Security & Compliance

  • 9 min read

Okta vs Active Directory: Which Identity Management Tool is Right for Your Organization?

Team Zluri

12th April, 2023

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As businesses continue to rely on cloud-based applications, IT teams face the challenge of managing user identities across multiple platforms. Okta and Active Directory are popular identity management tools, but which is right for your IT needs? Let's read on.

As businesses strive to stay competitive, they must identify and fulfill their unique requirements. This means carefully selecting the right tools to support their IT processes. 

For instance, if the IT team's main priority is managing user identities and providing access to essential applications, Okta may be the best fit. On the other hand, if the company is a medium-sized business focusing on on-premise MFA and SSO, Active Directory may be the more straightforward solution.

To fully understand the capabilities of both tools, let's take a quick look at their overall functionality before diving into a detailed comparison based on various parameters.

What is Okta?

Okta offers an identity and access management platform with a wide range of features. One of the primary features is the Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality, which allows users to securely access multiple applications with just one set of login credentials. 

With Okta's SSO, IT teams can easily manage access to all their applications from a single dashboard, ensuring that users have the appropriate level of access without compromising security.

Another important feature is its Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) capability. MFA adds an extra layer of security to the authentication process by requiring users to provide additional information beyond their usernames and password. With this, IT teams can ensure that only authorized users access their organization's data and applications, even if a username and password are compromised.

Okta also offers Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (AMFA), which goes beyond traditional MFA by using machine learning to analyze a user's behavior and determine the appropriate level of authentication required. 

For example, if a user attempts to access an application from a new location or device, AMFA may require additional authentication measures to ensure the user is who they claim to be. This feature benefits IT teams by providing an additional layer of security without inconveniencing users with unnecessary authentication steps.

Moreover, Okta's Universal Directory provides a centralized location for managing user profiles and access. It integrates with different systems, allowing IT teams to easily manage user access across various applications and services, reducing the administrative burden of managing user accounts and access permissions across multiple platforms.

What is Active Directory?

Active Directory (AD) is a critical component of many IT infrastructures, allowing IT teams to manage access permissions, control network policies, and authenticate user identities. 

With AD, IT teams can create, modify, and delete user accounts and control their access permissions. This can be incredibly useful in large organizations with hundreds of employees with different access levels to different resources.

By using Active Directory to manage user accounts and permissions, IT teams can ensure that only authorized users access sensitive data and applications.

Another important feature of Active Directory is its ability to manage group policies. With AD, IT teams can create and enforce policies that control how users interact with network resources. 

For example, IT teams can prevent users from installing unauthorized software or accessing certain websites. By using Active Directory to manage group policies, IT teams can ensure that their network resources are used securely and consistently, reducing the risk of security breaches and other issues.

Moreover, IT teams can enforce strong password policies with AD, configure multi-factor authentication, and monitor user activity to detect potential security breaches. This reduces the risk of data breaches and other security incidents, protecting their organization's sensitive data and resources.

In addition, with AD, IT teams can also manage hardware and software inventory, remotely deploy software updates, and monitor the health and performance of network resources. This can be incredibly useful for organizations that have a large number of devices and servers to manage. Further, IT teams can save time and resources, ensuring the network runs smoothly and efficiently.

Once you have gained a comprehensive understanding of the functionality of both tools, it's time to evaluate and compare them based on various parameters. This will enable you to determine which tool would be the most optimal fit for IT teams’ unique requirements.

Okta vs Active Directory: 5 Parameters to Compare the Tools

Let us explore the various points that will help to make a distinctive comparison between the tools.

1. User provisioning & deprovisioning 

User provisioning and deprovisioning are critical tasks that IT teams must manage regularly to ensure employees have appropriate access to resources while protecting sensitive company data. 

Okta and Active Directory are two tools that offer user provisioning and deprovisioning, but they differ in their capabilities.

• With Okta, IT teams can quickly provision and deprovision user accounts across multiple applications, including cloud-based applications.
  
  Okta's user provisioning capabilities allow IT teams to automatically create new user accounts in multiple applications, saving time and reducing the risk of errors. This means that new employees can be up and running quickly without IT manually creating accounts in each application. 
  
  It also ensures that new user accounts are created with the appropriate access levels and permissions, minimizing the risk of data breaches.
  
  While Okta's user deprovisioning capabilities allow IT teams to revoke access to applications when employees leave the company easily. By automatically deprovisioning user accounts, IT teams can ensure former employees can no longer access sensitive company data.

• Active Directory is a popular solution for managing user accounts restricted to on-premises environments. It doesn't provide the same flexibility and control as Okta for managing accounts across multiple applications and environments like SaaS or cloud-based apps.
  
  For example, AD requires IT teams to manually create user accounts in each application, which can be time-consuming and error-prone.
  
  Additionally, AD doesn't provide the same level of visibility and control over user access to cloud-based applications that Okta does.

2. User directory

As an IT admin, managing user identities across multiple applications and systems can be a challenging task. This is where a universal directory comes into play. A universal directory is a centralized repository that stores user identities, access rights, and other related information that can be used across different applications and systems within an organization. 

Having a universal directory can significantly simplify the user management process and enhance security by ensuring that users have the right access levels to the right applications.

Since both, Okta and Active Directory offer a universal directory, are you juggling which tool to choose that will meet your needs? Let’s see how these tools differ.

• Okta's Universal Directory allows IT admins to manage user identities, access rights, and security policies across different applications and systems within their organizations. This centralization not only makes the management of identities and access easier but also provides IT admins with better visibility and control over user access. 
  
  With Okta's Universal Directory, IT admins can manage user access to cloud-based applications, on-premises applications, and even custom-built applications.
  
  Moreover, Okta's Universal Directory is highly customizable and can integrate with a wide range of applications and systems. IT admins can also use Okta's APIs to automate the user management process, enabling them to save time and reduce errors that can result from manual user management.

• On the other hand, Microsoft's Active Directory is specifically designed for managing user identities and access rights in Microsoft's ecosystem, including Windows operating systems, Office 365, and Azure. 
  
  While Active Directory is highly capable of managing user identities in Microsoft's ecosystem, it may not be the best fit for organizations that use a mix of different applications and systems.

One of the key differences between Okta's Universal Directory and Active Directory is their scope. Okta's Universal Directory is designed to be a cloud-based solution that can integrate with a wide range of applications and systems, while Active Directory is primarily focused on Microsoft's ecosystem.

3. Advanced server access

With the rise of remote work and cloud computing, managing user access has become more important than ever to have a secure and efficient way to manage servers. Okta, a leading provider of identity management solutions, offers advanced server access to help organizations manage their infrastructure more effectively.

• Okta's advanced server access provides IT admins with a centralized dashboard to manage their servers. This dashboard enables administrators to control access to servers and ensure that only authorized personnel can make changes or access sensitive data.
  
  Additionally, advanced server access allows for easy deployment and configuration of servers, reducing the time and effort required to manage the infrastructure. Also, it enables you to seamlessly extend SSO to your Linux and Windows servers via SSH and RDP across any hybrid or multi-cloud environment.

• Active Directory offers similar features to Okta's advanced server access, including centralized management and access control. However, there are some key differences between the two solutions.

One significant difference is that Active Directory is designed specifically for on-premises infrastructure, whereas Okta's solution is cloud-based. This means that organizations that have already invested heavily in on-premises infrastructure may find Active Directory to be a more natural fit. 

However, for organizations that are looking to migrate to the cloud or already have a significant cloud presence, Okta's solution is likely to be more beneficial.

4. Integrations

Integrating apps with existing systems is crucial for IT teams, particularly when it comes to user provisioning. User provisioning involves creating, managing, and deactivating user accounts and application access.

Thus, integrating apps with existing systems allow IT teams to automate user provisioning and deprovisioning, saving time and effort, improving security, and reducing the risk of human error.

• One of the leading providers of IAM solutions, Okta, offers integrations to IT teams that can help streamline user provisioning. Okta's integrations allow IT teams to automate creating and deactivating user accounts across multiple applications and systems, making managing user access and ensuring compliance easier. 
  
  Okta's integrations can also help IT teams adopt a zero-trust security model by providing granular access controls and real-time visibility into user access.

• On the other hand, Active Directory (AD) provides centralized authentication and authorization services for on-premises. AD also offers integrations to the IT environment by providing users with an SSO experience across multiple applications and systems. 

Moreover, Active Directory (AD) is confined to on-premises usage, Okta's cloud-based identity and access management solution provides superior flexibility and scalability.

5. Pricing and Rating

Okta's pricing is based on the number of users and the required features. The three pricing tiers are:

• Okta Starter: This plan is designed for small businesses and includes basic IAM features like SSO, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Universal Directory. The pricing for this plan starts at $2 per user/per month.

• Okta Advanced: This plan includes advanced IAM features like API access management, lifecycle management, etc. The pricing for this plan starts at $5 per user/per month.

• Okta Enterprise: This plan is designed for large organizations with complex IAM requirements. It includes features like advanced MFA, adaptive authentication, and security reporting. The pricing for this plan is customized based on the organization's specific needs.

Okta's pricing model allows organizations to choose the plan that suits their needs and budget. Offering different pricing tiers, it ensures that organizations of all sizes and industries can benefit from their ULM and IAM solutions.

When comparing Okta's pricing with Active Directory (AD), it is important to note that AD is a traditional on-premise IAM solution, while Okta is a cloud-based IAM solution. AD's pricing model is based on the number of licenses required and the edition of Windows Server used.

AD offers two editions: Standard and Datacenter. The Standard edition is designed for small and medium-sized businesses, while the Datacenter edition is designed for large enterprises with complex IAM requirements. The pricing for AD varies depending on the edition and the number of licenses required.

Customer ratings of Okta

• G2: 4.5/5

• Capterra: 4.7/5

Customer ratings of AD

• G2: 4.5/5

• Capterra: 4.8/5

While AD and Okta offer similar capabilities, Okta's cloud-based approach and flexible pricing model make it a better option for IT teams that need to manage access to their applications and services. Okta's advanced features, like API access management and adaptive authentication, provide an extra layer of security and convenience that AD cannot match.

Zluri - The Most Value-for-Money Lifecycle Management Solution in the Market

After learning the difference between Okta and Active Directory, you might have better understood which tool will be optimal for IT teams to enhance user lifecycle management. However, there is another User Lifecycle Management tool, Zluri, that you can consider for your growing enterprise. 

So, what is Zluri? How does it work? Here's a quick brief.

Zluri is a user lifecycle management solution that helps to streamline the user management process for IT teams in organizations. With a comprehensive set of capabilities, Zluri helps IT teams automate user provisioning, deprovisioning, and manage ad-hoc requests for apps, thereby reducing errors and improving overall efficiency.

One of the key features of Zluri's user lifecycle management solution is its ability to automate the user onboarding process. Zluri enables IT teams to fast and effortlessly onboarding new employees into the system, granting them immediate access to the applications they require with the necessary permissions.

Zluri helps IT teams create custom workflows for their user onboarding process that is based on contextual app recommendations, making it more efficient and effective.

Further, it provides in-app suggestions to IT teams, and these suggestions are based on the user's role, department, and other relevant factors like the employee’s seniority level. 

This makes the experience for IT teams more personalized and engaging. With Zluri, IT teams can ensure new employees have a smooth and seamless onboarding experience, improving their productivity.

Further, the workflows created in Zluri can be saved as “playbooks”, which can be reused in the future. With a list of playbooks, IT teams no longer have to waste time performing the same tasks repeatedly and can instead focus on more critical and strategic initiatives.

Also, Zluri helps IT teams enforce the principle of least privilege, ensuring employees only have access to the applications and data needed to perform their job functions.

Additionally, when employees leave the company, Zluri can automatically revoke their access to all applications, ensuring data security and compliance.

Let’s see how it does so!

Suppose you need to remove a departing employee's access from your company's apps and workplaces. In that case, Zluri provides a hassle-free three-step offboarding process that includes access retrieval, revocation, and reassignment of access privileges. This ensures that your organization's offboarding is performed correctly every time.

Zluri's deprovisioning process is straightforward; you only need to click a button, and we'll take care of everything else behind the scenes. Our process involves four essential actions to guarantee proper offboarding:

• Eliminating access to devices: First, we remove authentication from all devices linked to the user. This means that if the user was signed in on multiple devices, they couldn't access any of the apps on those devices.

• Backing up data: We back up all data linked to the user, ensuring your organization does not suffer any data loss. This also enhances knowledge transfer and ensures the security of your organization's sensitive information.

• Revoking the user's license: After completing the data backup, Zluri returns to the app and removes the user's license. This ensures that the user can no longer use the app.

• Removing SSO: Finally, we remove the SSO, ensuring the user cannot access any other linked accounts via the SSO feature.

With our efficient and reliable deprovisioning process, Zluri ensures that your organization's offboarding is always performed with the utmost accuracy and security. Furthermore, Zluri alerts you if ex-employees still have access to any app or data in the organization.

Moreover, Zluri integrates with over 800 applications, including popular SaaS applications like G Suite, Office 365, Salesforce, and Slack. This helps IT teams to provision and deprovision users across all these applications from a single platform, streamlining the user management process and reducing the risk of errors.

Interested in trying Zluri and seeing how it can provide a better user experience to the employees. Request a demo today!

About the author

Team Zluri

Team Zluri