What Is Identity Governance?

Managing user access is simple when a company is small. But at some point, organizations outgrow whatever system they have in place — too many people, too many applications, and too many requests start flying around with no clear process to manage it.

It’s a common enough challenge that questions like this show up regularly on Reddit.

It’s not a trivial problem either. Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report found that 50% of all data breaches involve compromised credentials.

Identity governance and administration (IGA) brings order to this. It’s how organizations manage who has access to what, why they have it, and whether they still should.

And in this guide, we’ll break down how IGA works, and what to look for when evaluating IGA vendors for 2026.

Definition of identity governance and administration

Identity governance and administration (IGA) refers to the tools and processes for managing user identities and user access rights across an organization’s systems and applications.

In practice, this includes:

• Provisioning and deprovisioning user accounts
• Running periodic access certifications
• Enforcing access policies (e.g., separation of duties)
• Generating audit trails for compliance

The common thread across all of these functions is lifecycle. IGA tracks access from the moment it’s granted to the moment it’s revoked. It makes sure that everything in between is documented, justified, and audit-ready.

The difference between identity governance and identity and access management (IAM)

IAM is the overarching category for managing identities and their access. IGA is one component of it, alongside access management and privileged access management (PAM).

Each focuses on a different problem:

• Access management handles authentication. It’s how users prove who they are and get into systems. This includes things like single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and session management.
• PAM is about protecting privileged accounts. These are the high-risk credentials like admin logins and service accounts that can do serious damage if compromised.
• IGA handles the governance side of access. It manages who gets access to what, how that access is approved, and whether existing permissions still make sense.

The bullet points above describe what each discipline does. However, it also helps to consider what each protects against, as this Reddit user explained:

It gets confusing because people often say “IAM” when they mean access management specifically. But IAM is the whole category, and IGA is one part of it.

This table breaks down the differences:

Why is IGA important in digital identity management?

IGA has moved from a nice-to-have to a core part of how organizations manage risk, stay compliant, and operate efficiently. Here’s why it matters:

• Removing stale and orphaned accounts: Varonis found that 26% of user accounts are stale (inactive for 90+ days but still enabled). These forgotten accounts create identity security gaps that attackers can exploit. IGA automates deprovisioning and finds accounts that should have been shut down.
• Keeping up with identity growth: Between employees, contractors, service accounts, and AI agents, the number of identities in an organization is expected to grow by 240% over the next year, if not more. IGA helps keep all of it organized and governed.
• Governing third-party and contractor access: SecurityScorecard’s 2025 research found that 35.5% of breaches originate from third-party vectors. IGA extends governance beyond employees to include contractors, vendors, and external users who also need access to internal systems.
• Lowering the cost of breaches: IBM’s 2024 report puts the average cost of a data breach at $4.88 million, and breaches involving compromised credentials take the longest to resolve (292 days on average). IGA helps prevent these incidents and limits the damage when they do occur.
• Freeing up IT and cybersecurity teams: According to Ponemon research, only 50% of organizations rate their IAM tools as effective, and a key barrier is reliance on manual processes. IGA automates provisioning, reviews, and reporting so teams spend less time on repetitive work.

The compliance mandate: IGA and regulatory standards

Most regulatory frameworks include some form of access control requirements. Whether it’s SOX, HIPAA, GDPR, or SOC 2, the underlying expectation is the same – organizations need to demonstrate that access to sensitive systems and data is properly managed.

IGA provides the technical foundation for meeting these rules. It automates certifications and reviews, logs access changes, enforces policies, and produces audit-ready documentation.

Here’s precisely how IGA maps to the major regulatory frameworks:

PRO TIP 💡: Compliance doesn’t have to mean weeks of prep work. ConductorOne automates certification campaigns for SOX, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and other frameworks, so the documentation auditors need is already there when they ask for it.

Key components of IGA

IGA platforms typically include several core components that work together to manage the access lifecycle:

• Entitlement management: Entitlements are the specific permissions a user has within an application or system. IGA provides a centralized way to manage and track these permissions across all connected applications.
• Access requests: When employees need access to a system or application, they submit a request through a structured workflow. IGA routes these requests to the right approvers, applies the appropriate policies, and logs the decision.
• Provisioning and deprovisioning: Provisioning handles account creation and access grants, while deprovisioning streamlines the removal and offboarding. IGA automates both to keep access updated with employment status and role changes.
• Access certification (reviews): Access certifications are periodic reviews where managers confirm that existing access is still appropriate. IGA automates these campaigns, collects responses, and removes access when it’s no longer needed.
• Role management: A role is a predefined set of permissions tied to a job function. Role management in IGA makes it easier to provision access consistently and at scale.
• Auditing and reporting: IGA maintains a record of who has access to what, how they got it, and when it changed. This audit trail supports compliance and helps security teams investigate incidents.

Together, these components give organizations a structured way to manage access across their full lifecycle. Most IGA platforms include all of them, though depth and implementation vary by vendor.

Modern IGA vs. legacy IGA

IGA has been around for a while, but the category has evolved over the past few years. Legacy IGA solutions were built for on-prem environments where change was slow and controlled. They got the job done, but deployments were painful, integrations were custom, and maintenance never ended.

Modern IGA looks completely different. Cloud adoption, SaaS sprawl, and the need for faster onboarding pushed vendors to rethink the model. Today’s platforms are cloud-based, API-driven, and built for environments that change constantly.

Here’s how the two generations compare:

Legacy IGA still exists in plenty of organizations, especially those with heavy on-prem footprints. But for most modern IT environments, the flexibility and speed of cloud-native platforms make a major difference.

Common challenges in traditional IGA

Even when organizations have IGA in place, traditional administration solutions often create as many problems as they solve. These are some of the most common challenges:

• High total cost of ownership: Nearly 60% of organizations identify high TCO as a principal deficiency in their current IGA solution, according to Omada’s 2025 State of IGA report. Between licensing, customization, and ongoing maintenance, legacy platforms can drain budgets without bringing proportional value.
• Manual processes that don’t scale: More than a third of IT leaders say manual tasks are a key reason they’re investing in IGA. Legacy platforms often need way too much hands-on work to keep up with growing organizations and their security postures.
• Limited application coverage: 89% of organizations have integrated fewer than half of their applications with their IGA solution. That leaves most of the environment ungoverned and at risk.
• Over-provisioned access: More than 70% of IT and business leaders report that people in their organizations have unnecessary or excessive access to data and applications. Traditional IGA often lacks the automation to catch and correct this drift over time.
• Poor visibility into cloud and SaaS: CSA’s 2025 report found that 57% of organizations have fragmented administration across their SaaS applications. Traditional IGA wasn’t built for environments where new apps appear constantly and often without IT’s knowledge.

The role of AI and automation in identity governance & administration

Modern IGA platforms are leaning heavily on AI and automation. Machine learning can analyze access at scale and point out security risks that would be impossible to spot manually across thousands of users and applications.

One of the clearest examples is in how access reviews work. Traditionally, reviewers received a list of entitlements and evaluated each one manually. In practice, most people approved everything just to get through it.

AI changes that by doing the analysis before the review even starts. It spots outliers, like a marketing intern with admin access to AWS. It points to permissions that haven’t been used in months, and then it recommends approvals or revocations based on what peers have and how access has been used. Reviewers still own the decision, but the list in front of them is filtered and prioritized.

Over time, AI will likely take on more of the routine governance work, from auto-revoking unused access to adjusting policies based on observed user behavior. The trend is toward governance that runs continuously, not something teams return to every few months.

IGA best practices

IGA works best when it’s paired with the right approach. Here are some practices worth following:

• Use just-in-time access: Instead of giving users standing access to sensitive systems, grant it only when needed and revoke it automatically after a set period. This reduces the window of exposure if credentials are compromised.
• Enforce least privilege: Users should only have the access they need to do their jobs, nothing more. IGA makes this possible by automating user provisioning based on roles and finding excessive permissions during reviews.
• Align with zero trust: Zero trust assumes no user or device should be trusted by default. IGA supports this by continuously validating that access is appropriate and applying policies that limit exposure.
• Automate wherever possible: Manual provisioning and reviews are slow and error-prone. Automating these tasks frees teams to focus on exceptions and higher-value work.
• Start with high-risk applications: Not every system needs the same level of governance. Prioritize applications that handle sensitive data or have regulatory implications, then expand coverage over time.
• Integrate with HR and IT systems: IGA works best when it’s connected to authoritative sources like HRIS and directories. This makes sure that access changes happen automatically when someone joins, moves, or leaves.
• Move from periodic to continuous regulatory compliance: Quarterly reviews leave too much time for secure access to drift. IGA can monitor continuously and outline issues as they come up, not months after the fact.

PRO TIP 💡: If you’re not sure where to start, just-in-time access is a good bet. It brings immediate risk management and simplifies everything downstream, so reviews get shorter and cleanup gets easier. ConductorOne supports JIT out of the box, with automatic expiration and self-service requests that don’t slow users down.

Key features and capabilities to look for in IGA solutions

The features that matter most depend on your environment. But certain features have become table stakes for organizations running modern, cloud-heavy tech stacks.

Here’s what you should pay attention to:

• Deep SaaS and cloud integrations: Look for platforms with pre-built connectors for the apps you use, not just the big identity providers. The more applications you can bring under management without custom development, the faster you’ll see value.
• AI-native: With the increasing number of AI agents, it’s important to select a platform that uses AI-driven insights and automation to streamline identity management.
• Just-in-time access: Your platform should support time-bound permissions. Users get what they need for as long as they need it, and then access expires automatically.
• Automated access reviews: Manual certification campaigns drain time and lead to rubber-stamping. Modern platforms automate the process end-to-end, from reviewer assignment to follow-up reminders to completion tracking.
• Self-service user access requests: Users should be able to request access themselves through a simple interface, without filing IT tickets or sending emails. This removes friction for employees and frees IT from routing tickets manually.
• API-first architecture: Check if the platform can support automation through APIs, Terraform, and CLI tools. This allows your team to manage access as code and integrate IGA into existing workflows.
• Fast deployment: Legacy platforms usually take months to implement. Modern solutions should be up and running in days or weeks, with pre-built connectors and opinionated workflows that minimize configuration time.

Prioritize the capabilities that tackle your most relevant pain points today, but make sure the platform can grow with you. A modern IGA system should scale without any re-implementations.

Top identity governance and administration tools to consider

IGA platforms range from legacy enterprise solutions to modern, cloud-native tools. The best fit depends on your environment, team size, and how much complexity you’re willing to manage.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the best IGA tools in the market right now:

SailPoint, Saviynt, Oracle, IBM, and One Identity are typically considered legacy or enterprise-grade platforms. They offer deep functionality but often come with longer implementations and higher complexity.

Microsoft Entra and Okta IGA sit somewhere in between with governance features tied closely to their broader identity ecosystems. Opal, Lumos, and ConductorOne represent the modern end of the market, built for speed, automation, and cloud-native environments.

Of these, ConductorOne offers the most comprehensive feature set. It’s a complete IGA platform without the tradeoffs that come with legacy tools. It covers the full spectrum, including automated access reviews, self-service requests, just-in-time provisioning, lifecycle management, and separation of duties enforcement.

Modernize your IGA with ConductorOne

Security and IT teams don’t have time to babysit identity governance. Yet, legacy platforms demand exactly that — manual provisioning, spreadsheet-driven reviews, and custom integrations that take months to build. When governance drains all available bandwidth, strategic work takes a back seat.

ConductorOne takes a different approach. It’s a cloud-native IGA platform that brings visibility, access controls, and lifecycle management together in one place.

The platform connects to cloud apps, on-prem infrastructure, and homegrown tools, so governance extends across your entire environment, not just the pieces legacy tools can reach.

Here’s what you get with C1:

• Just-in-time access: ConductorOne provisions access on demand with built-in expiration. Users get what they need, when they need it, and permissions disappear automatically once the job is done.
• Unified Identity Graph: The platform collects identity data across your entire environment into one searchable graph. Security teams see the full picture - who has access, how they got it, and whether it’s still appropriate.
• 300+ pre-built connectors: The platform integrates with major SaaS apps, cloud infrastructure, directories, and databases out of the box. For custom or legacy applications, a no-code connector builder and open-source SDK let you bring any system under management.
• Self-service requests in Slack and Teams: Employees request access directly from chat with a simple command, and managers approve without leaving the conversation. No more back-and-forth on IT tickets or delays in provisioning.
• Identity lifecycle automation: The platform handles joiner-mover-leaver processes through policy-driven workflows. New hires get the right access on day one, role changes trigger automatic adjustments, and offboarded employees lose access immediately.
• Automated, AI-powered access reviews: ConductorOne assigns reviewers, sends reminders, tracks completion, and uses AI to find risky access and recommend decisions. Reviewers can stop spending their time on routine approvals.

If your current IGA setup can’t keep pace with your environment or takes too much effort to maintain, then ConductorOne offers a faster path forward.

Book a demo to see how modern identity governance works in practice.