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IBM Security Verify Access vs Microsoft Entra ID comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

Omada Identity
Sponsored
Ranking in Identity Management (IM)
4th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (3rd)
IBM Security Verify Access
Ranking in Identity Management (IM)
25th
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (14th), Access Management (13th)
Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Identity Management (IM)
1st
Ranking in Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (1st), Access Management (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Pernilla Hulth - PeerSpot reviewer
The interface is easy to use and gives you a solid overview
The cloud-based deployment was straightforward, but the on-prem deployment was in a highly complex ecosystem. Omada has matured since then. I wouldn't say that it isn't straightforward, but it depends on the customer. A standard deployment is relatively easy, but it can be more painful if you need a lot of customization. We deployed the cloud solution in around four months, nearly meeting the 12-week benchmark. The on-prem deployment took three years. It was a highly complex ecosystem that was dependent on other systems. Depending on the size of your environment, you need a product owner and some specialists for maintenance. My last customer was a university with a complex environment. They had around 12 people involved in maintenance at that organization. Typically, it's between 2-5 people.
AsifIqbal - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good scalability and is stable with no glitches; has a multi-factor authentication feature
What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain.
Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The teams we work with at Omada provide great insights and support. Overall, it has been a pleasure working with them. That's the part we value the most."
"The most valuable feature is the automatic provisioning and reconciliation of things like the Active Directory groups and memberships."
"The most relevant feature is Omada's reporting engine. Omada never 'forgets' and archives every process. All steps an admin, user, or manager has executed, are recorded in Omada."
"The key benefit of Omada Identity is maintaining complete control."
"The administrative features and SoD are valuable."
"For me, the best feature of Omada Identity is its web interface because it's really easy for users to understand."
"The identity lifecycle support is definitely valuable because we are a complex organization, and there is a lot of onboarding, movement, and offboarding in our organization. We have 31,000 users, and there are a lot of users who are constantly onboarding, offboarding, and moving. So, we need to make sure that these activities are supported. In old times, we used to do everything manually. Everyone was onboarded, offboarded, or moved manually. So, from a business point of view and an economics point of view, identity lifecycle is most valuable. From a security point of view, access review is the most important feature for us."
"Omada's most valuable aspect is its usability."
"Its stability and UI are most valuable."
"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth. For legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users. From the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."
"It's a good solution for identification and access management."
"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."
"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."
"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."
"The solution allows users to authenticate from home, and the Office 360 integration is advantageous."
"Let's say we decide that our users need to have MFA, multi-factor authentication. It is very easy to implement that with Azure Active Directory."
"The self-password reset if it's enabled and configured properly, really helps a company be able to reset rather than getting IT involved."
"Entra ID is our directory that registers all users, guest users, and even labs. It's integrated with Microsoft technologies like Authenticator, SSO, and MFA, streamlining operations and creating a seamless environment."
"I like Intune's MDM and MI."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Entra ID is its security options, where we can provide highly effective security for user accounts during authentication."
"The most valuable feature is that it is very easy to implement, you don't need a lot of effort to set up the solution. This is the most advantageous point, that you can do anything on Azure without taking too much time."
"Personally, I'm a great fan of Azure Active Directory due to the security and compliance features that are there in the classic or default Azure Active Directory."
 

Cons

"I am not working with the product, but they have this BI tool for role-based mining, and I think that should be included in the core product rather than an add-on."
"Omada could make it a bit more convenient to send emails based on events automatically. Having that functionality is critical for us to maintain transparency."
"If you find an error and you need it fixed, you have to upgrade. It's not like they say, "Okay, we'll fix this problem for you." You have to upgrade. The last time we upgraded, because there was an error in a previous version, we had to pay 150,000 Danish Krone (about $24,000 at the time of this review) to upgrade our systems... That means that we have to pay to get errors fixed that Omada has made in programming the system. I hope they change this way of looking at things."
"Documentation can be improved. I have already filed a few suggestions to make documentation more clear and more representative of reality."
"I would like more training. As someone who is new to this world, I don't feel that the courses Omada provides are good enough. They should also improve the documentation. It is difficult to learn how to use the solution by yourself"
"It is not possible to customize reports on Omada Identity."
"What I would most like to see added to the product is role management, especially enterprise or business role management, and the processes around that."
"Omada Identity has two main issues that need to be solved or improved the most. One is its setup or installation process because it's complex and cumbersome. I'm talking about the process for on-premises deployment because I've never tried the cloud version of Omada Identity. Setting up the cloud version should be much easier. The second area for improvement in Omada Identity is that it's piggybacking on Microsoft's complex way of having all kinds of add-ons, extensions, or setups, whether small or large, such as the new SQL Server, and it's cumbersome to make sure that everything works. Omada Identity is a complex solution and could still be improved."
"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."
"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area. OIDC is a third-party integration that we do with the cloud platforms, and OAuth is an authorization mechanism for allowing a user having an account with Google or any other provider to access an application. Organizations these days are looking for just-in-time provisioning use cases, but IBM Security Access Manager is not very mature for such use cases. There are only a few applications that can be integrated, and this is where this product is lagging. However, in terms of configuration and single sign-on mechanisms, it is a great product."
"There are a lot of areas that can be improved, but the main area is the lack of customization. You cannot easily customize anything in the product. It is not easy to tweak the functionality. It is challenging to change the out-of-the-box functionality."
"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."
"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."
"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."
"Configuration could be simplified for the end-user."
"Its area of improvement is more about the synchronization of accounts and the intervals for that. Sometimes, there're customers with other network challenges, and it takes a while for synchronization to happen to the cloud. There is some component of their on-prem that is delaying things getting to the cloud. The turnaround time for these requests is very time-sensitive. I don't mean this as derogatory for this service, but in my experience, that happens a lot."
"Our organization's approach to defending against token theft and nation-state attacks has not changed significantly since implementing Microsoft Entra ID, as we have a big concern about token theft yet know we cannot do anything."
"The workflow management for registering new applications and users could be improved."
"Microsoft's technical support has shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The licensing cost is a bit prohibitive."
"In the compliance area, the granulation of access to storage accounts or Kubernetes could be improved."
"The thing that is a bit annoying is the inability to nest groups. Because we run an Azure hybrid model, we have nested groups on-premise which does not translate well. So, we have written some scripts to kind of work around that. This is a feature request that we have put in previously to be able to use a group that is nested in Active Directory on-premise and have it handled the same way in Azure."
"The initial setup was complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not cheap. None of these solutions are cheap, but we have good pricing at least for now from a licensing perspective."
"Omada isn't cheap or expensive. The licensing model is flexible. I've only had limited interactions with the Omada sales team, but they were positive. They don't sell the customers more licenses than they need. It's important to accurately forecast future usage. For example, we have many licenses that we don't use because we don't have the identities yet. We pay extra, which isn't good."
"From an on-prem point of view, the cost is quite transparent and reasonable. The direct cost is primarily for licenses and maintenance on licenses."
"Omada is too expensive. We are in the automotive industry. The pricing might be high because most of the other customers are in the insurance or banking sectors, but it's steep for an auto supply company."
"The pricing for Omada Identity is fair."
"My client deals directly with the Omada Identity team in terms of licensing. I never look at pricing, so I'm not aware of how much the solution costs, but it's worth the money. Often, when you begin to use Omada Identity and it takes a while to set up, it'll be irreversible, and you'd depend on and focus more on the functionality of the solution, rather than its price tag."
"Omada Identity is competitively priced and delivers good value for our money."
"Omada continues to be very competitive on pricing, especially on the Omada cloud product."
"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."
"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."
"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."
"We have various levels of their licensing, which includes users on different levels of their enterprise offering."
"I feel Microsoft is very costly compared to other products. That is also what management is thinking. But when we consider security and support, Microsoft is better than any other product."
"The price is good, and we have no complaints."
"The process for buying licenses from Microsoft is somewhat messy and really hard to do. We have to talk to someone because it's hard to find out how many licenses we need. If I'm applying for 2,000 users, how many Windows licenses do we need? They could also charge less for support."
"We are currently on the education plan, so the price is slightly better than the development plan."
"MFA and P2 licenses for two Azures for fully-enabled scenarios and features cost a lot of money. This is where Okta is trying to get the prices down."
"We pay about $35 per user."
"Microsoft Entra ID service can be quite costly due to its hidden expenses linked to usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Insurance Company
16%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Omada Identity Cloud?
As an administrator, we benefit from a lot of functionality that is available out of the box, but it is also configur...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omada Identity Cloud?
They are positioned at a good price point. They are lower than some of their competitors.
What needs improvement with Omada Identity Cloud?
The biggest issue, which is the reason why we are transitioning from their product to SailPoint, is the overall user ...
What do you like most about IBM Security Access Manager?
The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication ...
What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?
The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could ...
How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Du...
What do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. W...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Regarding pricing, for the services we receive, it seems within the market range and about average.
 

Also Known As

Omada Identity Suite, Omada Identity Cloud
IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM
Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bayer, ECCO Shoes, Vattenfall, NuStar Energy, Unicredit, Schiphol Group, BMW Group, Deutsche Leasing
POST Luxembourg
Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Verify Access vs. Microsoft Entra ID and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.