technical team is very helpful.
    Top Answer:We are using the 30-day free trial. The solution is expensive. I'd rate it one out of ten in terms of affordability.
    Top Answer:I'm not sure what areas need improvement. They are at the top in terms of identity management. I can't find any shortcomings. We don't need any additional features as it covers more than our needs… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    12,928
    Comparisons
    11,214
    Reviews
    7
    Average Words per Review
    390
    Rating
    7.7
    Views
    18,912
    Comparisons
    15,557
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    563
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Cloud Identity, Cloud Identity Premium
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cloud Identity is an Identity as a Service (IDaaS) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) product. It offers the identity services and endpoint administration that are available in G Suite as a stand-alone product. As an administrator, you can use Cloud Identity to manage your users, apps, and devices from a central location - the Google Admin console.

    Okta Workforce Identity is an Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) solution designed for web based applications, both in the cloud and behind the firewall. The solution provides easy, secure access for your workforce and protects your data from any device in any location. It also enables your business partners to collaborate with you effectively and securely. Additionally, with Okta Workforce Identity, you can streamline access across your entire organization so you can focus on moving your business forward.

    Okta Workforce Identity Features

    Okta Workforce Identity has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Single sign-on (SSO): Secure cloud single sign-on for IT teams, security, and all other users.
    • Multi-factor authentication (MFA): With this feature, your organization remains secure.
    • Fastpass: Okta Workforce Identity’s Fastpass enables passwordless authentication into anything.
    • Okta Integration Network: The solution includes 7,500+ deep, pre-built integrations to securely connect everything.
    • Universal directory: Okta Workforce Identity has a single directory for all users, groups, and devices.
    • Lifecycle management: You can manage provisioning with easy-to-implement automation
    • Identity governance: The solution has unified IAM and governance that helps to reduce risk.
    • Workflows: This feature makes it easy to automate identity processes at scale without having to write any code.
    • Privileged access management (PAM): Using Okta Workforce Identity, users can authorize, manage, and monitor account access easily.

    Okta Workforce Identity Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Okta Workforce Identity. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • All-in-one solution: Okta Workforce Identity is a complete solution for all your apps that’s universal, reliable, and easy.
    • Single identity platform: Users can securely manage apps and multi-cloud environments across a single identity platform.
    • Comprehensive and customizable: The solution is created to suit all of your evolving business needs. It enables your organization to handle any workforce or customer identity use case while enhancing your security. It has 31 API endpoints to customize configuration, user authentication, and access control.
    • API-first architecture: Its API-first architecture makes it a suitable option for developers.
    • Easy to use: Okta Workforce Identity is user friendly, easy to navigate, and has a central admin console to manage all users, apps, and policies.
    • Reliable: The solution is built with self-healing nodes for greater stability. In addition, it has high availability and reduces downtime.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Okta Workforce Identity is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it is easy to use and has great SSO and MFA features.

    Tor N., Executive Director at Semaphore, shares what he finds most valuable about the solution. “It is extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced.”

    “It is secure and multi featured with trusted device, SSO, and MFA features and integrates well with other solutions,” says Timo H., Director, Device Management at IT-palvelutalo Valtti at Valtti, part of Advania.

    “One of the features that I have found to be very valuable is its interoperability and compatibility with all types of resources, whether it's networking, infrastructure, or applications. That is, it is compatible as well as interoperable, as far as the federated authentication is concerned," writes Rama N., Senior Director - Principal Architect at a computer software company.

    Offer
    Learn more about Google Cloud Identity
    Learn more about Okta Workforce Identity
    Sample Customers
    ExtraHop Networks, HealthChannels
    Box, Groupon, National Geographic, Western Union, DocuSign
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company21%
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise62%
    Buyer's Guide
    Google Cloud Identity vs. Okta Workforce Identity
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud Identity vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    709,643 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Google Cloud Identity is ranked 6th in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 9 reviews while Okta Workforce Identity is ranked 3rd in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) with 23 reviews. Google Cloud Identity is rated 7.6, while Okta Workforce Identity is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Google Cloud Identity writes "You don't need much expertise or previous experience to work with it". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Okta Workforce Identity writes "Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced ". Google Cloud Identity is most compared with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Microsoft Intune, VMware Workspace ONE, JumpCloud and OneLogin by One Identity, whereas Okta Workforce Identity is most compared with SailPoint IdentityIQ, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Auth0, Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy and OneLogin by One Identity. See our Google Cloud Identity vs. Okta Workforce Identity report.

    See our list of best Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) vendors.

    We monitor all Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.