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Netwrix Auditor 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Netwrix Auditor
Ranking in Active Directory Management
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
GRC (10th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (31st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (19th)
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 Netwrix Auditor is 13.2%, down from 13.9% 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

Mohamed Tantawy - PeerSpot reviewer
Can track every admin action in large environments and includes AI modules to detect and prevent unauthorized changes
The initial setup of Netwrix Auditor was straightforward. Some functions require agents while others are agentless, simplifying implementation. It consumed minimal server and client resources, and the wizard-based console made it simple to deploy with the help of architectural teams. All required ports were in place, and they covered all critical services and databases effectively. I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as a nine out of ten. The deployment of Netwrix Auditor took around three weeks, mainly due to the preparation of the environment and servers. The deployment process involved actions such as preparing virtual servers and building databases. Once deployed, it took only about a week to complete. Third-party consultants assisted us with deployment. Only one or two engineers were needed for deployment and maintenance, which could be handled remotely with minimal complexity.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Netwrix provides features that no other solution on the market does."
"The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting feature and notifications."
"The most valuable feature is the real-time monitoring."
"It maintains audit logs for the duration of time that you wish, as long as you have the storage capacity to do so."
"I have found user behavior analysis and the ability to run risk assessments important features. Additionally, the interface and online documentation are very good."
"What I find the most valuable about Netwrix Auditor is the way it shows risk. The reports are very clear."
"With the use of the sync service we were able to import information from multiple external systems and populate them within our space and leverage them for downstream systems."
"It is an easier way for me to manage Active Directory with more advanced features."
"The solution is stable."
"The access templates help set up granular permissions and the web portal to manage Active Directory."
"The biggest thing for us is Active Roles saves a lot of man-hours in keeping groups up-to-date manually or trying to write some sort of script that you have to run, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Instead of when every time somebody joins a department, then somebody has to remember to put in a request to add "meet user Joe" to this group, the solution does it automatically for us. Therefore, it saves our business and IT staff time because they do not have to process requests since Active Role can do it for them."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"Active Roles improved the management of users, groups, and AD objects in the organization."
"The best part of this Active Roles is the workflow engine. It features an industry-leading workflow automation feature. It's a visual PowerShell that allows task interruption."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality."
"If you buy direct, there is a minimum of 150 licenses that must be procured. The price point and barrier of entry is a little bit higher than it would be if you purchased the solution from an authorized reseller partner, rather than buying it and managing yourself."
"When there are issues I would like remediation to be in one place."
"An improvement would be if there was an another way to manage the logs besides email because it's not so practical."
"I expect usability features to become more refined over time. I'm interested to see how it evolves and continues to improve."
"The solution lacks self-service on password reset. It also needs to improve its scalability."
"There is room for improvements when it comes to the licensing."
"The Linux compatibility of this solution could be improved."
"The possibility to request group membership, similar to the past, was disabled and moved to Identity Manager."
"In terms of improvement, it could be made even more user-friendly for administrators when they need to create new workflows and rule sets."
"It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows. When it comes to them, it's empty. I would personally love for it to come with ten, 15, or 20 workflows where each achieves a certain task... I could just look at how each is done, clone them, copy them, modify them the way I want them, and be good to go. Right now we have to invent things from scratch."
"The initial setup was quite easy, but it was time-consuming. It took about three months."
"The solution needs an attestation process that includes certification and recertification attestation."
"Active Roles could add more options for web customization. Our requirements are exceedingly specific. We'd like to get the web interface down to just five buttons, but in some cases, we can only get to six. The web interface in the current version is less customizable than in the previous one."
"There are some features that we think should be included in their next release. We think these things would take them to the next level: the ability to completely force or limit any dynamic group processing to specific servers, change-tracking reporting of virtual attributes, and the ability to use files as inputs to automation workloads. These things have also been talked about. Knowing them, they're probably working on them."
"The third area for improvement, which is the weakest portion of ARS, is the workflow engine, which was introduced a few years ago. It's slow and not very intuitive to use, so I would like to see improvement there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is fair."
"There is a license for this solution and we are on an annual license. The price is reasonable."
"This solution is reasonably priced. I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"It's expensive."
"The pricing is high. I have not been involved with the renewal or cost aspect, but I know it is not cheap by any means. However, it is very useful for our environment."
"It's fairly priced."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Netwrix Auditor?
The most valuable features of Netwrix Auditor are its affordability compared to similar products and its comprehensive monitoring of admin activities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netwrix Auditor?
The pricing of Netwrix Auditor varies based on the number of users and devices in our environment, but it is generally very cost-effective compared to other solutions. We don't pay for licenses sep...
What needs improvement with Netwrix Auditor?
The solution currently meets my needs, but there is room for improvement with the introduction of AI functionality as suggested by the vendor. Additionally, expanding capabilities like database act...
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

AT&T, SanDisk, Siemens, Verizon, Electrolux, Allianz, Societe Generale
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 Netwrix Auditor vs. One Identity Active Roles and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.