They should look for deep entitlement ingestion, direct remediation, and coverage that extends beyond SaaS into custom apps, legacy systems, and non-human identities. The key test is whether the platform governs the actual authorisation layer rather than only summarising identity-provider data.
What a SaaS-only IGA replacement has to do differently
A replacement has to govern the system of record for access, not just the identity-provider layer. That means it can ingest entitlements from applications, databases, directories, cloud services, and admin planes, then map those entitlements into a usable model for review, request, and remediation. If it cannot see the real permission set, it will only produce a partial inventory.
The practical test is whether the platform can work at the granularity where access is actually granted and removed. In many environments that means role assignments, application-specific entitlements, direct grants, nested groups, service credentials, and exception paths. This is where broader identity governance and access governance become materially different from SaaS-only reporting.
A serious replacement should also support more than discovery. It should drive the action that follows discovery, including deprovisioning, entitlement removal, role cleanup, and compensating controls when direct removal is not possible. That is why lifecycle handling and remediation loops matter as much as dashboards or certification workflows.
Coverage beyond SaaS is the real differentiator
SaaS-only IGA tools often stop at the easiest connectors: human identity sources and a curated set of cloud applications. A stronger platform must extend into custom applications, legacy systems, on-prem directories, shared infrastructure, and the non-human accounts that run automation and integrations. Otherwise, the highest-risk access often remains outside governance.
This broader coverage matters because entitlement sprawl rarely sits in one platform. Access may be split across application-local roles, hard-coded privilege, externalized secrets, and operational accounts that do not look like standard users. If the replacement cannot reconcile those sources, it cannot tell you who really has access or who can still act after a joiner, mover, or leaver event.
That is why IAM and IGA Basics is a useful reference point: the buyer should distinguish between identity data, entitlement data, and the actual authorization layer being governed.
For non-human coverage specifically, a replacement should handle the same lifecycle rigor as human access. Top 10 NHI Issues and Ultimate Guide to NHIs, Lifecycle Processes for Managing NHIs both reinforce that entitlement visibility without offboarding, rotation, and ownership is not governance.
What to test in a vendor evaluation
The strongest evaluation criterion is whether the platform can remediate directly, not whether it can export a clean report for another team to action later. Ask how it removes access, closes the loop on approvals, and handles exceptions when the target application has its own policy model. If a product only summarises what is already in the identity provider, it is acting as a control overlay, not as an IGA replacement.
Also test whether the platform can model mixed populations. A modern access estate usually includes employees, contractors, service accounts, APIs, workload identities, and delegated administration paths. A credible replacement should support reviews and ownership across those populations without forcing every entitlement into a human-centric workflow.
IGA Buyer’s Guide is the most direct internal buying aid here, while Access Reviews and Certification Guide is especially useful for evaluating whether the product can convert review outcomes into actual access change. If a platform cannot connect entitlement context to remediation, recertification becomes theatre.
For role-heavy estates, Role Mining and Role Design Guide is relevant because a replacement should help simplify access models, not simply automate role explosion.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 addresses the attack and risk surface, while NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 sets the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | AC-2 — Account Management | Access governance requires managing accounts across apps, systems and non-human actors. |
| AC-6 — Least Privilege | A replacement should reduce excessive entitlements, not just observe them. | |
| IA-5 — Authenticator Management | IGA replacements must handle the lifecycle of credentials and secrets tied to access. | |
| Recommendation — Map all governed accounts and enforce provisioning, review and removal controls across the full estate. Enforce least privilege by removing excess access at the entitlement layer. Track and rotate authenticators with the same rigor as account access. | ||
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-01 — Improper Offboarding | The question explicitly requires coverage beyond SaaS into non-human identities. |
| NHI-05 — Overprivileged NHI | A stronger platform must expose and cut excessive non-human entitlement. | |
| NHI-07 — Long-Lived Secrets | Non-human access often persists through unmanaged secrets and tokens. | |
| Recommendation — Remove stale non-human access paths when identities or workloads are retired. Identify and reduce non-human privileges to the minimum required access. Rotate and expire long-lived secrets tied to governed access paths. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
What to prioritise: Put entitlement coverage and remediation depth ahead of UI polish, reporting breadth, or generic workflow automation. If the tool cannot remove or constrain access in the systems that actually grant it, the governance model will always lag the real estate.
What to verify: Require proof for at least one legacy system, one custom application, and one non-human access path. The critical question is whether the platform can ingest the entitlement, interpret it correctly, and drive a validated change without manual rekeying.
Common mistake: Buying an identity-provided-centric tool and assuming SaaS connector count equals governance coverage. That usually leaves orphaned permissions, local admin paths, and machine access untouched.
Practitioner takeaway: A real replacement for SaaS-only IGA should be judged by how completely it governs authorization in the wild, not by how well it reports on the cleanest part of the stack.