One Identityvs
SailPoint
SailPoint: SailPoint for a cleaner single-product governance platform with a larger connector catalogue
One Identity
Quest-owned identity governance, PAM and Active Directory management
As of 1 September 2026, One Identity's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A Quest Software identity portfolio built largely from acquisitions, covering governance, privileged access, Active Directory management and log collection. Softwr lists it under Cybersecurity. One Identity is made by One Identity, a Quest Software business, available on Web, Windows, Linux.
Overview
What One Identity does
One Identity is the identity and access management business of Quest Software, offering Identity Manager for governance and provisioning, Safeguard for privileged access and session management, Active Roles for delegated Active Directory administration, OneLogin for access management, and syslog-ng for log collection. Quest itself has passed through several private equity owners since being separated from Dell in 2016, and One Identity now operates as a Quest business unit. The distinguishing capability is Active Directory depth. Active Roles gives delegated administration, attribute-level control and automated provisioning against Active Directory in ways the cloud-first identity vendors do not attempt, and for organisations whose authoritative directory will still be on premises Active Directory for years, that is a requirement no SaaS competitor meets. Safeguard adds hardware-appliance privileged session management for the same estate. Buyers are enterprises with substantial Microsoft on premises footprints, often in manufacturing, government and healthcare. The trade-off is portfolio coherence. The components came from separate acquisitions, they are separately licensed and administered, and Identity Manager in particular has a reputation for long implementations with heavy customisation. Pricing is not published; expect per identity licensing for governance and per appliance or per privileged user for Safeguard.
What people use it 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
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The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of One Identity
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- One IdentityvsSaviynt
Saviynt: Saviynt where governance and privileged access in one cloud data model matters more than Active Directory depth
- One IdentityvsDelinea
Delinea: Delinea if the requirement is privileged access alone rather than governance
Pricing
What One Identity costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Identity Manager
On request
- Priced per managed identity
- On premises or hosted
- Access certification and provisioning
- Perpetual and subscription options historically offered
Safeguard
On request
- Priced per privileged user or per appliance
- Hardened appliance option for session management
- Licensed separately from Identity Manager
Active Roles
On request
- Priced per managed Active Directory account
- Delegated administration and automated provisioning
- Licensed separately
Capabilities
Features
Identity Manager
Governance, provisioning and access certification across applications
Safeguard
Privileged credential vaulting and session recording, available as a hardened appliance
Active Roles
Delegated Active Directory administration with attribute-level control
OneLogin
Cloud access management and single sign-on
Password Manager
Self-service password reset against Active Directory
syslog-ng
Log collection and forwarding used in audit pipelines
Starling connectors
Cloud-hosted connectors linking on premises components to SaaS applications
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
Does it include privileged access?
Safeguard provides it, but it is licensed separately from Identity Manager. Neither includes the other.
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.
Keep looking
Where to go from One Identity
- One Identity alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- One Identity pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- One Identity badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Cybersecurity softwareThe full category
- Best Cybersecurity softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Cybersecurity software for
Compare One Identity with
- Saviynt
- Delinea
- Omada Identity
- BeyondTrust
- Netwrix
- Infisical
- HashiCorp Boundary
- Teleport
- JumpCloud
- Idira
- March Networks
- Akeyless
- LogicManager
- Mullvad VPN
- Private Internet Access
- Quantexa
- Termly
- Transcend
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for One Identity, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on One Identity
One Identity alternatives
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