SIDE BY SIDE
Compare IAM tools side by side
Short answer
Pick two to five vendors. The table shows which of the five IAM jobs each one's own pages document, what they publish about price and deployment, and the strengths and limits we recorded. There are no scores; read across each row.
Which vendors do you want to compare?
Selected 3 of up to 5.
| Fact | Microsoft Entra | Okta | SailPoint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind | Identity provider and suite | Identity provider and suite | Identity governance |
| One line | Microsoft's identity family: Entra ID for sign-in and access policy, ID Governance for lifecycle and reviews, and Defender for Identity for detection. | Workforce identity with a large integration catalog, plus lifecycle, governance and identity threat protection products. | SaaS identity governance on SailPoint Atlas for lifecycle automation, certifications and audit evidence. |
| J1Directory and SSO | Documented Entra ID Free includes MFA and SSO; the app gallery lists thousands of applications; Conditional Access comes with P1; phishing-resistant methods include passkeys and FIDO2 security keys. | Documented Universal Directory, SSO and MFA from the Starter suite; 8,000+ pre-built integrations in the Okta Integration Network; FastPass passwordless; Adaptive MFA. | Not in our sources |
| J2Lifecycle and IGA | Documented Entra ID Governance: lifecycle workflows before start, on status change and at leave, access reviews, entitlement management, and HR-driven provisioning from Workday and SAP SuccessFactors. | Documented Lifecycle Management with HR sources (Workday, BambooHR, SuccessFactors) and SCIM; Okta Identity Governance adds access requests, certifications and entitlement management and requires Okta Workforce Identity. | Documented Joiner, mover and leaver automation; Manager, Source Owner and Search certification campaigns; AI-driven certifications; automatic audit evidence collection and audit-ready reports. |
| J3App coverage | Partial Account discovery shows app users who do not match an Entra ID user. For apps without provisioning, the documented path is a CSV export, matching, an access review and an optional ServiceNow ticket. | Not in our sources Governance of apps outside Okta's integrations is not described on the pages reviewed. | Partial The Application Management add-on gives app owners a self-registration portal and integration templates, and the SailPoint Discovery Tool uncovers unmanaged applications, identifies ownership and exposes shadow AI activity. Discovery of accounts inside those apps is not detailed. |
| J4Privileged access | Partial Privileged Identity Management (PIM) needs Microsoft Entra ID Governance or Entra ID P2 licences, per Microsoft's licensing page; feature detail is not in our sources. | Partial Privileged Access is listed in the Essentials suite on the pricing page; feature detail is not in our sources. | Not in our sources SailPoint completed its acquisition of Entro Security, which secures non-human identities, secrets and tokens, on 29 June 2026. Privileged access products are not profiled here. |
| J5Threat detection | Documented Defender for Identity detects identity-based attacks across on-premises Active Directory, Entra ID and other IAM such as Okta; ID Protection and risk-based Conditional Access come with P2. | Documented Identity Threat Protection evaluates risk during sessions, offers Universal Logout and shares signals with CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks and Jamf. | Not in our sources |
| Pricing | Per user per month, paid yearly: Entra ID Free; P1 $7.00; P2 $10.00; ID Governance $7.00 (requires P1 or P2); Entra Suite $12.00 (requires P1); Workload ID $3.00 per workload identity. P1 is included in Microsoft 365 E3 and Business Premium, P2 in Microsoft 365 E5. Defender for Identity needs EMS E5 or A5, Microsoft 365 E5 (E5, A5, G5), Microsoft 365 E5, A5, G5 or F5 Security, Microsoft 365 F5 Security and Compliance, or a standalone Defender for Identity licence; the standalone price is not stated. | Starter $6, Core Essentials $14, Essentials $17 per user per month, billed annually; Professional and Enterprise priced on request; $1,500 annual minimum; 30-day Starter trial. Identity Threat Protection is an add-on from Essentials up and included in Professional. Okta's pricing table marks Identity Governance (OIG) as included from Essentials ($17 per user per month) upward, and Okta's footnote describes OIG as an add-on. | Suites listed (Standard, Agentic Business, Agentic Business Plus) without prices. |
| Deployment | Microsoft cloud service; on-premises apps provisioned through the ECMA connector host; Defender for Identity uses sensors on identity infrastructure. | Okta cloud service. | SaaS on SailPoint Atlas. |
| Integrations | Thousands of gallery applications; provisioning by SCIM 2.0, LDAP, SQL, REST, SOAP, PowerShell and ECMA connectors. | 8,000+ pre-built integrations. | Integration templates for app onboarding; no integration count in our sources. |
| Certifications | Not covered in our sources | FastPass page cites FedRAMP High and NIST AAL3 requirements on properly configured devices. | Not covered in our sources |
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| Profile | Microsoft Entra profile and sources | Okta profile and sources | SailPoint profile and sources |
Jobs covered by your selection
- J1Directory and single sign-on: Microsoft Entra and Okta document this job.
- J2Lifecycle and governance: Microsoft Entra, Okta and SailPoint document this job.
- J3Application coverage and identity orchestration: None of the selected vendors document this job. See who does.
- J4Privileged access: None of the selected vendors document this job. See who does.
- J5Identity threat detection and response: Microsoft Entra and Okta document this job.
Frequently asked questions
Why can I not sort the table by a score?
There are no scores on this site. The vendors do different jobs, so the useful question is which jobs your selection covers, shown under the table.
Where do the facts come from?
From each vendor's own public pages, read on 27 and 29 September 2026, with updates read on 11 October 2026. Every fact links to its source on the vendor's profile.
Can I share a comparison?
Yes. The address bar keeps your selection, for example /stack-compare?v=okta,sailpoint.