Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

One Identity vs Teleport

One Identity logo

One Identity

Cybersecurity

Quest-owned identity governance, PAM and Active Directory management

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: One Identity covers Identity Manager, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where One Identity and Teleport differ
AttributeOne IdentityTeleport
PlatformsWeb, Windows, LinuxLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

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 Teleport
  • A government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud servicenot Teleport
  • A manufacturer with SAP and Active Directory needing provisioning governed under one certification processnot Teleport
  • An enterprise consolidating Active Directory after an acquisition and needing automated account lifecycle across both forestsnot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot One Identity
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot One Identity
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot One Identity
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot 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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

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 Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is One Identity or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. One Identity starts at On request and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, One Identity or Teleport?
One Identity starts at On request and Teleport at On request.
Does One Identity or Teleport run on more platforms?
One Identity runs on Web, Windows, Linux. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
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 Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can One Identity do that Teleport cannot?
One Identity covers Identity Manager, Safeguard, Active Roles, OneLogin. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

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.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

One Identity: Does it include privileged access?

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

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

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.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

Share

Related pages

More on One Identity

More on Teleport

Keep looking

Other head to heads