14 categories · 255 vendors · vendor-neutral
The Identity Map
The whole digital identity stack on one page. Every branch of the tree, from the workforce login through governance, privileged access, customer identity, machine identity, verification, and the new world of AI-agent identity, with 255 vendors placed where they actually fit. Pick a branch to see the field; each vendor links to its full profile.
The identity tree
Fourteen branches, ordered from the front door of workforce identity outward to the edges where identity meets fraud, machines, and the cloud. The big platforms have roots in several branches at once.
- 01 · IAM17 vendors
Access Management (IAM)
Workforce single sign-on, MFA, directory, and federation: the identity front door for employees.
- 02 · IGA18 vendors
Governance (IGA)
Who has access to what, why, and whether it is compliant: provisioning, access reviews, and certifications.
- 03 · PAM20 vendors
Privileged Access (PAM)
Securing, vaulting, and monitoring the most powerful accounts and credentials.
- 04 · CIAM43 vendors
Customer Identity (CIAM)
Identity for your customers and end users: login, signup, SSO, B2B multi-tenancy, and embedded auth.
- 05 · AuthZ9 vendors
Authorization (AuthZ)
Deciding what an authenticated identity is allowed to do: policy-based, relationship-based, and attribute-based access control.
- 06 · MFA16 vendors
Passwordless & MFA
Phishing-resistant login: passkeys and FIDO2, hardware keys, biometrics, and push.
- 07 · NHI13 vendors
Non-Human Identity (NHI)
Securing service accounts, API keys, OAuth tokens, workloads, and AI agents.
- 08 · Secrets7 vendors
Secrets Management
Storing and rotating credentials, API keys, and tokens for apps and DevOps pipelines.
- 09 · PKI/CLM8 vendors
PKI & Certificates
Issuing, discovering, and renewing TLS certificates and cryptographic keys: machine identity at the protocol layer.
- 10 · ITDR17 vendors
Threat Detection (ITDR)
Detecting and responding to identity-based attacks; Active Directory and Entra security, backup, and recovery.
- 11 · IDV/KYC44 vendors
Identity Verification (IDV)
Proving a real person is who they claim: document and biometric verification, KYC/AML, and fraud signals.
- 12 · DID/VC13 vendors
Decentralized Identity
Self-sovereign identity, reusable credentials, and digital wallets (W3C DID/VC, EUDI).
- 13 · CIEM6 vendors
Cloud Entitlements (CIEM)
Right-sizing identities and permissions across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
- 14 · Passwords24 vendors
Password Management
Storing, generating, sharing, and auditing credentials and passkeys.
How this map works
The Identity Map is the directory and the taxonomy: what each category is, how the branches relate, and which vendors live where. It is vendor-neutral and built for security and technical practitioners who need the whole picture, not a single quadrant.
For a deep profile of any single vendor, the View full profile button on each card opens that company on startwithidentity.com, which maintains the in-depth, continuously-evaluated vendor pages. Map for the landscape; profiles for the detail.