Announcing: Pomerium & FleetDM integration.
Register for the webinar here.
Comparisons / Okta vs Pomerium

Okta vs Pomerium

Okta brands itself as the world’s #1 identity SaaS platform, and it’s a great identity provider (IdP) for authentication purposes. They provide:

  • Single Sign-On (SSO)

  • Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)

  • Advanced Server Access

  • and more in the identity-awareness space.

Their cloud-based platform provides a centralized authentication method for companies to manage and secure user authentication into applications, website web services, and devices.

Okta
Pomerium logo
Similar solution
Context-aware gateway
Device Identity Provider
No, but integrates with all the major SSOs.
Open Source
Policy Descriptions
Can support a variety of rules.
Can support complex rules.
Continuous verification
Okta
Pomerium logo
Similar solution
Context-aware gateway
Device Identity Provider
No, but integrates with all the major SSOs.
Open Source
Policy Descriptions
Can support a variety of rules.
Can support complex rules.
Continuous verification

Our Recommendation

Okta’s identity management, while impressive, covers only the authentication aspect of a full zero trust architecture. Okta is best used with Pomerium to provide authorization per request, the other main component of what makes for good zero trust architecture.

Use Cases

  • User identification — Okta’s platform provides strong identity-aware centralized access to upstream services.

  • Identity verified for all users — A good SSO and MFA enforce point.

Strengths

  • Oh, we know them! — SSO identity provider for authenticating access to your internal services and applications.

  • One IdP for modern apps — This one IdP authenticates users, giving them an access token to traverse your internal ecosystem.

  • One standard to rule them all — Okta has a strong influence on the open standards related to authentication.

Weaknesses

  • No proxy, no protection — Okta’s not being a proxy means the applications it oversees access to are exposed to direct connections from any source, increasing unintended attack surface area for the applications you want to protect.

  • A plague upon thee — Okta’s software must be set up on every server the platform manages access to. Setup is complex and each cluster must be maintained. Also, Okta’s client is CLI-only which may stress non-developer users.

  • The birds have been at the breadcrumbs — Audit logs only cover SSH and does not cover auditing for RDP.

  • No baggage please — Okta does not support your legacy applications that are not built to support modern SSO tech. Only Pomerium secures all legacy applications.

  • Mileage efficiency decreases at scale — Okta’s pricing is based per server, and this increases the costs for organizations with high usage.

Revolutionize
Your Security

Embrace Seamless Resource Access, Robust Zero Trust Integration, and Streamlined Compliance with Our App.

Pomerium logo
© 2024 Pomerium. All rights reserved