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Microsoft Active Directory vs One Identity Active Roles comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 9, 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
8.8
Microsoft Active Directory offers high ROI, efficient user access control, and centralized management, enhancing organizational productivity and cost-effectiveness.
Sentiment score
7.4
One Identity Active Roles enhances efficiency and security, reduces workload and risks, delivering quick returns and increased user satisfaction.
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.
One Identity Active Roles provides excellent reporting and auditing functionality, allowing administrators to track permissions, actions, and responsibilities effectively.
It has saved 90% of the time compared to before.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Microsoft Active Directory support varies, with slow responses, costly premium help, mixed experiences, and reliance on external resources.
Sentiment score
7.7
One Identity Active Roles support is responsive and effective, with occasional delays; users rate it between seven and ten.
Support documents are available on the internet in every language.
Sometimes support takes long to engage and resolve, extending over weeks or even months.
One Identity's support is great.
I rate customer service and support as a seven because, although they are helpful when needed, there can be delays in responding to tickets and finding necessary fixes.
Sometimes having a fix for a bug takes too much time.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Active Directory scales well for small and large businesses, with Azure suggested for extreme scalability and integration ease.
Sentiment score
7.8
One Identity Active Roles is scalable for large user bases, efficiently managing multiple directories and automating tasks.
Microsoft Active Directory scales effectively; I don't foresee any issues with that at all.
It is very beneficial for large and complex environments.
If you are a major enterprise customer, it is a matter of scaling out on resources with more memory, disk, and CPU power.
The solution is highly scalable, with a scalability rating of nine.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Active Directory is stable and reliable, with high satisfaction despite minor bugs and occasional patch issues.
Sentiment score
7.4
One Identity Active Roles is generally stable with minimal maintenance, but occasional performance lags and updates are needed.
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.
There were no major problems with One Identity Active Roles.
We haven't had any glitches.
I would rate the stability as a seven because there are sometimes performance issues, which require restarting the services.
 

Room For Improvement

Active Directory needs a user-friendly interface, better integration, security upgrades, and improved cloud synchronization for enhanced usability.
One Identity Active Roles needs better web interface customization, scripting support, integration, user interface scalability, and improved workflows and security.
Exporting and verifying group memberships require command line scripts, which isn't simple.
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.
A way to connect to various directories and integrate with cloud directories would be beneficial.
Enhancements to the console are also necessary because it is more confusing than the web interface.
The user interface needs to be more modern and scalable.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Active Directory offers affordable licensing, often bundled, with Azure cloud reducing costs by eliminating server fees.
One Identity Active Roles uses a user-based licensing model with high costs but offers significant ROI and flexibility.
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.
It is quite expensive, costing more than 50 euros per identity.
The pricing is high.
The pricing of One Identity Active Roles is expensive, but the return on investment justifies the cost, allowing for savings in other areas.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Active Directory offers seamless Azure integration, user-friendly management, and scalability, enhancing network efficiency and usability for large organizations.
One Identity Active Roles enhances security and management with robust access control, automation, integration, and centralized directory management.
One valuable feature is the centralized creation of IDs.
I can control all the devices in my domain by just changing the group policies in one place.
Having active deployment and well-configured systems helps me manage tasks and easily oversee thousands of users.
It's improved our security posture. It has limited access to our crown jewels, where all our identities lie within Active Directory.
It helps in removing custom Active Directory delegation, which enhances security by eliminating unnecessary privileges, addressing identity-based breaches by reducing the number of Active Directory delegations.
It is very intuitive and close to the native tools.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Active Directory
Ranking in Active Directory Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (7th)
One Identity Active Roles
Ranking in Active Directory Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (5th), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Active Directory Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 6.0%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of One Identity Active Roles is 6.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Active Directory Management
 

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.
Grzegorz Kosela - PeerSpot reviewer
Task automation simplifies user and delegation management while offering a customizable interface
Currently, task automation, like provisioning, deprovisioning, and reprovisioning, is very effective. When a user moves from one organization to another, it automatically changes their group membership and performs similar functions. Secondly, the granular delegation feature is very nice and much simpler and easier than it is natively in Microsoft. Two years ago, One Identity Active Roles was under Dell. It was quite poor. However, now, there have been notable improvements, such as faster system processing, better logging, enhanced information, and a more user-friendly interface. Once it was sold by Dell, things got better. The interface became a bit more user-friendly. The Angular user interface is much more flexible for adjusting to customer needs, and a completely new and customizable one can be created, aligning with all settings and scripts required by a customer. The ease of managing on-prem and cloud-based directories through a single pane of glass is good. I'd rate it nine out of ten. The solution's ability to provision and deprovision resources and directories like Azure AD is very simple, especially when you can integrate with the HR system and grab some data from HR. It's actually fully automatic. I don't need to even touch it. It's helped increase operational efficiency by 50%. It's helped decrease security problems around privileged accounts. We were able to decrease the number of privileged accounts and have been able to delegate more effectively. We decreased the number of high-level permissions that administrators had. For example, if someone is a DNS administrator, he has access only as far as the specific actions he needs to handle. We don't need to give away such high privileges for such a daily job. It's helped clarify roles and access. It's helped reduce identity-based breaches. If someone leaves a company, we can easily undo provisioning and close accounts. We can generate reports to see which people have which permissions and at what times. We've just integrated with our HR system. It helps us follow activated and deactivated users. I'd rate the granular controls on offer ten out of ten. We've saved on manpower in terms of the work of the administrators. There's good reporting and functionality, and it's very transparent. You can connect more than one directory and manage everything from one pane. You can do many things from one interface.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
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?
Technology is evolving. AI is offering solutions. However, short-term fixes are like band-aids.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?
I utilize it in almost every scenario. I use the Hazer database and meet daily needs across every industry, every time.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Active Roles?
The product is expensive, but if you want to save money, the delegation set-up process is quite easy. After setting up Active Roles once, defining the delegation model, it is very efficient, almost...
What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
One area for improvement would be the Entra ID side, including better delegation for Entra ID objects and more granular permissions. We would also like to see better Entra ID license management usi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Quest Active Roles
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Active Directory vs. One Identity Active Roles and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.