September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT › 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 · first-choice share
47%
Clear leader
47Auth013WorkOS AuthKit11FusionAuth30others

47% of first choices, clear leader.

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.

The 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
02WorkOS AuthKit13%26%23criticized challenger
03FusionAuth11%15%13accepted challenger
04Microsoft Entra External ID9%4%49accepted challenger
05LoginRadius6%0%14accepted challenger
06Ping Identity4%13%46accepted 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
11ForgeRock Identity Platform0%21%14accepted challenger
10WSO2 Identity Server0%14%14accepted challenger
09IBM Verify0%0%15accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

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%
02WorkOS AuthKit13%
03FusionAuth11%
04Microsoft Entra External ID9%
05LoginRadius6%
06Ping Identity4%
07Descope4%
08Frontegg2%
09IBM Verify0%
10WSO2 Identity Server0%
11ForgeRock Identity Platform0%
12Keycloak0%
13Stytch0%
14Amazon Cognito0%

What 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
Ping Identity
13%
6 of 46 labels negative · 6 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
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

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

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. 958 links across 205 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

47 answers · 92 citations · 10 models
vendor site · LoginRadius37 answers · 60 citations · 11 models
36 answers · 51 citations · 10 models
35 answers · 54 citations · 11 models
31 answers · 33 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Descope22 answers · 23 citations · 10 models
vendor site · WorkOS21 answers · 33 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Guideflow21 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
vendor site · SSOJet17 answers · 28 citations · 8 models
vendor site · miniOrange15 answers · 15 citations · 6 models
14 answers · 14 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Okta13 answers · 15 citations · 7 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.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best customer identity platform”, “customer identity platform”, “customer identity platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Auth0 auth0.com47%24518,100772170,673117
WorkOS AuthKit workos.com13%7433,47875
FusionAuth fusionauth.io11%491,3002144,19916
Microsoft parent site
Microsoft Entra External ID 9%, Microsoft Entra ID 0%
9%4992,240,000403,136
LoginRadius loginradius.com6%37170739,70931
Ping pingidentity.com
Ping Identity 4%, ForgeRock Identity Platform 0%
4%26412,10024973,959 company$30555
Descope descope.com4%832,4007919,633$19219
Frontegg frontegg.com2%83720419,06010
Okta okta.com2%151368,0008,4181,959,7401184
SSOJet ssojet.com2%284009,629

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 25 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (idmworks.com, loginradius.com, okta.com, startwithidentity.com). The first result for “best customer identity platform” is reddit.com.

How 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.
ShowHide
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 Identity Platform, Ping Identity, Thales OneWelcome
LoginRadius
One alternativeminiOrange
against: Okta
no first choiceagainst: Auth0, ForgeRock Identity Platform, OneLogin
GPT-5.4 miniAuth0
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDChangedAuth0
Four alternativesForgeRock Identity Platform, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, SAP Customer Data Cloud
against: Amazon Cognito
FusionAuth, WorkOS AuthKitagainst: Auth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloudno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashWorkOS AuthKit
One alternativeFrontegg
against: Auth0, Microsoft Entra External ID
FronteggChanged
Three alternativesAuth0, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0, Ping Identity
Five alternativesDescope, Microsoft Entra External ID, SAP Customer Data Cloud, Transmit Security, WorkOS AuthKit
FusionAuth
Three alternativesKeycloak, Strivacity, WorkOS AuthKit
against: Okta/Auth0
Auth0
Four alternativesDescope, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS AuthKit
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Clerk, Firebase Authentication, ForgeRock Identity Platform, Keycloak, Kinde, Ping Identity, Stytch
Perplexity SonarAuth0, WorkOS AuthKit
Three alternativesFrontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
WorkOS AuthKitChanged
Four alternativesAuth0, Frontegg, Okta, Ping Identity
Auth0
Five alternativesForgeRock Identity Platform, IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
Microsoft Entra External ID
One alternativePing Identity
against: Auth0
no first choiceagainst: Amazon Cognito, Firebase Authentication, FusionAuth, WorkOS AuthKit
Grok 4.20Auth0
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS AuthKit
Auth0Held
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: WorkOS AuthKit
Auth0
Four alternativesAmazon Cognito, IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: Stytch, Transmit Security, WorkOS AuthKit
FusionAuthagainst: Auth0/Okta, Keycloak, MojoAuth, Ping/ForgeRock, Stytch/ClerkAuth0
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, PingOne, Stytch
against: Auth0, OneLogin, Ping Identity, Salesforce, WSO2 Identity Server
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 Identity Platform, FusionAuthno first choiceagainst: Auth0, CyberArk Customer Identity, HYPR, OneLogin
DeepSeek V4 FlashAuth0, WorkOS AuthKit
Three alternativesFrontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Auth0Changed
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
against: Frontegg, SSOJet, WorkOS AuthKit
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity
Three alternativesIBM Verify, Thales OneWelcome, WSO2 Identity Server
FusionAuth
One alternativeMojoAuth
against: Auth0/Okta Customer Identity Cloud, Ping Identity, SSOJet, WorkOS AuthKit
Auth0
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
against: Frontegg, Stytch
against: Akamai Identity Cloud, Clef, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity / ForgeRock, SAP Customer Data Cloud, Stormpath, WSO2 Identity Server
Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
One alternativeThales OneWelcome
DescopeChanged
Five alternativesAmazon Cognito, Auth0, Kinde, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS AuthKit
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Ping Identity
Qwen 3.7 FlashSSOJet, WorkOS AuthKit
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 Cognito
Ping Identity
Two alternativesMicrosoft Entra ID, Red Hat Keycloak
against: Amazon Cognito, Auth0, Clerk, Firebase Authentication
no 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 Identity Server
Auth0
Four alternativesIBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server
FusionAuth
Three alternativesMicrosoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WorkOS AuthKit
against: Auth0
Auth0, Microsoft Entra External IDagainst: Amazon Cognito, Ping Identity, SSOJet, WorkOS AuthKitagainst: 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, Stytch
no 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 Identity Platform, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS AuthKit
Auth0
Six alternativesDescope, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server, WorkOS AuthKit
no first choiceno first choiceagainst: Auth0/Okta CIC
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 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.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Firebase read as Firebase Authentication
ForgeRock read as ForgeRock Identity Platform
Ping Identity / PingOne for Customers read as Ping Identity
Thales (formerly Gemalto) read as Thales OneWelcome
WSO2 read as WSO2 Identity Server
WorkOS read as WorkOS AuthKit
Unresolved, counted raw
Clef
Red Hat Keycloak
Stormpath
Twilio Authy Desktop
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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