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Assigning users to the right devices, applications, networks, VPNs, and files is a critical part of every company’s IT workflow. Get it wrong, and you’ve instantly tarnished a new hire’s experience — or worse, opened the door to security and compliance violations.
With so much riding on this one component of IT or MSP work, organizations of any size need to be judicious about the identity and access management (IAM) tools they select. Yet with so many different Identity-as-a-Service approaches to choose from, it can be tough to hone in on the right strategy and solutions for you.
To help you make a more educated decision, we’re comparing two popular identity providers on overall function, feature set, pricing, and use cases.
What Is OneLogin?
OneLogin is a web application single sign-on (SSO) solution that allows users to sign in to various web applications using one set of credentials. The need for an SSO solution like OneLogin depends entirely on your approach to identity and access management.
Generally, organizations that leverage an on-prem directory service, such as Active Directory (AD), also have an SSO solution like OneLogin or Okta to extend their Windows identities to the cloud. OneLogin claims to connect to 6,000 applications.
Yet most IT organizations and MSPs will tell you that the number of applications supported is hardly a factor in their decision. And SSO solutions serve just one function in the world of identity and device management. To improve security, user productivity, efficiency, and compliance, you’ll need to add other solutions to your tech stack on top of OneLogin.
What Is JumpCloud?
JumpCloud is a versatile and flexible identity and access management solution built to replace or augment Active Directory in a modern IT environment.
If needed, it can function as the authoritative identity provider for web app SSO solutions like OneLogin, giving IT and MSP teams a central directory for controlling user access. In combination, OneLogin and JumpCloud can eliminate time spent adding, deleting, and changing access rights on each device, in each SaaS application, or within a company’s SSO solution.
But the goal for most organizations is not to add more tools into the mix — it’s to consolidate their tech stacks to save time and money. Thankfully, that’s where JumpCloud shines: it can do the work of both Active Directory and OneLogin.
Because JumpCloud is a SaaS-based, all-in-one provider, there’s no need for IT and MSP to manage multiple solutions for identity federation services, mobile device management, or multi-factor authentication (MFA). All these capabilities are built into the JumpCloud platform, ready to get users access to what they need regardless of platform, provider, protocol, and location.
Features Comparison
User Management
OneLogin syncs with Active Directory to manage user provisioning. Whenever IT and MSP teams make changes to permissions, the sync imports and updates access from each individual app. Admins can also push custom user attributes from external directories to apps like Salesforce, Jive, or Samange using customizable workflows. But AD technology only goes so far.
JumpCloud eliminates the need for AD altogether, enabling comprehensive user management over all of the resources that AD typically struggles with. Using JumpCloud’s open directory platform, IT admins and MSPs can provision and deprovision access to:
- Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android devices
- Web and on-prem applications
- Networks
- Physical file servers
…all in real time.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Single sign-on is OneLogin’s bread and butter, and it works well. IT and MSP teams can set policy-driven password security, enforce MFA, and leverage context-aware access management features. Users can create any number of logins to the same type of application and even log into various applications using credentials from commonly used social media platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook.
However, using OneLogin assumes that your organization is tied to using AD. Not only is it tough for IT and MSP teams to stack third-party platforms atop AD, it’s also becoming more and more common for modern organizations to shift fully to the cloud. If that’s the case, you’re better off replacing AD and leveraging a new identity provider (IdP) like JumpCloud now, rather than waiting for point solutions like OneLogin to become obsolete.
In addition to a range of other identity and device management features, JumpCloud SSO extends to virtually all IT resources — not just web apps. Plus, you can use JumpCloud Go™ to provide a hardware-protected and phishing-resistant passwordless login method on managed devices.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
OneLogin gives users several authentication options, including OneLogin Protect, its one-time password (OTP) app, as well as email, SMS, voice, and third-party options like Google Authenticator, Yubico, Duo Security, and RSA SecurID. OneLogin also uses “SmartFactor Authentication,” an ML-powered tool that assesses the risk and context of each login.
JumpCloud has comparable MFA features, offering JumpCloud Protect™ — a free, native authenticator app — and can leverage push-based, time-based one-time passwords (TOTP), hardware keys, biometric factors, and certificates to ensure secure access. JumpCloud has its own contextual and risk-based access policies to adjust MFA enforcement based on situational needs and has a self-serve user enrollment process.
Directory Integration
While mainly associated with Active Directory, OneLogin also supports a few other directories, such as LDAP, Workday, and Google Apps. Admins pass user attributes to downstream apps via API-based provisioning or SAML.
While this approach can work, admins gain a lot more flexibility with JumpCloud. With cloud LDAP, SAML, and cloud RADIUS protocols, IT and MSP teams can connect users to on-prem and cloud-based applications, Wi-Fi networks, devices, and cloud infrastructure the way they want to. And they can see and update unified identities for everything from Slack to GitHub to Freshdesk to AWS — all from one location.
Pricing Comparison
OneLogin has two plans, both of which are less feature-full than JumpCloud. The Advanced Plan starts at $4 per user per month but only comes with SSO, Advanced Directory, and device MFA. The other OneLogin package, Professional, comes in at $8 per month, adding on Identity Lifecycle Management and HR Driven Identity.
Companies with 50 users or less are directed to an alternate pricing page. There, OneLogin recommends technical folks enter a credit card for a completely self-serve plan or contract with an MSP, which inherently tacks on additional cost, to get set up.
In general, JumpCloud offers more features for an affordable price. Its Platform plan is $19 per user per month but includes:
- Global MFA
- Cloud Directory
- Single Sign-On (SSO)
- User Lifecycle Management
- Password Management
- Directory Insights™
- Cloud LDAP
- Cloud RADIUS
- Passwordless Authentication (JumpCloud Go™)
Use Cases
Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs)
As a startup, your organization is beginning to lay the foundation for everything that’s to come. That means you need to find tools that fit within your budget, can expand to support your growing team later, and help you lay the foundation for a secure, compliant organization. Being secure, compliant, and productive paves the way for future profitability and employee and customer satisfaction.
These days, many startups need to control user access to cross-OS devices (Windows, Mac, and Linux), cloud and on-prem servers, on-prem applications, virtual and local storage such as Samba file servers and NAS appliances, Wi-Fi networks, VPNs, and more. All of these IT resources need to be managed and controlled, and unfortunately, web app SSO solutions like OneLogin don’t cover many of these areas.
A comprehensive IAM solution with SSO like JumpCloud saves you the hassle of transitioning between vendors later on, implementing and integrating multiple tools, and combating web app SSO hidden costs.
Enterprise Organizations
Even if OneLogin SSO is working now, enterprises will need to transition to a fully-fledged identity and access management platform to keep up with security and compliance needs. For enterprises, it makes more sense to implement a holistic IAM platform with built-in SSO that can scale to accommodate users regardless of where and how they work.
That’s where JumpCloud comes into play. JumpCloud Directory functions as an Active Directory replacement and offers:
- MDM (including cross-OS device management)
- MFA
- Privileged access management (PAM)
- A robust password manager
JumpCloud’s efficient, comprehensive approach to user onboarding and offboarding works on any operating system for users working anywhere, making it a long-term solution even for the largest organizations.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
MSPs are juggling a lot already. The last thing they need is another tool to manage for their clients. Unfortunately, SSO solutions like OneLogin necessitate a full suite of other platforms to learn, oversee, and update, slowing MSPs down.
What’s more, SSO point solutions are constantly being bought and merged into an acquiring organization’s stack of disparate IAM solutions. Acquisitions bring with them many unknowns and difficulties that can interrupt the MSP workflow and cause client disruption.
JumpCloud, on the other hand, offers a consistent experience for MSPs. From a single pane of glass, admins can securely control client user access to:
- VPNs and Wi-Fi networks
- Windows, Mac, and Linux devices
- LDAP and SAML-based applications via SSO
- Cloud and physical file storage
- Local and cloud servers
Final Thoughts: Why Choose JumpCloud Over OneLogin?
An ideal single sign-on platform should give you more than web app SSO — it should leverage one identity to allow users to access virtually all of their IT resources.
The JumpCloud Directory Platform and its built-in True Single Sign-On™ capabilities make this a reality for SMBs, mid-market businesses, and enterprises alike. With the industry transitioning away from add-on solutions to holistic identity and device management, using a solution like OneLogin doesn’t work for your organization’s bottom line.
JumpCloud ranks #1 on G2 for cloud directory and SSO, and it’s easy to see why. JumpCloud’s flexible, OS-agnostic platform is built to manage on-prem and remote Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux users and systems, bolstering a modern, heterogeneous IT environment while also supporting hybrid and remote work.
Want to see if JumpCloud is right for your business or client? Sign up for a free trial or schedule a demo with one of our identity and user management experts today.
