ManageEngine ADManager Plus Alternatives for AD Provisioning

ManageEngine ADManager Plus is Zoho's web console for creating, changing and removing Active Directory, Microsoft 365 and Exchange accounts, with 200+ reports and help desk delegation. It is current: build 8043 shipped on July 6, 2026 with bug fixes, a fix for a remote code execution flaw in CSV input on the Microsoft 365 tab, and security updates to PostgreSQL, Tomcat and Log4j, per the ADManager Plus release notes. Licences are yearly, priced by domain and number of help desk technicians.

People look for a replacement when the technician-based price climbs, when they need workflows but do not want Professional pricing, or when most of their identities have moved to Entra ID. The eight picks below start with direct provisioning tools, then cover Microsoft's own lifecycle workflows, access reviews, AD clean-up reporting and free scripting.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Adaxes

Softerra's Adaxes covers almost the same ground as ADManager Plus Professional: a web console for AD, Entra ID, Exchange and Microsoft 365, a self-service portal, approval steps on any task, and workflows that run after directory events, on a schedule or on demand. The difference is in how you pay. Adaxes counts enabled user accounts across all managed domains and does not care how many technicians log in.

The Adaxes purchase page sells perpetual licences only: $1,600 for up to 100 accounts, $5,957.89 for up to 1,000 and $10,800 for up to 2,000, with a quote above that. A 30-day trial installs without a licence key and includes technical support. Our Adaxes alternatives page looks at the same market from the other side.

Best for: Help desks with many technicians and a modest user count, where per-technician pricing hurts.

Pricing:

• Perpetual licence: $1,600 (up to 100 user accounts), $3,052.63 (400), $5,957.89 (1,000), $10,800 (2,000)
• Annual maintenance and support: 30% of the licence, for example $480 a year at 100 accounts
• Above 2,000 accounts: quote
• 30-day free trial

Watch out for:

• Without active maintenance, a major version upgrade costs extra, from $640 at 100 accounts to $4,320 at 2,000.
• Paid up front, the $1,600 licence costs more in year one than ADManager Plus Standard at $595, though less than Professional with two technicians at $1,795.

Official site: Adaxes.

One Identity Active Roles

Active Roles dates back to FastLane ActiveRoles, which Quest bought in 2000, and now sits in the One Identity range. It puts a policy layer between admins and AD, Entra ID and Microsoft 365, so a help desk operator gets only the rights a role allows and every change passes through rules, workflows and change history.

Where ADManager Plus centres on reports and bulk actions, Active Roles centres on least privilege and governance. The Active Roles page lists lifecycle management, group management and RBAC, and offers a virtual trial and an ROI calculator instead of a price.

Best for: Large enterprises with several forests that want admin rights taken away from people and given to policies.

Pricing:

• No public price: contact sales
• Virtual trial available

Watch out for:

• Ask in the demo which servers and SQL setup it needs.
• It is built for big estates. A single-domain shop with three help desk staff will pay for governance features it may never switch on.

Official site: One Identity Active Roles.

Cayosoft Administrator

Pick Cayosoft if HR or ITSM systems should drive account changes. The Cayosoft Administrator page lists direct integrations with Workday, Okta, SAP, ServiceNow, BMC Remedy and Jira, so a new hire record or a closed ticket can create, update or disable the account.

It manages AD, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Exchange, Intune and Teams from one console. Scoped delegation and audit trails come with it, which covers the help desk delegation that ADManager Plus Standard sells.

Best for: Hybrid Microsoft 365 shops that want onboarding and offboarding triggered by HR or ticket events.

Pricing:

• No public price: request a demo for a quote

Watch out for:

• A free 25-day trial runs in your own environment; pricing needs a demo or quote.
• Ask early if it needs its own server.

Official site: Cayosoft Administrator.

Netwrix Directory Manager

Formerly GroupID, Netwrix Directory Manager is strongest on groups. SmartGroups and Dynasties build memberships from attributes, so a department change moves a user between groups without a ticket, and group lifecycle rules expire groups nobody owns.

It also provisions, updates and removes accounts from HR systems or other sources across AD, Entra ID, Google Workspace, LDAP and SCIM apps, per the Directory Manager page. Managers approve changes in workflows without native directory rights, and users reset passwords and join groups themselves.

Best for: Organisations whose ADManager Plus reports keep showing empty, ownerless or nested groups.

Pricing:

• No public price: request pricing or a demo

Watch out for:

• Directory Manager is sold through demos; Netwrix's 14-day trial covers 1Secure, not this product.
• AD reporting is thinner than the 200+ reports in ADManager Plus, so pair it with an auditing tool if auditors want canned reports.

Official site: Netwrix Directory Manager.

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

If most accounts already live in Entra ID, Microsoft's own lifecycle workflows may do the job. A workflow runs tasks on a schedule or on demand, scoped by attributes such as department, and triggered by values like employeeHireDate. Built-in tasks generate temporary passwords, email managers, add users to groups, remove access packages and disable or delete leavers.

The lifecycle workflows overview says they need Entra ID Governance or Entra Suite. A tenant can hold up to 100 workflows and 100 custom task extensions, and extensions call Azure Logic Apps for steps Microsoft does not ship.

Best for: Cloud-first companies that want joiner, mover and leaver rules without another vendor.

Pricing:

• Entra ID P1: $7 per user per month, annual commitment
• Entra ID P2: $10 per user per month, annual commitment
• Entra ID Governance: $7 per user per month for P1 or P2 customers
• Entra ID Free: included with Microsoft cloud subscriptions

Watch out for:

• Workflows manage Entra users. Accounts that exist only in on-premises AD are out of reach until they are synced.
• There are no AD reports, OU tools or GPO management, so it replaces the provisioning half of ADManager Plus, not the reporting half.

Official site: Microsoft Entra ID Governance.

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager

SolarWinds ARM approaches provisioning through permissions. Role-based templates create accounts with standard access, scheduled provisioning grants temporary rights that revoke themselves, and leavers are deprovisioned automatically. A web portal lets staff request access and data owners approve it.

Its strength is the permission view across AD, Entra ID, Windows, EMC and NetApp file servers, SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive and Teams, plus periodic access reviews. The ARM product page offers a fully functional 30-day trial. Our SolarWinds ARM alternatives guide covers that permissions market.

Best for: Teams whose auditors ask who can open which folder, not only who created which account.

Pricing:

• No public price: get a quote
• 30-day fully functional trial

Watch out for:

• SolarWinds publishes no list price, so budgeting starts with a sales call.
• Bulk AD reports and OU or GPO management are not its focus, so admins who live in ADManager Plus reports will miss them.

Official site: SolarWinds Access Rights Manager.

Lepide Auditor

Lepide does not create accounts, so it is a partial replacement. It covers the clean-up and reporting side of ADManager Plus: inactive user reports, non-compliant password reports, account lockout investigation, password expiry reminders and restore of deleted AD objects.

Change auditing comes on top, across AD, Entra ID, Exchange, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Windows file servers, Dell PowerScale and Nasuni, according to the Lepide Auditor page. You can try it in an online demo before talking to sales. Our Lepide alternatives page compares it with other auditors.

Best for: Teams that use ADManager Plus mostly for stale-account reports and want change auditing with it.

Pricing:

• Price on request through a quote form
• Online demo and free data risk assessment

Watch out for:

• No provisioning or bulk user creation, so onboarding still needs scripts or another tool.
• There is no public free trial, only demos.

Official site: Lepide Auditor.

PowerShell ActiveDirectory module

For a small team, ADManager Plus's CSV bulk actions are a few lines of script. Import-Csv piped into New-ADUser creates accounts, Search-ADAccount -AccountInactive finds stale ones, and Disable-ADAccount handles leavers. The module ships with RSAT, as Microsoft's module docs describe.

It runs in Windows PowerShell 5.1 and in PowerShell 7 on Windows 10 1809 or later. PowerShell 7.6 is the current long-term support release, supported until November 14, 2028.

Best for: One or two admins who can script and only need bulk changes and simple reports.

Pricing:

• Free with RSAT; PowerShell 7 is free and open source under the MIT licence

Watch out for:

• Anyone running the scripts needs real AD rights. There is no delegation layer, approval step or web console for the help desk.
• Reports are whatever you write, and someone has to maintain the scripts when the person who wrote them leaves.

Official site: PowerShell ActiveDirectory module.

How to choose

When to stay with ManageEngine ADManager Plus

Stay if your help desk is small. Standard with one domain and two technicians costs $595 a year, the free edition handles 100 domain objects, and every tier is on the ADManager Plus pricing page, which none of the quote-only rivals can match. It also still bundles AD, Microsoft 365 and Exchange management with 200+ reports in the cheapest edition. Keep up with builds, though: build 8042 in April 2026 fixed three reported vulnerabilities.

Frequently asked questions