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Microsoft Active Directory vs Okta Workforce Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
Microsoft Active Directory enhances operational efficiency by streamlining user management and access control, proving cost-effective and valuable.
Sentiment score
7.2
Okta Workforce Identity offers high ROI through enhanced security, reduced IT burdens, automation, and improved scalability and reliability.
The solution is really time-saving since I don't need to create users in each server or system manually, and user access control is streamlined.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.3
Microsoft Active Directory support is effective but variable, with resolution time issues and moderate to high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.4
Okta Workforce Identity offers responsive customer service, though delays occur; many benefit from fast, knowledgeable support and web resources.
Support documents are available on the internet in every language.
Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months.
They are very supportive; they just open a ticket, and they support us very professionally.
We had an issue with the Okta Workforce Identity dashboard once in 2023 when we had an outage, but it recovered in a few minutes.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Active Directory offers strong scalability, efficient user management, and adaptability, despite occasional management complexities in larger deployments.
Sentiment score
7.6
Okta Workforce Identity is highly scalable, supporting growth without performance issues, making it ideal for medium to large enterprises.
Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Active Directory is stable and reliable, though updates occasionally cause minor issues; scalability planning is crucial.
Sentiment score
8.1
Okta Workforce Identity is praised for its stability and reliability, with users noting minimal issues and quick recovery from outages.
With multiple domain controllers, stability is ensured.
I've been working with Microsoft Active Directory for over 3 years, and we've had no problems.
Okta Workforce Identity is a stable product.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Active Directory requires updates in DNS services, interface, permissions, scalability, integration, security, and cost-effective cloud stability.
Okta Workforce Identity needs UI improvements, better integration, enhanced support, and more features for effective user experience.
There are some features that need improvements in terms of ease of use and frequency of updates.
Sometimes, it can be overly complicated, and when you apply Group Policy in an Active Directory environment, sometimes those settings apply and sometimes they don't.
The current Active Directory UI is limited in report generation, necessitating script knowledge to generate various reports.
It could improve in the governance part, particularly regarding better role management and workflow, as I feel it is tedious on Okta.
I believe that if we integrate the workflows section into the main Okta Workforce Identity dashboard, it can be very useful.
Okta should have at least a local peering partner for countries that align with or comply with GDPR, so there are no compliance or audit questions.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Active Directory costs vary by user count and license type, with educational discounts and potential Azure savings available.
Okta Workforce Identity is costly but valued by larger enterprises for its comprehensive features and straightforward setup.
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing with Microsoft Active Directory is straightforward; you just buy the server and then have to buy the user CALs.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Active Directory offers easy configuration, centralized management, strong security, scalability, and integration with Azure AD and Office 365.
Okta Workforce Identity enhances security and efficiency through centralized management, Single Sign-On, automation, and seamless integration with applications.
One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs.
Having active deployment and well-configured systems helps me manage tasks and easily oversee thousands of users.
I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.
For the end user, it is beneficial as they do not have to remember a password or keep the password on a post-it for different applications; they just authenticate once to access several services and service providers.
We can use hardware keys, software keys, or any authenticator, majorly known authenticator app, for multi-factor authentication.
You can only log in if you have the access, which protects the applications by avoiding cross-site scripting.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Management (4th)
Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (3rd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 3.3%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 10.4%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Roberta Politano - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good authentication features
The solution's group policy is a normal way to deploy configuration and helps deploy to a wider environment. The solution is deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. I would recommend the solution to other users based on their infrastructure. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Active Directory?
The solution is easy to install and has good reliability.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?
There are a few areas that could be improved with Microsoft Active Directory, along similar lines as Intune. Not too much on the support side, but on the Group Policy side, it doesn't always functi...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
The use cases for Microsoft Active Directory are managing all users on-premises. We have over 200 employees and multiple computers, approximately over 200 computers. We have shared computers and sh...
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?
Areas for improvement with Okta Workforce Identity would be in the governance place; for me, it is light. Okta is mostly focused on execution and runtime, which means maintaining authentication and...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Microsoft Active Directory vs. Okta Workforce Identity and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.