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Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs Ping Identity

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

Runs Terraform plan and apply from pull request comments, self-hosted and free

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Ping Identity logo

Ping Identity

Cybersecurity

Enterprise identity for workforce and customers, with a 5,000 user floor

From
$3/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Atlantis has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Atlantis there is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.; Ping Identity workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • They diverge on capability: Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Ping Identity covers Single sign-on.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and Ping Identity actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and Ping Identity differ
AttributeAtlantisPing Identity
Starting priceFree$3/month
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer user per month
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedWeb, Linux, Windows
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Atlantis

  • Pull request plans
  • Comment driven apply
  • Workspace locking
  • Policy checking
  • Multi-platform webhooks
  • Custom workflows

Only in Ping Identity

  • Single sign-on
  • Adaptive MFA
  • Identity orchestration
  • API access management
  • Directory services
  • Flexible deployment
  • ForgeRock capabilities

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Atlantis

  • Making Terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approvernot Ping Identity
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot Ping Identity
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot Ping Identity
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot Ping Identity

Ping Identity

  • A bank that must keep identity data on premises in one country while running SaaS identity elsewherenot Atlantis
  • An airline or telco with tens of millions of customer identities needing a directory that holds that scalenot Atlantis
  • An enterprise assembling authentication journeys that call several external verification and risk vendorsnot Atlantis
  • An existing ForgeRock customer deciding what its upgrade path looks like under Ping ownershipnot Atlantis

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Atlantis

  • There is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.
  • The security surface is inherently sharp, because it is an internet-reachable webhook endpoint that executes applies with privileged credentials, gated by pull request comment authorisation that is coarse next to a real policy engine.
  • It is stateful, holding a working directory and lock database on local disk, so high availability and horizontal scaling are awkward and you own upgrades, webhook plumbing, secret rotation and the host itself.
  • It lacks the features that distinguish the commercial alternatives, with no native drift detection, no cost estimation, no managed state interface and no policy engine beyond the Conftest integration.
  • Terragrunt and monorepo layouts are not first-class, requiring hand-written custom workflows and repository configuration that becomes a growing maintenance burden as the number of repositories increases.

Ping Identity

  • Workforce pricing carries a 5,000 user annual minimum, so an organisation with 800 staff pays for 5,000 and the effective per user cost is over six times the list rate.
  • Adaptive multi-factor authentication is in the Plus tier only, doubling the per user price for a capability many buyers assume is standard in a modern identity platform.
  • ForgeRock no longer exists as an independent product, so customers who chose it specifically to avoid Ping now face a roadmap set by the vendor they did not pick.
  • Thoma Bravo ownership across both merged companies means the commercial priority is margin, and buyers report firmer renewal negotiations than they saw before 2022.
  • The portfolio has overlapping components from three product lineages, so scoping a deployment requires vendor architects and the licensing conversation is more complicated than the price list implies.

Pricing, plan by plan

Atlantis

Free
  • AtlantisFree
    • Apache-2.0, no usage limits and no seat count
    • No commercial edition and no paid support tier
    • Community support through GitHub and the CNCF Slack channel

Ping Identity

$3/month
  • PingOne for Workforce Essential$3/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Single sign-on and directory services
    • OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML and SCIM
  • PingOne for Workforce Plus$6/month
    • Minimum 5,000 users billed annually
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive multi-factor authentication
  • PingOne for Customers Essential$35000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • No-code identity orchestration
    • Unified customer profiles
  • PingOne for Customers Plus$50000/year
    • Flat annual fee
    • Everything in Essential
    • Adaptive MFA and device management

Which should you pick?

Choose Atlantis if

  • You need pull request plans.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want comment driven apply.
Atlantis review

Choose Ping Identity if

  • You need single sign-on.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Windows.
  • You also want adaptive mfa.
Ping Identity review

Questions people ask

Is Atlantis or Ping Identity better?
Neither clearly leads. Atlantis starts at Free and Ping Identity at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Atlantis or Ping Identity?
Atlantis has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Atlantis and $3/month for Ping Identity.
Does Atlantis or Ping Identity run on more platforms?
Atlantis runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. Ping Identity runs on Web, Linux, Windows.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Yes. Atlantis has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Ping Identity starts at $3/month.
What is Atlantis best used for?
Atlantis is most often used for making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver, removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys, getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platform, enforcing conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can run. Of those, making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver and removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys are not what Ping Identity is typically brought in for.
What can Atlantis do that Ping Identity cannot?
Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking. Ping Identity covers Single sign-on, Adaptive MFA, Identity orchestration, API access management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Atlantis: Is there a company behind Atlantis?

No. It runs as a series of LF Projects under the Linux Foundation and is maintained by volunteers. There is no vendor to buy support from and no service level agreement.

Ping Identity: Can I still buy ForgeRock?

Not as a separate product. Ping acquired ForgeRock in 2023 and the capabilities are sold within the Ping portfolio. Existing customers should ask about the specific migration path for their components.

Atlantis: Is it a CNCF project?

No. It uses a channel in the CNCF Slack, which is often misread as membership, but the project sits under LF Projects rather than the CNCF.

Ping Identity: What is the real minimum spend?

PingOne for Workforce Essential is 3 USD per user per month with a 5,000 user annual minimum, so roughly 180,000 USD a year before anything else.

Atlantis: Does it work with OpenTofu?

Yes, there is a dedicated integration guide alongside Terraform, and it also has configuration for working with hosted Terraform backends.

Ping Identity: Is MFA included?

Basic authentication policies are in Essential. Adaptive MFA and passwordless require the Plus tier at 6 USD per user per month.

Atlantis: What does it not do that a paid platform does?

Drift detection, cost estimation, a managed state and run interface, and a real policy engine. Atlantis does pull request plan and apply well and stops there.

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