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Active Roles by One Identity vs Quest Identity Defense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 29, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Active Roles by One Identity
Ranking in Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Active Directory Management (1st)
Quest Identity Defense
Ranking in Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Active Directory Recovery (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) category, the mindshare of Active Roles by One Identity is 8.3%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest Identity Defense is 1.4%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Active Roles by One Identity8.3%
Quest Identity Defense1.4%
Other90.3%
Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM)
 

Featured Reviews

Puru Solanki ( ITIL. CISM , CCSP ) - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Head at Citadel Global
Automation has streamlined onboarding and governance and delivers faster, more secure access
Overall, we are very satisfied with Active Roles by One Identity, but there are a few areas that could be improved. The user interface could be more modern and intuitive, especially for new administrators. Some advanced configuration and policy settings have a steep learning curve and could be simplified. We would also like to see more built-in integrations with cloud platforms and SaaS applications, along with additional out-of-the-box reporting templates. These improvements would make the product even easier and more flexible for organizations managing hybrid environments. One thing that would make our daily work even smoother is having more ready-to-use templates for common administrative tasks and reports. This would reduce the need for customization and help teams get up and running more quickly. Additionally, faster and simpler synchronization for hybrid and cloud environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations managing both on-premises and cloud identities. More detailed documentation and guided setup for advanced features would help new administrators learn the platform faster and more easily. One additional improvement I would like to see for Active Roles by One Identity is a better built-in dashboard with more real-time insights into identity and access activities. It would be helpful if upgrades and migrations were simpler and required less planning. Finally, expanding native integrations with more cloud services and third-party applications would make the platform even more versatile and reliable. These enhancements would improve the overall user experience while keeping the product's strong security and automation capabilities.
SachinSharma4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Identity monitoring has improved and security teams now detect and investigate threats faster
Quest Identity Defense could be improved by providing more customizable dashboards, more detailed real-time alerts, and better integrations with other security tools such as SIEM and endpoint security solutions. Automated investigations and response workflows could also help reduce manual efforts and speed up threat resolution. Overall, these improvements would make identity threat detection more efficient and easier for security teams to manage. I would to see more advanced automation for threat investigation and response, along with customizable dashboards and more detailed real-time alerts. Better integration with SIEM, endpoint security, and other identity management tools would also be valuable. These improvements could reduce manual investigation efforts, improve threat visibility, and help security teams respond to identity-related threats more efficiently. Additional improvements could include more seamless integration with existing SIEM and security tools, better customization of alerts, and more detailed reporting for Quest Identity Defense. I would also like to see improved visibility into identity-related risks and clearer explanations of AI-generated alerts to help security teams investigate faster. Overall, continued improvements in automation, usability, and reporting would make the solution even more effective for enterprise security teams.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"In comparison to native Active Directory tools, using Active Roles for delegation is so much better. It uses an access template and that makes it easy to see who can access what. In fact, you can do that for many objects as well."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted our organization by improving AD administration efficiency, reducing manual errors, strengthening access governance, and helping to standardize user provisioning and compliance processes across the team."
"Another good feature is the change history. It's centralized in a single place and allows us to manage people's Active Directory domains from a central location. We can also drill down into individual objects in a troubleshooting or even an auditing situation. We can show evidence to auditors by drilling down into the individual history. It gives you all the history of what happened around an individual object. That is something that would be almost impossible to do in Active Directory, or extremely complicated."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted the organization by significantly improving efficiency through automating repetitive tasks and saving time for the IT team."
"One Identity Active Roles has helped my organization reduce the number of incorrect privileged accounts through the management unit feature and enables comprehensive group membership management with features not available in Active Directory, such as adding multiple secondary owners and dynamic groups."
"It gives us attribute-level control and the AD management features work very well."
"It has helped increase operational efficiency in our organization."
"One Identity Active Roles has positively impacted my organization by speeding up the user provisioning, reducing manual AD tickets, strengthening the security through consistent access control, and improving compliance."
"Quest Identity Defense helped improve our identity security by providing better visibility into user accounts, privileged access, and suspicious authentication activities."
"For any organization that is looking for a stable and reliable solution for identity management, Quest Identity Defense would be the best tool for them."
"The accuracy and reliability of Quest Identity Defense's AI output have been excellent."
 

Cons

"One challenge we experienced was the initial setup and configuration complexity."
"One area for improvement would be troubleshooting and reporting."
"One Identity Active Roles could be improved with better cloud-native management and SaaS options, simpler reporting, and easier customization."
"It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows."
"The main improvement I would suggest for One Identity Active Roles is making the UI and policy configuration more intuitive."
"The user interface could be more modern and intuitive, especially for new administrators."
"One Identity Active Roles could be improved with a more modern and intuitive UI, faster performance for large environments, simpler reporting customization, and smoother integration with cloud-native identity platforms and APIs."
"Areas for improvement in One Identity Active Roles include UI modernization, workflow customization, flexibility in reporting, and troubleshooting visibility."
"I gave it a nine only because there is still room for improvement around usability or customization, making some of the more advanced capabilities easier to use and to understand the tool."
"I did not give it a nine or ten because there is still room for improvements in integration with other security tools, reporting, and ease of configuration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Active Roles is expensive but not as expensive as other solutions like Okta."
"It's expensive."
"The price is reasonable. It costs us about 1 million Danish kroner annually, and we also spend about half as much on consultants."
"The licensing model is a simple user-based model, not that much complicated."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"The pricing is high. I have not been involved with the renewal or cost aspect, but I know it is not cheap by any means. However, it is very useful for our environment."
"It's fairly priced."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
26%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business99
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with One Identity Active Roles?
To improve Active Roles by One Identity, I would like to see more automation around role assignment and access reviews, along with better reporting and an easier-to-use dashboard. While the integra...
What is your primary use case for One Identity Active Roles?
My main use case for Active Roles by One Identity involves managing user access and roles across different applications while ensuring users have the right permissions based on their responsibiliti...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Identity Defense?
Regarding the licensing and setup cost, I was not involved. The implementation team was responsible for that. When we looked at the pricing part, it was reasonable for any enterprise that wants an ...
What needs improvement with Quest Identity Defense?
Quest Identity Defense could be improved by providing more customizable dashboards, more detailed real-time alerts, and better integrations with other security tools such as SIEM and endpoint secur...
What is your primary use case for Quest Identity Defense?
Quest Identity Defense's main use case in our previous organization has been to improve identity security and protect users' accounts. We focused on identifying suspicious identity-related ...
 

Also Known As

Quest Active Roles
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

City of Frankfurt, Moore Public Schools, George Washington University, Transavia Airlines, Howard County, MD. See all stories at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Active Roles by One Identity vs. Quest Identity Defense and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.