Identity and access management (IAM) is critical for modern businesses to govern and oversee digital identities. It helps ensure secure access among employees, stakeholders, and customers.
Companies adopting cloud platforms and mobile workforces need robust IAM solutions for authentication, authorization, auditing, and automating user provisioning across their systems and data.
In this blog post, we will briefly discuss what makes an identity and access management tool and then explore the 8 top options for securing your digital infrastructure in 2024.
We will cover key features for identity and access management and the pros and cons of leading tools like CloudEagle, Okta, Ping Identity, and more.
Let’s get started.
What are identity and access management tools?
Identity and Access Management (IAM) refers to the processes, technologies, best practices, and policies for managing digital identities and controlling access to resources.
Identity Access Management tools are a collection of solutions and capabilities employed by an organization for managing identities, access control, and security policies across its IT resources.
Enterprises adopting SaaS & cloud solutions and enabling remote workforces increase their vulnerable attack surface with new technologies. This increases the need for robust IAM tools and strategies that protect their systems and data.
Robust IAM strategies rely on layered IAM tools for identity governance, access management, and security intelligence. Some key IAM tools include:
- Single Sign-On (SSO) Tools
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
- Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)
- Privileged Access Management (PAM)
- Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
These identity and access management tools align with each other to manage digital identities, enforce robust security policies, monitor activity, and prevent unauthorized access across your organization’s IT environment.
8 Best Identity and Access Management Tools
1. CloudEagle
CloudEagle is an all-encompassing SaaS procurement, monitoring, management, and cost optimization platform with end-to-end identity and access management features.
CloudEagle offers a comprehensive, integrated solution that streamlines access management for your organization and enhances identity governance. Your team gets access to a centralized dashboard that can be used to manage user identities, permissions, and roles across SaaS applications.
Are you manually visiting each application to grant and revoke app access to users? Using CloudEagle’s provisioning workflows, your IT team can automate the entire user provisioning and deprovisioning process. Save time for your IT teams and increase their productivity.
It can integrate with your internal systems and has 300+ direct integration capabilities to provide a comprehensive view of your app portfolio, users, vendors, and spend data. Manage user access and permissions from one dashboard and keep your stack secure.
IAM By CloudEagle - Key Features
Employee App Access & Usage
Seamlessly monitor app logins and employee usage with CloudEagle. This tool dives deeper by providing you with feature-level usage of all your SaaS apps & maintaining an extensive audit log.
If you want to learn how this process works and can benefit your organization, read the inspiring success story of Rec Room, which addressed unmanaged SaaS app challenges with CloudEagle, achieving control, eliminating redundancies, and effectively managing shadow IT.
Easy provisioning & deprovisioning
No more manual providing & revoking software access to employees. With CloudEagle, you can set up smooth workflows to grant & revoke access to employees with just a few clicks.
Keep your SaaS stack secure and prevent data breaches using CloudEagle.
To learn more about its operational benefits, hear from Alice Park at Remediant. She explains how CloudEagle streamlined its operations by tracking vendor contracts, managing user access, and providing detailed usage reports to aid in license renewal decisions.
Self-service platform for app access requests
CloudEagle is powered by a self-service portal that admins and employees can use to request & grant app access. Admins get instant alerts through email & Slack when a request is made, and they can tend to it without hassles.
Relevant app suggestions
CloudEagle’s IAM platform automatically suggests relevant apps to new joiners. App access are automatically revoked during employee separation, keeping your software stack secure.
Intuitive dashboard
CloudEagle's integrated dashboard provides users with a unified view. This dashboard gives you complete control over access and enables rapid response to potential risks.
For instance, Rec Room struggled with SaaS visibility, resulting in missed renewals. They used CloudEagle to centralize their SaaS management, detect unauthorized apps, address shadow IT daily, and achieve cost savings. The intuitive dashboard tools helped them easily track and analyze all insights for cost savings.
Read the detailed success story of how they did it.
Comprehensive reporting
This identity & access management solution encompasses powerful reporting features, valuable compliance, and in-depth security insights.
App access module
Through this module, employees can quickly raise access requests. The admin grants access and permission levels based on the employee's role and responsibilities.
Integration Capabilities
CloudEagle provides you with more than 300 integrations, and that too, at no additional cost. You can integrate this identity management solution with your Single Sign-On (SSO), HRIS, & finance apps. After the integration, CloudEagle swiftly provides precise data and data protection across your SaaS applications.
This IAM solution gives you high precision and efficiency across your entire identity and access lifecycle. Its user-friendly interface, automation features, and customized workflows make the tasks of IT and HR teams easier.
Moreover, its self-service app access request platform significantly minimizes IT ticket volumes and improves resolution times by over 50%. You can learn more about this platform here.
Notable features
- Procurement and renewal workflows
- License reclamation workflows
- Cost optimization
- Shadow IT alerts
- Vendor recommendation engine
- Contract management
1. Starter - $2000/month
2. Growth - $3000/month
3. Enterprise - $4000/month
2. Okta
One of the leading identity & access management tools, Okta simplifies access control with its user-friendly & intuitive interface. It is an enterprise-grade IAM solution developed to facilitate organizations in managing app access in the cloud.
The solution is designed to keep all apps in one place & provide access to users with one single sign-on.
Developed on zero-trust principles, this tool comes with a broad range of features. The list includes single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), passwordless security, and password management.
Okta has an impressive database of 7,100+ services and an API library. These can be seamlessly integrated with popular applications like Slack, Salesforce, and Zoom.
Pros
- Customizable using low-code, no-code, & coding options
- Offers over 7,000 established integrations
- Complete identity lifecycle management
- Adaptive authentication for continuously monitoring user behavior
- Robust compliance & reporting features
Cons
- Advanced features of the tool are available at an extra cost
- The minimum contract might be too high for small businesses
- The tool has limited features for customization
- Direct options for on-premise infrastructure are unavailable
Pricing
Customer Identity Cloud: Try for free and get 7,500 monthly active users & unlimited logins. For the Workforce, a minimum annual contract of $1,500 is required. You can check out Okta’s pricing here.
3. JumpCloud
JumpCloud also follows a zero-trust approach to access & identity. It one of the best IAM vendors that employs granular security policies to manage devices, identities, & locations.
It offers options for the use of Cloud LDAP for user management and deploying Cloud RADIUS to issue certificates to devices through multi-factor authentication.
JumpCloud’s cloud directory platform facilitates IT administrators in systematically managing user identities across all operating systems (like macOS, Windows, and Linux endpoints) and mobile devices.
Though large organizations often use it, JumpCloud is particularly suitable for small businesses. The tool is user-friendly and can be leveraged by professionals who do not have a background in IT.
Pros
- Cloud-based RADIUS & LDAP services available
- Centralized lifecycle management & identity control via its Cloud Directory tool
- User-friendly
- API services for customizing workflows.
Cons
- Users need to pay additional costs for tools like Cloud Directory
- Complex pricing structure
- Complain of occasional delays in customer support response times.
Pricing
30-day free trial available. JumpCloud is a free identity & access management tool for the first ten users and devices. Check out pricing here.
4. OneLogin
OneLogin is designed to enhance employee experiences by providing access to necessary apps with one set of credentials. Onboarding and offboarding users with OneLogin is a simple process that can be done with a single click.
This is one of the best identity management tools as it is loaded with 6000+ direct integrations & applications, which also include on-premises applications.
A part of One Identity (owned by Quest Software), OneLogin offers extensive IAM solutions to streamline access management for your business.
OneLogin is a decent choice for small and large enterprises and has numerous app integration options. It lies in the magic quadrant. It also extends its support to developers who wish to combine the power of IAM with their applications.
Pros
- More than 6,000 integrations
- Support for integrating IAM into your apps
- Seamless integration with existing directory services (Such as LDAP & ActiveDirectory)
- Enterprises can use their brand colors and logos to enhance authenticity through the custom branding feature.
Cons
- Prices can add up with multiple a-la-carte options
- Does not offer PAM
- Users with multiple roles usually end up with many logins
- Passwords expire after a certain time
Pricing
Advanced (starting at $4/user/month) and Professional (starting at $8/user/month) plans are available. Check out pricing here.
If you are a small business with less than 50 employees, contact the OneLogin team for pricing.
5. SailPoint
SailPoint IdentityIQ is an identity access and management tool primarily focused on governance and compliance. It is a flexible tool and can be easily deployed in the cloud, a hybrid environment, or even on-premises
IdentityIQ helps enterprises take complete control of their digital identities and user access policies. Its user-friendly, intuitive interface makes it easy for admins to manage user provisioning, de-provisioning, and authentication.
SailPoint’s IAM tool allows you to implement least-privilege access, helps you comply with regulations, and provides complete visibility into access-related risks.
SailPoint enables security and IT teams to consolidate identity management and streamline access for all user types across today’s multi-cloud, multi-technology environments.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Flexible and scalable
- Streamlined provisioning process
- Capable of managing the entire identity lifecycle
- Helps in meeting compliance standards
- Pre-configured functions that help you streamline the IAM process
Cons
- Some users have experienced 502 errors
- The interface is not intuitive
- The setup process can be complex
Pricing
Check out pricing with their identity value calculator here.
6. Ping Identity
Ping Identity is a popular identity and access management tool that provides organizations with a centralized IAM experience. It is a scalable solution that quickly helps you navigate this crucial digital transformation step.
Ping Identity has all the essential IAM features, including SSO and a risk management and authentication platform. It uncomplicates the lifecycle management process by automating user provisioning and de-provisioning.
Moreover, you can enhance the security of your cloud solutions and do not have to compromise on customer UI.
Pros
- A No-code IAM software that has drag & drop workflows
- Pre-built templates and integrations for ease of use
- Container, hosted, on-prem, and private cloud versions are available
Cons
- The Role management and entitlement creation process is complex
- Multiple license asset is needed for IAM
- The Pricing structure suggests that it may be too expensive for SMBs
Pricing
Essential Plan is priced at $20k per annum. The Plus Plan with additional benefits is priced at $40k per annum. Lastly, you need to contact their sales team for the Premium plan.
7. Microsoft Entra ID
To fulfill the growing IAM needs of organizations, technology giant Microsoft also built a powerful identity and access management tool - Entra ID. Being a Microsoft product, Entra ID provides IAM systems for Azure services. However, it can also be connected to on-prem AD instances.
Entra ID includes all the features a company needs to manage access and permissions. You get multi-factor authentication, conditional access control, and cybersecurity protection.
A powerful feature in Entra ID is Group Policies Objects (GPO). This feature enables administrators to deploy a set of commands that define the appearance and behavior of a system. This means that administrators can set rules for multiple users and computers with these commands.
Pros
- Centralized user, computer, & resource management
- Can be integrated with other Microsoft apps & services
- Group Policies Objectives (GPO) feature
Cons
- The complexity of implementation
- The maintenance cost
- High dependency on the Microsoft suite
- Does not easily integrate with non-Windows OS
Pricing: Check out pricing here.
8. Cyberark Workforce Identity
Cyberark offers Identity-as-a-Service that makes identity and access management easier for you. The solution provides your employees with the right resources when they need them while protecting your enterprise from cyber-attacks.
This IDaaS offers an impressive range of features, including identity management, privileged access, endpoint privilege security, secrets management, & cloud privilege security. The tools offered by Cyberark are for both workforce and customer access.
Its behavioral analytics ceaselessly and effectively tracks the behavioral signals of users to confirm identity. The system also triggers notifications and access changes if abnormal behavior is detected.
Pros
- Capable of coping in multi-cloud setups
- A strong behavioral analytics feature
- A good tool for secret management
- Self-hosting option available
Cons
- Training videos are not enough
- Opaque licensing and confusing pricing
- Occasional performance issues noted
Pricing
You can take a free trial, and if you like the solution, you can reach out to their sales team to get a quote.
Conclusion
Whether you require workforce single sign-on, customer identity as a service, privileged access management for admins, or AI-driven governance, an IAM solution that meets your needs is likely profiled here.
Though all identity and access management tools have benefits and limitations, the ultimate choice completely depends on your requirements. So, thoroughly analyzing what you require in an IAM tool is advisable.
Choosing CloudEagle as your IAM tool can significantly help secure your SaaS ecosystem. As discussed in this blog, CloudEagle is an end-to-end SaaS monitoring and management solution with powerful tools for managing identities.
Book a demo and see how CloudEagle can help secure your SaaS ecosystem.