IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Identity and access › September 2026 Edition

Customer identity and access management

Asked as “customer identity platform”, and as “CIAM solution for a product's users”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 54 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Auth0 and WorkOS
Contested
22% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 67 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessClerk27%ContestedStanding →Mid-marketAuth022%ContestedThis pageEnterpriseAuth047%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Auth022%22%67accepted challenger
02WorkOS22%7%30accepted challenger
03Frontegg17%0%32accepted challenger
04Clerk7%10%21accepted challenger
05Microsoft Entra External ID4%9%32accepted challenger
06Ping Identity4%14%22accepted challenger
07FusionAuth4%13%15accepted challenger
08Amazon Cognito4%28%25criticized challenger
09LoginRadius2%7%14accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Keycloak0%33%15criticized challenger
13IBM Verify0%30%10criticized challenger
10Descope0%8%26accepted challenger
11Stytch0%0%19accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Auth0 vs WorkOSAuth0 vs FronteggWorkOS vs Frontegg

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Auth022%
02WorkOS22%
03Frontegg17%
04Clerk7%
05Microsoft Entra External ID4%
06Ping Identity4%
07FusionAuth4%
08Amazon Cognito4%
09LoginRadius2%
10Descope0%
11Stytch0%
12Keycloak0%
13IBM Verify0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.1 Fast, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Auth0
22%
15 of 67 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Developers report **massive price increases of 300% to 1,500%** on renewal” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Amazon Cognito
28%
7 of 25 labels negative · 7 of 12 models
“generally **not recommended** for highly regulated industries or enterprise-grade governance without significant customization” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Keycloak
33%
5 of 15 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid self-hosting Keycloak unless you have a dedicated, experienced DevOps and Security team” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
IDMerit
100%
3 of 3 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**IDmerit**: MongoDB exposure of ~1 billion KYC records (November 2025)” Kimi K2, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

65 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 886 links across 218 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

expertinsights.com
vendor site · Expert Insights35 answers · 35 citations · 10 models
loginradius.com
vendor site · LoginRadius29 answers · 37 citations · 10 models
startwithidentity.com
23 answers · 37 citations · 10 models
securityboulevard.com
23 answers · 29 citations · 8 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow23 answers · 23 citations · 10 models
descope.com
vendor site · Descope20 answers · 21 citations · 8 models
guptadeepak.com
18 answers · 25 citations · 8 models
idsync.com
17 answers · 24 citations · 9 models
worldmetrics.org
16 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
workos.com
vendor site · WorkOS15 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
peerspot.com
14 answers · 17 citations · 10 models
pingidentity.com
vendor site · Ping Identity12 answers · 19 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

expertinsights.com/identity-and-access-management/top-customer-identity-and…
34 answers · 10 models
guideflow.com/blog/ciam-software
23 answers · 10 models
descope.com/blog/post/ciam-solutions
18 answers · 8 models
loginradius.com/blog/identity/top-ciam-for-small-and-medium-businesses
17 answers · 9 models
peerspot.com/categories/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam
14 answers · 10 models
worldmetrics.org/best/customer-identity-management-software
14 answers · 8 models
guptadeepak.com/top-5-enterprise-ciam-platforms-in-depth-comparison
12 answers · 7 models
idmworks.com/insight/customer-identity-and-access-management
11 answers · 9 models
idsync.com/compare/best-ciam-tools
11 answers · 8 models
workos.com/blog/top-ciam-providers-in-2026
11 answers · 6 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best customer identity platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which CIAM solution for a product's users would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top customer identity platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer identity platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a customer identity platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer identity platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Frontegg
Two alternativesStytch, Thales OneWelcome
FronteggHeld
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, Auth0, Descope, Microsoft Entra External ID
no first choiceFusionAuth
Three alternativesFrontegg, Google Cloud Identity, SuperTokens
against: Amazon Cognitono first choiceagainst: Aura, IBM Verify
GPT-5.4 miniAuth0
Two alternativesFusionAuth, WorkOS
Auth0Held
One alternativePingOne for Customers
against: Amazon Cognito, Microsoft Entra External IDAuth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloud
Six alternativesForgeRock, LoginRadius, Microsoft Entra External ID, OneLogin, Ping Identity, SAP Customer Data Cloud
Clerk, Supabase Auth
One alternativeFusionAuth
against: Auth0no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashWorkOS
Two alternativesFrontegg, PropelAuth
against: Auth0Frontegg, WorkOSChanged
Three alternativesDescope, SSOJet, ScaleKit
against: Auth0no first choice
Nine alternativesAuth0, Clerk, Descope, Frontegg, Keycloak, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS, Zitadel
WorkOS
Five alternativesClerk, Keycloak, Kinde, Logto, Supabase Auth
against: Auth0, Firebase AuthenticationScaleKit, WorkOS
Five alternativesClerk, Descope, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Stytch
against: Auth0against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Firebase Authentication, Keycloak, Microsoft Entra External ID
Perplexity SonarWorkOS
Three alternativesAuth0, Clerk, Frontegg
WorkOSHeld
Four alternativesAuth0, Descope, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID
Auth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloud
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, ForgeRock, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Amazon Cognito
One alternativeLoginRadius
against: Clerk, WorkOS, miniOrangeno first choiceagainst: Amazon Cognito, FusionAuth, Google Cloud Identity, Keycloak, WorkOS
Grok 4.1 FastFrontegg, WorkOS
Three alternativesAuth0, Descope, Microsoft Entra External ID
against: Auth0, FusionAuth, Keycloak, Ping/ForgeRockWorkOSChanged
Four alternativesAuth0, Frontegg, LoginRadius, Stytch
against: Auth0no first choiceAmazon Cognito, Clerk, Supabase Auth
Three alternativesFirebase Authentication, FusionAuth, Keycloak
against: Auth0no first choiceagainst: Amazon Cognito, Descope, Firebase Authentication, IBM Verify, IDMerit, IDScan.net, Keycloak, Okta/Auth0, Revolut
Mistral SmallAuth0, Ping Identity
Two alternativesFrontegg, Tealium
Auth0, WorkOSChanged
Three alternativesDescope, LoginRadius, Microsoft Entra External ID
Auth0Auth0
Six alternativesAmazon Cognito, Clerk, Descope, MojoAuth, Stytch, SuperTokens
no first choiceagainst: Keycloak, Ping Identityagainst: Experian, LiveRamp
DeepSeek V4 FlashWorkOS
Three alternativesAuth0, Frontegg, Stytch
Auth0Changed
Three alternativesFrontegg, Keycloak, WorkOS
against: Microsoft Entra External IDAuth0
Seven alternativesClerk, Frontegg, FusionAuth, Keycloak, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External ID
Two alternativesDescope, WorkOS
no first choiceagainst: Auth0, Okta, OneLogin, Ping Identity / ForgeRock, SAP Customer Data Cloud
Llama 4 MaverickAuth0, Frontegg, Ping Identity
Three alternativesHightouch, Tealium, Twilio Segment
LoginRadiusChanged
One alternativeSecureAuth
no first choiceMicrosoft Entra ID, OneLogin
Three alternativesAuth0, Descope, LoginRadius
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashAuth0, Clerk
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra, SuperTokens
against: OktaAuth0Changed
Four alternativesDescope, LoginRadius, Microsoft Entra External ID, Stytch
Auth0
Five alternativesAmazon Cognito, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS
Firebase Authentication
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, Clerk, Keycloak, Kinde
against: Auth0no first choice
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, Auth0, Clerk, Duende
against: IBM Verify, Oracleagainst: CA Siteminder, CyberArk Customer Identity, ForgeRock, HYPR, OneLogin, Oracle Access Manager, SailPoint
Kimi K2Frontegg
Three alternativesAuth0, Stytch, WorkOS
Frontegg, KindeChanged
Two alternativesFusionAuth, WorkOS
against: Auth0/OktaAuth0
Six alternativesAmazon Cognito, Clerk, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, Stytch
Supabase Auth
Two alternativesClerk, Firebase Authentication
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0no first choiceagainst: IDMerit, Okta/Auth0, Ping Identity / ForgeRock, SAP Customer Data Cloud, Salesforce, Sumsub
GLM 4.7 FlashXWorkOS
Two alternativesAuth0, Frontegg
Frontegg, WorkOSChanged
Three alternativesAuth0, FusionAuth, Microsoft Entra External ID
against: Clerk, Descope, LoginRadius, Ping IdentityAuth0
Five alternativesAmazon Cognito, Clerk, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS
FusionAuth, Microsoft Entra External ID
Three alternativesAuth0, Descope, JumpCloud
no first choiceagainst: AU10TIX, Amazon Cognito, Auth0, IDMerit, IDnow.io, OneLogin, Persona, Sumsub, Veriff
MiniMax M2.5Auth0, Fronteggagainst: Ping IdentityAuth0Changed
Three alternativesDescope, Frontegg, WorkOS
Auth0
Four alternativesForgeRock Identity Platform, LoginRadius, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Clerk
Four alternativesFirebase Authentication, Logto, Supabase Auth, SuperTokens
against: Auth0no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:26yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:47yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:46yes1631 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:51yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:43yes3820 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 14:02yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:08yes1014 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:16yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:32no039 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:49yes1228 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:48yes25143 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:49yes921 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:58yes910 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:52yes26 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:32yes1524 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:50yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:28yes2415 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:26yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:26yes1014 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:05yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:52yes526 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 14:04yes1021 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:32yes1668 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:27yes1777 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:45yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:40yes610 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:49yes1833 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:01yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:26yes3515 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:59yes58 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 14:01yes2931 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:28yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:45yes928 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:39yes1431 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:56yes2444 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:40yes1024 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:30yes98 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:07yes44 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:03yes2144 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 14:12yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:37yes4819 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:46yes108 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:19yes1011 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 14:05yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:01no039 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:45yes1544 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:40yes3045 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:18yes2046 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:05no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:50no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:38yes922 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:24yes205 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:07yes2410 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:34no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 13:14yes1530 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:17yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:55no036 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:26yes2036 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:32yes24177 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:28yes923 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:30yes189 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:52no03 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:53yes1527 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:48yes209 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:42yes2312 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:41yes58 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:59yes2535 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:51yes94 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:33yes1068 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:28yes3030 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:59yes28326 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:32yes516 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Firebase read as Firebase Authentication
Unresolved, counted raw
1Kosmos BlockID
AU10TIX
Aura
BetterAuth
CA Siteminder
Duende
Experian
Hideez
IDScan.net
IDnow.io
LiveRamp
Revolut (fintech-linked identity tools)
Veriff
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in identity and access

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
← Password managersIGA →