Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

One Identity vs Spacelift

One Identity logo

One Identity

Cybersecurity

Quest-owned identity governance, PAM and Active Directory management

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Spacelift logo

Spacelift

Developer Tools

Infrastructure-as-code orchestration for Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi and Kubernetes

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Spacelift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: One Identity the portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.; Spacelift users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
  • They diverge on capability: One Identity covers Identity Manager, Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which One Identity and Spacelift actually diverge.

Attributes where One Identity and Spacelift differ
AttributeOne IdentitySpacelift
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteBy private worker and tier, not by user
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Windows, LinuxWeb, Self-hosted, Cloud
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 One Identity

  • Identity Manager
  • Safeguard
  • Active Roles
  • OneLogin
  • Password Manager
  • syslog-ng
  • Starling connectors

Only in Spacelift

  • Multi-tool orchestration
  • Policy as code
  • Private workers
  • Spaces
  • Blueprints
  • Drift detection

What people use each for

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

One Identity

  • An organisation whose authoritative directory will remain on premises Active Directory and needs delegated administration with attribute-level controlnot Spacelift
  • A government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud servicenot Spacelift
  • A manufacturer with SAP and Active Directory needing provisioning governed under one certification processnot Spacelift
  • An enterprise consolidating Active Directory after an acquisition and needing automated account lifecycle across both forestsnot Spacelift

Spacelift

  • Platform teams running infrastructure changes through approval gates rather than through application CInot One Identity
  • Organisations standardising Terraform and OpenTofu across many teams with policy enforcementnot One Identity
  • Estates needing private runners so cloud credentials never leave the networknot One Identity
  • Teams wanting drift detection and reconciliation rather than plan-time checks alonenot One Identity

Where each one falls short

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

One Identity

  • The portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.
  • Identity Manager implementations are customisation-heavy and commonly run over a year, with the services spend exceeding the licence cost in the first year.
  • Quest has changed private equity ownership more than once since the Dell separation, and buyers should ask directly about product investment commitments before signing a multi-year deal.
  • Product documentation and support sit behind a customer portal, which makes independent evaluation before purchase harder than with vendors that publish openly.
  • The cloud-native and developer experience trails the pure-play identity vendors, so organisations moving decisively to SaaS applications find the on premises heritage becomes a constraint rather than an asset.

Spacelift

  • Users are unlimited and private workers are metered, so deployment concurrency rather than headcount drives the bill, which inverts how most engineering budgets are built and is easy to under-forecast.
  • There is no affordable paid entry point. The free tier stops at two users and the next tier is a five-figure commitment with nothing in between.
  • Three of the five tiers are quote-only, so a shortlist cannot be costed without entering a sales process with each vendor on it.
  • The self-hosted build lags the hosted one, has no public worker pool and lacks the Azure and Google Cloud integrations available in the SaaS product, with OIDC federation offered as the workaround.
  • Stacks, Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and Spacelift-managed state are proprietary constructs, so leaving means rebuilding the orchestration layer rather than pointing it at a different runner.

Pricing, plan by plan

One Identity

On request
  • Identity Manager$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed identity
    • On premises or hosted
    • Access certification and provisioning
  • Safeguard$undefined/year
    • Priced per privileged user or per appliance
    • Hardened appliance option for session management
    • Licensed separately from Identity Manager
  • Active Roles$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed Active Directory account
    • Delegated administration and automated provisioning
    • Licensed separately

Spacelift

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Two users
    • Public workers only
    • No private workers
  • Starter Plus$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users
    • Two public workers
    • One to two private workers
  • Business$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users
    • Three private workers
    • Quoted
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users
    • Five to thirty private workers
    • Self-hosted option

Which should you pick?

Choose One Identity if

  • You need identity manager.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want safeguard.
One Identity review

Choose Spacelift if

  • You need multi-tool orchestration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
  • You also want policy as code.
Spacelift review

Questions people ask

Is One Identity or Spacelift better?
Neither clearly leads. One Identity starts at On request and Spacelift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, One Identity or Spacelift?
Spacelift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for One Identity and Free for Spacelift.
Does One Identity or Spacelift run on more platforms?
One Identity runs on Web, Windows, Linux. Spacelift runs on Web, Self-hosted, Cloud.
Can I use Spacelift for free?
Yes. Spacelift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. One Identity starts at On request.
What is One Identity best used for?
One Identity is most often used for an organisation whose authoritative directory will remain on premises active directory and needs delegated administration with attribute-level control, a government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud service, a manufacturer with sap and active directory needing provisioning governed under one certification process, an enterprise consolidating active directory after an acquisition and needing automated account lifecycle across both forests. Of those, an organisation whose authoritative directory will remain on premises active directory and needs delegated administration with attribute-level control and a government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud service are not what Spacelift is typically brought in for.
What can One Identity do that Spacelift cannot?
One Identity covers Identity Manager, Safeguard, Active Roles, OneLogin. Spacelift covers Multi-tool orchestration, Policy as code, Private workers, Spaces.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

One Identity: Is One Identity the same company as Quest?

Yes. One Identity is Quest Software's identity and access management business unit, not a separate vendor.

Spacelift: How is Spacelift priced?

By tier and by private worker count rather than per user. Users are unlimited on every paid plan. The published figure on the pricing page carries no period label, and the FAQ describes the tier as an annual subscription, so confirm the period in writing.

One Identity: Does it include privileged access?

Safeguard provides it, but it is licensed separately from Identity Manager. Neither includes the other.

Spacelift: Does it support OpenTofu?

Yes, and Spacelift sponsors the OpenTofu project, which is a substantive hedge for anyone avoiding Terraform under the Business Source Licence.

One Identity: Why choose this over SailPoint or Saviynt?

Almost always because of Active Directory depth via Active Roles or an appliance requirement for privileged sessions. For cloud-first estates the specialists are the stronger choice.

Spacelift: Is there a self-hosted version?

Yes, described as carrying Enterprise functionality, but it is priced on request and lags the hosted product on cloud integrations.

Spacelift: Why not just use the CI system we already have?

That is the real comparison. General purpose CI handles state, drift, approval gates and concurrency control for infrastructure poorly, and whether that is worth a five-figure floor depends on how much infrastructure change your organisation actually ships.

Spacelift: What happens to our pipelines if we leave?

They do not port. Rego policies, Blueprints, Spaces and managed state are Spacelift constructs and the orchestration has to be rebuilt elsewhere.

Share

Related pages

More on One Identity

More on Spacelift

Keep looking

Other head to heads