The Best SailPoint Alternatives & Competitors for 2026

1. BalkanID:

Fast, Intelligent, and Built for Today’s Audits

Overview

BalkanID is a modern, risk-first Identity Governance platform built to eliminate the operational drag of legacy IGA tools like SailPoint. Instead of forcing teams to govern everything, BalkanID focuses on identifying and remediating the small percentage of access that actually creates risk.

Designed for speed, clarity, and transparency, BalkanID helps organizations move from zero to audit-ready without multi-quarter implementations or six-figure consulting engagements.

Why BalkanID Wins

• From Zero to Audit in Days: While SailPoint implementations are often measured in quarters, BalkanID customers can launch their first access review campaign in 48 hours—with risk context already applied.
  
• Risk-Based, Not Checkbox Reviews: BalkanID’s AI surfaces anomalies, excessive access, and toxic combinations, so reviewers focus on what matters instead of rubber-stamping thousands of low-risk entitlements.
  
• True Cost Transparency: BalkanID is the only IGA platform with public, self-service pricing—starting at $1k/month—and predictable enterprise scaling.
  
• AI-First Experience: Identity Copilot explains why access is risky in plain language, enabling non-technical managers to make confident decisions without identity expertise.‍
• Built for Compliance Reality: Purpose-designed for SOC 2, SOX, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 with automated evidence collection and auditor-ready reporting.

Trade-offs

• ‍Legacy connector depth: BalkanID does not yet match SailPoint IdentityIQ’s extensive support for mainframes and legacy ERP systems, though SaaS, cloud, and modern on-prem coverage is strong and expanding.

Ideal Customer

Mid-market to Enterprise organizations that:

• Are frustrated by high consulting fees and long deployments
  
• Need to pass audits quickly and repeatedly
  
• Want risk-driven governance, not administrative overhead
  

Value modern UX and pricing transparency

Pricing

• BalkanID Lite: $1,000/month‍
• Enterprise: Starts at $25,000/year
  (Compared to SailPoint’s typical $100k+ starting point)

2. SailPoint (The Baseline)

Overview

SailPoint is the long-standing market leader in IGA, offering IdentityIQ (on-prem/hybrid) and IdentityNow (SaaS). It is widely adopted by large, global enterprises and remains a familiar name to auditors.

Strengths

• Unmatched enterprise depth: Excellent support for complex, global environments with deep integrations into SAP, Oracle, and mainframes.
  
• Auditor recognition: Frequently viewed as the “safe” choice in highly regulated industries.‍
• Proven at scale: Handles extremely large identity populations and custom governance models.

Weaknesses

• Very high TCO: Customers commonly report spending $2–$3 on consultants for every $1 on software.
  
• Slow time-to-value: Implementations and changes often take months or longer.‍
• Outdated reviewer experience: Business users frequently describe the UI as complex and unintuitive.

Ideal Customer

Fortune 100 organizations with:

• Massive on-prem and legacy footprints
  
• Dedicated identity engineering teams
  
• Large budgets for implementation and ongoing operations

Pricing

• Extremely high‍
• Annual contracts often exceed $240,000

3. Saviynt

Overview

Saviynt is a cloud-native Identity Cloud platform designed for large, highly regulated enterprises. It combines IGA, PAM, and GRC capabilities into a single platform and is often deployed in complex hybrid environments.

Where Saviynt Excels

• Deep Segregation of Duties (SoD): Strong policy engine for identifying and managing SoD conflicts, especially in ERP-heavy environments.
  
• Broad platform scope: Covers IGA, PAM, and GRC use cases in a single vendor stack.
  
• Regulatory alignment: Well-suited for industries like financial services, healthcare, and government with strict compliance mandates.‍
• Complex environment support: Handles highly customized, on-prem + cloud identity architectures.

Where Saviynt Falls Short

• Steep learning curve: The platform is powerful but complex, requiring specialized expertise to configure and operate.
  
• High implementation cost: Initial deployments often require significant professional services, with hidden costs surfacing over time.
  
• Slower time-to-value: Customers can wait months before realizing benefits, especially for access reviews or lifecycle automation.‍
• Outdated user experience: Business reviewers and managers often struggle with the UI, reducing adoption and increasing review fatigue.

Ideal Customer

• Large enterprises (often 10,000+ employees)
  
• Highly regulated industries with strict SoD and audit requirements
  
• Organizations with the budget and staffing to support long, complex IGA implementations

Pricing

• High entry point, commonly $100K+ annual minimums
  
• Additional costs for connectors, modules, and professional services

4. ConductorOne

Overview

ConductorOne is an AI-native identity security platform built for large organizations managing the rapid growth of human, non-human, and AI identities across cloud and on-prem systems. Its core mission is to minimize the number of identity tasks humans need to touch, using automation, policy, and orchestration.

The platform emphasizes access requests, lifecycle automation, and just-in-time access, with governance embedded into operational workflows.

Strengths

• Strong Lifecycle Automation: Automated joiner-mover-leaver (JML), dynamic access control, and attribute-based provisioning/deprovisioning across SaaS, cloud, and on-prem systems.‍
• Unified Identity Graph: Centralized visibility across identities, permissions, and systems.‍
• Identity Automation: Robust automation builder with support for Terraform, APIs, webhooks, and custom workflows.‍
• Enterprise-Grade Integrations: Broad support for managed and self-hosted connectors, enabling hybrid and custom environments.‍
• Copilot-Driven Insights: Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) with AI-assisted insights.

Weaknesses

• Access reviews are not risk-first: Reviews focus more on workflow execution than on deep entitlement risk analysis or prioritization.
  
• Pricing opacity: No public pricing; entry point is typically $14k+ annually, scaling with usage and modules.‍
• Limited managed services: Public documentation does not indicate full operation of governance programs as a managed service.

Ideal Customer

Large, high-growth enterprises that:

• Want to automate identity operations at scale
• Have strong DevOps or platform engineering maturity
  
• Need centralized identity control across complex environments

Pricing

• Quote-based‍
• Typically enterprise-focused pricing tiers

Conclusion & CTA

• Final Verdict: SailPoint is a powerhouse for the "old world" of fragmented on-prem systems. BalkanID is the choice for the "new world"—where speed, AI-driven risk intelligence, and budget transparency are the top priorities for the modern CISO.‍
• Next Step: "Would you like me to create a 'Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator' template that your PMM can use to show users how much they'd save by switching from SailPoint to BalkanID?"