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10/06/2026 9:45 pm
TL;DR: Recurring weaknesses in legacy IAM stacks, including high cost, complex implementation, limited reporting, and gaps in access governance, are highlighted in a comparison of One Identity alternatives, according to Zluri. The deeper issue is that many programmes are still evaluating products instead of fixing the governance model underneath.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: IT Teams Top 11 One Identity Alternatives [2026]
By the numbers:
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts.
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams evaluate One Identity alternatives for governance fit?
A: Start with the controls the programme actually needs, not the feature list.
Q: Why do complex IAM platforms often fail in practice?
A: Complexity usually causes teams to narrow the scope of what they govern.
Q: What should organisations look for when replacing legacy IAM tools?
A: Look for visibility, lifecycle coverage, and operational simplicity.
Practitioner guidance
- Audit reporting against governance use cases Test whether the platform can support access recertification, privilege review, and audit evidence without exporting data into spreadsheets or external tools.
- Score implementation effort as a control factor Measure how much specialist effort is required to deploy and maintain workflows, because difficult implementations usually lead to partial coverage and exception creep.
- Extend the evaluation to non-human identities Check whether service accounts, API keys, and other non-human access paths are visible in the same operational model as human access and privileged roles.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full blog covers the product-by-product comparison and implementation detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Feature-level breakdowns for each One Identity alternative and where each tool fits in an IAM stack
- Pros and cons by product, including usability, reporting, and deployment considerations
- Customer rating snapshots and comparison context that help shortlist vendors
- The article's own framing for why each alternative is positioned against One Identity
👉 Read Zluri's comparison of the top One Identity alternatives for IT teams →
One Identity alternatives: what the governance gap really is?
Explore further
12/06/2026 5:45 am
Legacy IAM evaluations are often really governance evaluations. When buyers compare One Identity alternatives, the deciding issue is frequently whether the platform can support operational governance at scale, not whether it has one more feature than another option. Reporting depth, lifecycle handling, and privileged access workflows determine whether identity teams can actually govern access or only describe it after the fact. Practitioners should treat product selection as a governance capability test, not a feature checklist.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do identity teams avoid buying a tool that cannot scale?
A: Test the operating model, not only the demo. Ask how the platform handles onboarding, exception handling, reporting, and ongoing maintenance when the environment grows. If scaling the product requires scaling manual work at the same rate, the governance burden will rise with it.
👉 Read our full editorial: One Identity alternatives expose the limits of legacy IAM models
