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IBM Cloud Identity Service vs Okta Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

IBM Cloud Identity Service
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
31st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Okta Platform
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (3rd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Identity Service is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Platform is 8.5%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Okta Platform8.5%
IBM Cloud Identity Service0.9%
Other90.6%
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1054431 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Excellent support, beneficial integration, and low maintenance
I have found IBM Cloud Identity Service to be highly scalable. It can handle thousands of users. IBM solutions are truly enterprise-grade. You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses. The implementation effort, it's hard to find that cost-benefit.
SN
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
Automated lifecycle management has cut onboarding times and now drives secure, clean access
Although I am a fan of Okta Platform overall, there are areas where it could improve security outcomes and reduce admin friction. My top improvement areas include the system log and analytics upgrade, which are great for point troubleshooting, but trending and root cause analysis across large tenants still require exporting to SIEM. Verbose queries and long-range retention costs can add up. Additionally, while certificate rotations are better than most, the process is still manual for busy portfolios, especially concerning multi-SP SAML certificate rotations and app metadata drift. Two more buckets of potential improvements for Okta Platform involve user experience and security. There is the issue of push fatigue and prompt sprawl, where users receive multiple prompts across different apps and sessions. I arrived at the rating of eight because the core controls are strong and reliable, but a few operational UX and UI gaps prevent it from being rated higher. The reasons for not giving it a nine or ten include ongoing issues concerning safety and change safety, the complexity of group rules and mappings, and the lack of robustness in policy management. Additionally, there remains a need for more manual involvement than necessary, especially for large portfolios and dual certificate rotation, along with proactive SP data metadata validation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is multiple identity and access management, so all of the applications are valuable. It's also part of the automated process."
"One of the most valuable features of IBM Cloud Identity Service is that it delivers integrations with the commercial SaaS software that's available."
"It is stable. We can automate many of our daily operations with it, and we don't have to manage many things manually."
"IBM Cloud Identity Service is highly stable."
"Its integration components are most valuable. It integrates with everything in some way. There are some products, such as O365 or AD, with which it completely and 100% integrates. So, you can seamlessly create accounts across the board with some of these products. For some of the products with which it doesn't completely integrate, you can do some kind of interfacing."
"The onboarding is the solution's most valuable aspect, as it helps us save time in terms of creating a password for each of the SaaS applications versus Okta, where you have this one single pane of glass to see who has what application or who needs which application."
"A solution that's easy to use, stable, and reliable."
"The stability is fantastic and has never been down."
"Okta has more when it comes to the policy level. It has distinctive features where you can do a mix and combination to have users access applications for various business cases."
"Okta Customer Identity is considered cheaper compared to other tools in the market, such as IBM and CyberArk products."
"The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are MFA, and SSO, which have high security."
"Okta Platform has impacted my organization positively by providing convenience, first of all, because there are no more different passwords for many different apps, security has also improved because we eliminate a very big weak point that passwords represent, and we maintain control to ensure we only give access to the necessary apps to the necessary people."
 

Cons

"Everything can be more stable and secure. There could also be more account features. I would like to be able to do more things through it to manage users' accounts."
"You don't find a lot of use cases for small businesses, or even sometimes medium businesses, the price point does not fit smaller businesses."
"IBM Cloud Identity Service is going in the right direction with the product. They need to keep building out the integrations and having the library is very critical."
"The initial setup is complex, it's not straightforward. It takes months because it's not straightforward."
"Initial technical support is not very responsive, it's only after escalation that we get proper support."
"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."
"There were some outages, but I think they were fixed really quickly, so it was not a big deal for us."
"They also have single sign-on (SSO). When we bought Okta Workforce Identity a year and a half ago, I was also looking at SSO, but not much documentation was available for SSO. The documentation for SSO should be a little more robust for somebody who is implementing it for the first time."
"I have worked on Okta Platform's IGA features, and they were not great or up to the mark."
"Okta Platform could be a little faster."
"SSO and MFA for improved end-user experience, and protection against password spray attacks, account password self-service."
"While I see very few areas for improvement in Okta Platform, I do note its high cost, which can be particularly challenging for smaller organizations looking to utilize advanced features like Okta Workflows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive for non-enterprise companies. IBM's always going to be a little more expensive, you're going to be paying a premium. However, depending on the organization's needs, there's probably a benefit there to do even with the price being the way it is."
"Okta's pricing is right where it needs to be and right in the middle of the market."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"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."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"The cost per user for this solution is really high and could be reduced."
"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 is costly for large companies."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise65
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
Currently, in Okta Workforce Identity we get the two-digit authentication code. Instead of getting the two-digit authentication code, if we had an option to do fingerprint verification, that would ...
What is your primary use case for Okta Workforce Identity?
I don't have many details about Okta Workforce Identity. I use the tool just to sign in to different applications that we have. We basically set up Okta Workforce Identity in our mobile phone. We d...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baxter Healthcare, 
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 IBM Cloud Identity Service vs. Okta Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.