Light vs. Full-Featured IGA: Why You Need a Dedicated Governance Solution

The term Light IGA describes governance features included with platforms whose main focus is on other aspects of Identity & Access Management, such as user authentication or directory services. For example, the Identity Governance components included in Okta and Microsoft’s Entra ID are often characterized as Light IGA.

Recognizing the need for robust Identity Governance & Administration, many platforms have started to bundle in governance features like lifecycle management, approval workflows or access reviews in order to help organizations deal with the growing complexity of SaaS and identity sprawl. These features can be helpful to existing users and those taking their first steps in Identity Governance.

However, compared to full-scale governance solutions, Light IGA has many limitations that may not be obvious at first. These include missing integrations for external apps, no support for complex workflows and a lack of fine-grained control over user permissions.

Instead of referring to built-in governance capabilities in other types of Identity products, some vendors use the term Light IGA or Lightweight IGA to refer to a new breed of Identity Governance solutions that are focused on easy deployment, fast integration and lower operational costs.

In this sense, the term Light IGA is used in contrast to Legacy IGA products, which offer a rich set of governance features, but are challenging to deploy and operate. However, this category of easier and faster Identity Governance solutions are more commonly referred to as Modern IGA.

The main advantage of Light IGA is its convenience. This is because it bundles governance features with other IAM capabilities that organizations actively need, such as the ability to authenticate users to cloud services.

By combining different areas of Identity & Access Management in a single product, organizations can reduce complexity and administrative overhead. Light IGA is especially appealing to anyone who is already committed to a platform and would rather expand their usage than deploy a fresh solution.

Advantages of Light IGA:

The downside of Light IGA is that governance is not the main focus of the product, which means Light IGA can never offer the same level of maturity and in-depth control as a dedicated Identity Governance solution.

On paper, Light IGA offers the same features as a full IGA solution: lifecycle management, access reviews, privilege reporting and so on. However, once you look in detail at how these features are implemented across different products, it becomes clear that there is a large gap between solutions built entirely around Identity Governance and those that treat it as an added bonus.

Disadvantages of Light IGA:

The low barrier to entry of Light IGA, especially to existing users of a platform, makes it a great starting point for organizations taking the first steps on their Identity Security journey or who are looking for a simple way to implement IGA essentials.

This makes Light IGA best suited to environments with low governance workloads and no complex security or regulatory requirements. It’s automation features can help to streamline important processes such as on/offboarding or access audits – at least within the bounds of the Light IGA system.

While a simplified approach to Identity Governance can work for smaller teams with limited use cases, organizations with a large user counts, high governance workloads or complex regulatory requirements need a more comprehensive approach to Identity Governance & Administration.

Dedicated IGA solutions provide the tools needed to govern every identity and access privilege across your entire IT. They give you fine-grained control over user access, from app-level settings down to object-level privileges.

This level of advanced control is necessary to fully automate governance workflows across your IT environment, enforce best practices like Least Privilege Access for every resource and show your compliance with regulatory requirements during audits.

Even for organizations that know they need a comprehensive platform for Identity Governance, it can be hard to choose the right product. There are many important differences between full-featured IGA solutions that you need to be aware of.

Legacy IGA solutions were among the first to offer a centralized approach to Identity Governance. Designed for sprawling enterprise environments, they are built to be highly adaptable and scalable. Whether you are dealing with the messy patchwork of repeated mergers and acquisitions or huge silos built around different systems and modes of operation – Legacy IGA gives you the tools to connect them all.

However, this level of flexibility has its price: It takes a lot of time and effort to set up the custom-coded integrations and workflows needed to bring everything together. Legacy IGA relies so heavily on custom scripting and purpose-built integrations that setup phases can last multiple years.

Many Legacy IGA projects are never completed due to their high strain on both internal IT teams and external consulting budgets. Even once they are set up, the level of customization in any Legacy IGA deployment makes it incredibly challenging to perform maintenance or make any changes later on.

In contrast to their legacy counterparts, Modern IGA solutions are built to deliver comprehensive governance fast. They focus on rapid, out-of-the-box integration in order to offer in-depth control without the lengthy setup or high operational demands of Legacy IGA.

With ready-to-use plugins for your applications and templates for all essential workflows, Modern IGA solutions allow organizations to quickly automate their governance workload. It is a fast and cost effective alternative to Legacy IGA and the best fit for virtually all real-world scenarios – except for massive enterprise networks with incredibly specialized demands.

Since these platforms can be configured through their visual interface with no need for scripting or custom code, they can generally be managed by a single person on your team once the initial setup phase of a few weeks is over. This makes them especially valuable for mid-sized organizations with smaller IT teams.

Light IGA features bundled with other identity platforms can be helpful for small organizations, but their limitations quickly become apparent when you try to manage users and permissions in depth. Organizations need full-featured IGA solutions in order to gain complete visibility into IT privileges and effectively automate their governance workloads.

At the same time, complex Legacy IGA solutions are too slow to set up and challenging to operate in all but the largest of enterprise environments. They promise endless flexibility, but never achieve their full potential due to the high strain on IT teams and financial resources.

The vast majority of organizations need a solution somewhere between these two polar opposites. With tenfold, you get the best of both worlds: An IGA solution that combines the convenience of Light IGA with the comprehensive governance toolset of Legacy IGA.

tenfold can be deployed rapidly thanks to its out-of-the-box support for key IT systems like Active Directory, Entra ID and HR as well as ITSM platforms. Our no-code UI makes tenfold easy to manage even for smaller IT teams. At the same time, tenfold offers comprehensive governance across your entire IT environment, from lifecycle automation to in-depth reporting and access reviews.

See tenfold in action and get a personal demo from our team of IGA experts today!