IT AI Index
Index › Identity and access › CIAM › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

Customer identity and access management for enterprise buyers

Asked as “customer identity platform”, and as “CIAM solution for a product's users”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 47 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Auth0
Clear leader
47% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 67 categories →

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%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseAuth047%Clear leaderThis page

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Auth047%16%61endorsed leader
02WorkOS13%26%23criticized challenger
03FusionAuth11%15%13accepted challenger
04Microsoft Entra External ID9%4%49accepted challenger
05LoginRadius6%0%14accepted challenger
06Ping Identity4%12%43accepted challenger
07Descope4%0%15accepted challenger
08Frontegg2%18%17accepted challenger
Show the six products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
14Amazon Cognito0%50%16criticized challenger
13Stytch0%38%13criticized challenger
12Keycloak0%33%12criticized challenger
11ForgeRock0%27%11criticized challenger
09IBM Verify0%0%15accepted challenger
10WSO2 Identity Server0%0%10accepted 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
14
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Auth047%
02WorkOS13%
03FusionAuth11%
04Microsoft Entra External ID9%
05LoginRadius6%
06Ping Identity4%
07Descope4%
08Frontegg2%
09IBM Verify0%
10WSO2 Identity Server0%
11ForgeRock0%
12Keycloak0%
13Stytch0%
14Amazon Cognito0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash and GLM 4.7 FlashX 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
16%
10 of 61 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid Auth0 / Clerk / AWS Cognito** for this specific goal” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Amazon Cognito
50%
8 of 16 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“**Avoid Auth0 / Clerk / AWS Cognito** for this specific goal” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Stytch
38%
5 of 13 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“large enterprises should avoid using them for core, complex identity estates” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
Ping Identity
12%
5 of 43 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“Buying into legacy on-prem ForgeRock or older Ping components today carries a significant risk of forced migration” Gemini 3.5 Flash, 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

66 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. 867 links across 190 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

startwithidentity.com
41 answers · 85 citations · 9 models
loginradius.com
vendor site · LoginRadius35 answers · 58 citations · 10 models
securityboulevard.com
35 answers · 50 citations · 9 models
expertinsights.com
vendor site · Expert Insights31 answers · 33 citations · 10 models
guptadeepak.com
29 answers · 45 citations · 10 models
descope.com
vendor site · Descope20 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
workos.com
vendor site · WorkOS18 answers · 27 citations · 10 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow18 answers · 18 citations · 8 models
ssojet.com
vendor site · SSOJet14 answers · 24 citations · 7 models
okta.com
vendor site · Okta13 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
miniorange.com
vendor site · miniOrange13 answers · 13 citations · 5 models
idmworks.com
12 answers · 12 citations · 9 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…
31 answers · 10 models
startwithidentity.com/rankings/best-ciam-for-enterprises
29 answers · 9 models
securityboulevard.com/2026/08/top-5-enterprise-ciam-platforms-in-2026-in-de…
26 answers · 7 models
loginradius.com/blog/identity/top-ciam-for-large-enterprises
25 answers · 9 models
guideflow.com/blog/ciam-software
18 answers · 8 models
guptadeepak.com/top-5-enterprise-ciam-platforms-in-depth-comparison
18 answers · 8 models
descope.com/blog/post/ciam-solutions
15 answers · 8 models
workos.com/blog/top-ciam-providers-in-2026
14 answers · 8 models
miniorange.com/blog/ciam-vendors
13 answers · 5 models
idmworks.com/insight/customer-identity-and-access-management
12 answers · 9 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 an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which CIAM solution for a product's users would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade customer identity platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer identity platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a customer identity platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer identity platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceAuth0, OktaChangedagainst: KeycloakOkta
Five alternativesAuth0, Descope, ForgeRock, Ping Identity, Thales OneWelcome
LoginRadius
One alternativeminiOrange
against: Oktano first choiceagainst: Auth0, ForgeRock, OneLogin
GPT-5.4 miniAuth0
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDChangedAuth0
Four alternativesForgeRock / Ping's Advanced Identity Cloud, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity / PingOne for Customers, SAP Customer Data Cloud
against: Amazon CognitoFusionAuth, WorkOSagainst: Auth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloudno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashWorkOS
One alternativeFrontegg
against: Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDFronteggChanged
Three alternativesAuth0, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0, Ping Identity
Five alternativesDescope, Microsoft Entra External ID, SAP Customer Data Cloud, Transmit Security, WorkOS
FusionAuth
Three alternativesKeycloak, Strivacity, WorkOS
against: Okta/Auth0Auth0
Four alternativesDescope, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Clerk, Firebase Authentication, ForgeRock, Keycloak, Kinde, Ping Identity, Stytch
Perplexity SonarAuth0, WorkOS
Three alternativesFrontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
WorkOSChanged
Four alternativesAuth0, Frontegg, Okta, Ping Identity / PingOne for Customers
Auth0
Five alternativesForgeRock, IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
Microsoft Entra External ID
One alternativePing Identity
against: Auth0no first choiceagainst: Amazon Cognito, Firebase Authentication, FusionAuth, WorkOS
Grok 4.1 FastAuth0
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS
Auth0Held
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: WorkOSAuth0
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: Stytch, Transmit Security, WorkOSFusionAuthagainst: Auth0/Okta, Keycloak, MojoAuth, Ping/ForgeRock, Stytch/ClerkAuth0
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, PingOne, Stytch
against: Auth0, OneLogin, Ping Identity, Salesforce, WSO2
Mistral SmallAuth0
Two alternativesLoginRadius, Thales OneWelcome
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDChanged
Two alternativesForgeRock Identity Platform, Ping Identity
Auth0
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
Auth0, LoginRadiusagainst: ForgeRock, FusionAuthno first choiceagainst: Auth0, CyberArk Customer Identity, HYPR, OneLogin
DeepSeek V4 FlashAuth0, WorkOS
Three alternativesFrontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0Changed
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: Frontegg, SSOJet, WorkOSAuth0, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Three alternativesIBM Verify, Thales OneWelcome, WSO2 Identity Server
FusionAuth
One alternativeMojoAuth
against: Auth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloud, Ping/ForegRock, SSOJet, WorkOSAuth0
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2
against: Frontegg, Stytchagainst: Akamai Identity Cloud, Clef, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity / ForgeRock, SAP Customer Data Cloud, Stormpath, WSO2
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
One alternativeThales OneWelcome
DescopeChanged
Five alternativesAmazon Cognito, Auth0, Kinde, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Ping Identity
Qwen 3.7 FlashSSOJet, WorkOS
Three alternativesAuth0, Microsoft Entra External ID, Stytch
Auth0Changed
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra ID, Okta
Auth0
Three alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: Amazon CognitoPing Identity
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra ID, Red Hat Keycloak
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Clerk, Firebase Authenticationno first choiceagainst: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Clutch, Firebase Authentication, Frontegg, Stytch, Superagent
Kimi K2Auth0
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0Held
Five alternativesFrontegg, FusionAuth, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2
Auth0
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
FusionAuth
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS
against: Auth0Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDagainst: Amazon Cognito, Ping Identity, SSOJet, WorkOSagainst: Akamai Identity Cloud, Twilio Authy Desktop
GLM 4.7 FlashXAuth0, Descope
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
Ping IdentityChanged
Two alternativesAuth0, Microsoft Entra External ID
no first choiceLoginRadius
One alternativeAuth0
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, MojoAuth, Ping Identity, Stytchno first choiceagainst: Cisco Duo, Keycloak, Okta Workforce Identity, PingFederate, SecureAuth
MiniMax M2.5Auth0
Four alternativesLoginRadius, Microsoft Entra External ID, OneLogin, Ping Identity
Auth0Held
Three alternativesForgeRock, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS
Auth0
Six alternativesDescope, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server, WorkOS
no first choiceno first choiceagainst: Auth0/Okta CIC
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 11:51no04 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:41yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:11yes1832 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:00yes205 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:30yes3416 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:22yes57 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 14:02yes1719 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:30yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:54yes529 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:40yes1524 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:45yes1258 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:11yes545 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:36no06 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:56yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:31yes1126 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:31yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:57yes3317 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:32no05 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:22yes1825 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 14:01yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:41no036 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:51yes1859 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 14:05yes1423 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:01yes1061 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:22yes159 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:57yes919 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:50yes2231 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:31yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:28yes3419 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:44yes99 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:07yes2030 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:55yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:52yes523 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:59yes920 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:09yes1582 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:20yes936 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:05yes169 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:11yes46 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:45yes1923 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:43yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:17yes3617 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:11yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:54yes3023 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:52yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:56no041 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:59yes1363 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:49yes19116 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:24yes1578 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:41yes1811 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:20yes47 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 14:06yes1130 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:25yes2010 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:41yes2013 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:29no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:44yes1930 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 12:27yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:25yes958 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:38yes1339 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:07yes18146 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:58yes516 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:51yes1811 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:55yes37 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:42yes1027 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:53yes186 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:53yes2715 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:57yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 13:29yes2751 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:59yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:24yes551 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:44yes2432 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:31yes29206 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:46yes2157 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
Thales (formerly Gemalto) read as Thales OneWelcome
Unresolved, counted raw
Clef
Clutch
ForgeRock / Ping's Advanced Identity Cloud
Ping/ForegRock
PingFederate
Red Hat Keycloak
Stormpath
Twilio Authy Desktop
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.
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