While Lumos is a versatile autonomous identity platform, IT teams might look for alternatives that:

• Don’t force employees away from the help desk. Like most IGA tools, Lumos requires employees to leave their natural workflows and use a different app to get help. From our experience of managing tools for 1,000+ person organizations, this creates a poor user experience and leads to low adoption. 
• Are easier to set up and learn. Even positive customer reviews mention Lumos’ steep learning curve. Plus, according to other reviews, going through technical support can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. 
• Offer a broader range of features. Despite its versatility, Lumos still lacks some of the advanced functionality that enterprise IT teams may seek. 

In this guide, we’ll help you find the right alternative to Lumos based on your use cases and business needs. To do that, we’ve organized the 8 best Lumos alternatives into two categories:

1. AI-Powered, Conversational IGA Platform in Slack

The first section focuses on how our product (Risotto) can help you manage identities and access in your help desk.

Specifically, you’ll learn how Risotto’s Slack-native design eliminates the need for context switching, while its AI-powered, conversational approach lets teams manage application access in simple, natural language. 

We’ll also discuss additional benefits, such as Risotto’s straightforward setup, out-of-the-box automation capabilities, and cutting-edge LLM reasoning for solving knowledge-based questions.

2. Additional SaaS Management and IGA solutions 

This second category of platforms offers tools and capabilities for additional spend management, security, and access management use cases, such as:

• License and contract management
• SaaS budgeting and spend optimization
• Cloud infrastructure entitlement management
• Single sign-on (SSO), multifactor authentication, etc

Some of the providers here — Torii, Zylo, Productiv, CloudEagle, and BetterCloud — are built for traditional SaaS management use cases, specializing in areas like access visibility, SaaS spend control, shadow IT, and more.

The final two — SailPoint and Okta — also offer ways to manage access while providing advanced features for data safety, mitigating security risks, threat protection, identity governance, and more.

Best Lumos Competitors

1. Risotto
2. Torii
3. Zylo
4. Productiv
5. BetterCloud
6. CloudEagle
7. SailPoint
8. Okta

1. Risotto

Slack-Native, AI-Powered IGA

Risotto is our AI-powered IGA and IT support platform that works directly in Slack. It lets IT teams manage identities and access right inside their help desk using simple, natural language:

In a nutshell:

• Employees request software access in Slack via a user-friendly, conversational format. Risotto streamlines the entire workflow, from provisioning to de-provisioning. For example: 
  
  • Need Lucidchart? Risotto automatically grants it if it’s self-serve. 
  • Need Amplitude? Risotto checks the policy, notifies the approver in Slack (alongside the employee’s reasoning), and automatically provisions access upon approval.  
  • Need temporary access? Risotto grants it with auto-expiration and sends reminders to employees in Slack (e.g., “Your access to Asana will expire in 7 days, would you like to extend your access?”) 
• Risotto logs every request in Slack as a trackable ticket in Jira, Freshdesk, Zendesk, and other ticketing systems via a seamless two-way sync. 
• Risotto maintains a full audit trail of access approvals to ensure security and compliance. 
• You can leverage segregation of duties with Risotto’s advanced approval engine, set dynamic RBAC rules, and more. 

The key difference: Unlike Lumos, which requires employees to use a separate app, Risotto works “invisibly” within your existing help desk. Employees simply make requests in natural language through their familiar interface in Slack, and Risotto streamlines the process via AI. 

As several customers have noted:

“When a team member asks, ‘How do I get access to Hightouch?’ they’re not looking for a link or a document; they need immediate, actionable assistance…  Risotto intelligently understands the intent behind the request. It confirms existing permissions, coordinates necessary approvals proactively, and automatically provisions access upon approval. This automation significantly speeds up provisioning and improves user satisfaction.”
– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise 

‍"Automated software access saves us so much time. Within minutes people get the access they need with everything tracked, approved, and no additional overhead needed… For sensitive tools and resources Risotto's automated time-based access has been a game-changer."
– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman

‍“The software access automations were a huge win for us. They were super easy to set up and we now have more than 30 applications with automated provisioning running 24/7.”
– Tom Grinberg, IT Manager at Trust & Will  

Beyond its IGA capabilities, Risotto can also help automate knowledge-based questions in Slack via a conversational format that feels like chatting with a human IT agent.

Most teams achieve 20-60% tier-1 ticket automation rates, allowing IT teams to serve more employees without adding headcount, and freeing up agents for higher-value work:  

• Fundrise: Automated nearly 60% of IT support tickets. 
• Hazel Health: Increased deflection from 3–5% to over 20%. 
• Superhuman: Automated nearly 20% of IT support tickets. 
• Trust & Will: Automated nearly 35% of IT support tickets.
• Retool: Improved average SLA resolution time from 2 days to under 1 day.
• Vidyard: Automated nearly 56% of IT support requests. 

Additionally, Risotto works out of the box. Its simple setup, Slack-native design, and conversational format mean that IT teams can deploy it within hours, instead of spending weeks or months setting up and learning the tool.

Up next, we’ll dive deeper into:

• Why we built Risotto and how it works
• Key benefits Risotto offers over Lumos

Why We Built Risotto (& How It Works in a Nutshell)

Before building Risotto, our co-founder Alex led IT engineering at HelloSign and Gusto. There, he experienced two issues that most large IT teams face — SaaS sprawl and repetitive tier-1 knowledge base questions (e.g., “Why isn’t my laptop turning on” or “What’s the guest Wi-Fi password?”) 

While evaluating AI IT help desk solutions and IGA tools like Lumos, he found that they share the following shortcomings: 

🚫 Forcing employees out of their natural workflows: This was the biggest issue with solutions like Lumos. While they provided automation opportunities, they forced employees into separate, clunky interfaces, instead of meeting them where they work (i.e., in Slack). This led to poor adoption and a frustrating user experience. 

🚫 Focus on problem deflection rather than resolution: For knowledge-based questions, instead of the promised AI automation, most tools simply returned knowledge base links whenever employees asked for help. This meant the AI support tools couldn’t understand or solve employees’ issues directly, which left the onus on human IT agents.

🚫 No ability for multi-step troubleshooting: Existing tools on the market also struggled after providing initial instructions. For example, if an employee said that the suggested solution didn’t work, they couldn’t adapt to the problem and simply gave up.

If you’re interested in the full story, check out this article: IT Teams Are Drowning in SaaS Sprawl & Knowledge Tickets. Here’s How We’re Fixing It.

Due to these (and other) shortcomings, we decided to build the tool we wished existed — one that combined intelligent IGA automation with the ability to solve knowledge base questions inside Slack.

How Risotto Works

At a high level, Risotto is designed to automate:

1. Common IT actions: For example, these include software access requests — including time-based access, approval-based access, and self-service access — and password resets.

2. Knowledge-based questions: For example, in the illustration below, an employee asks, “How can we connect to the guest office Wi-Fi?”. Risotto uses advanced natural language processing to identify the issue, perform triage, and fully resolve it, instead of deflecting to the knowledge base or escalating to a human agent.

With that in mind, let’s dive a bit deeper into these capabilities and the benefits they provide over Lumos (and most other IGA and AI IT help desk tools).

Benefit #1: Automate and Manage Application Access Inside the Help Desk (With AI)

One of the biggest differences between Risotto and Lumos is that Risotto doesn’t force employees to leave the help desk. 

Instead, Risotto does what Lumos does in natural language in Slack, so employees aren’t even aware there’s another tool. They simply ask questions and get help in Slack, while Risotto handles the entire ticket lifecycle in the background via seamless bi-directional sync with Jira, Freshservice, or Zendesk. This includes:

• Ticket creation
• Titling 
• Categorizings
• Routing tickets to the right departments
• Closing tickets when they’re resolved

From an IT management perspective, setting up software access automation is incredibly straightforward. Our Okta import wizard lets you import existing applications and permissions in just a few clicks: 

Then, you can set dynamic rules and custom approval workflows through a user-friendly interface, and view all applications in one central place: 

From there, employees request software access in Slack via natural language, and Risotto manages the entire application process via AI. For example: 

• You can manage sensitive user access to apps like Stripe in a simple and conversational way, e.g., “The customer service team can only have access to Stripe for 7 days at a time.” ‍
• You can ensure that managers and team leads are always signing off on important access requests, e.g., “Members of the engineering team can have AWS access only with permission from their manager.”‍
• You can also have Risotto handle very complex requests in natural language, e.g., “Grant access to Stripe, AWS, and Amplitude to Amy and John from the App Development team for 30 days”. Risotto just gets it without you having to give it a very special order of operations.‍
• You can also see an audit trail of access approvals. Risotto keeps track of who requested access, what the reason was, who accepted or denied, and why. As a result, you get a single source of truth regarding all access requests.

And more — this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here are three examples of how Risotto handles different types of access requests:

Time-Based Access & Reminders

In the time-based access example below, Logan asks if a new team member can get access to Stripe.

• Risotto replies: “Sure thing! What level of access does he need?” 
• Logan replies: “View only.” 
• Risotto replies: “Got it. For how long? (1 hour to 90 days)”
• Logan replies: “90 days he’ll be on this project for a while.”
• Risotto replies: “All set! He’s now got ‘View only’ access to Stripe for 90 days.”

This automates a very tedious and time-consuming process, which would typically require an IT agent to handle manually. Plus, the workflow doesn’t have to be built from scratch (which often takes weeks) as Risotto can be configured in just a few hours.

As Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman, stated: “For sensitive tools and resources Risotto’s automated time-based access has been a game-changer.”

Additionally, Risotto will also remind employees when their time-based access is about to expire. 

In the example below, Risotto tells Ethan that his Asana access will expire in 7 days.

Ethan then asks for an extension because he’s still working on his project, which Risotto grants immediately. Not only does this save time for human agents, but it also saves the employee the hassle of getting their access revoked and having to ask for it again.

Approval-Based Access

In this example, the employee requests access to Appetize.

Risotto then inquires about the level of access (Admin, Developer, or Appetize user). After the response, Risotto also asks for a quick reason, so it can log it into the ticket.

From here, Risotto automatically sends the approval along with the reason. Then, once it's approved, it gets back to the employee, letting them know to check their email for the invite.

When appropriate, Risotto always asks for reasoning, ensuring adherence to compliance. 

As Vergil Smith, IT Manager at Vidyard, stated: 

• “Our control for SOC 2 is that access to privileged systems is approved by a manager… Risotto is able to automate the approval process and ticket tracking portion which is exactly what we needed.” 
• “Sending a compliance report from Risotto with all of the tickets tagged correctly — that's so much easier, it's definitely made audits a far less stressful experience."

Self-Service Access

For low-risk applications, IT teams can have Risotto grant access immediately without review or manual intervention. As you can see in the example below, employees request access to Figma and Risotto immediately grants it (again, after asking for a reason). 

Based on pre-configured rules, Risotto also applies the right level of permissions (e.g., read-only or full access).

Benefit #2: Automate Knowledge-Based Questions 

As a true conversational AI IT ticket resolution platform, Risotto excels at providing intelligent, context-aware answers and solutions to knowledge questions (just like an experienced IT member would). It uses cutting-edge LLM reasoning to:

• Conduct multi-step troubleshooting and ask intelligent triage questions
• Adapt to unexpected responses (i.e., “That didn’t work. Now what?”)
• Analyze screenshots, so it doesn’t rely solely on text
• Synthesize information from multiple sources, like recent Slack updates, support tickets, and knowledge base articles

These capabilities enable companies to automate 20-60% of tier-1 support tickets, allowing human agents to focus on higher-impact work. This makes Risotto extremely valuable not just for setting up and managing software access but also for handling the plethora of knowledge base questions IT teams face.

In the next sections, we’ll explore examples of Risotto’s answer quality and ability to fully solve issues, instead of deflecting them.

❇️ Adapting to Context Changes  

In this example, an employee asks how they can get an employee badge:

Risotto provides a list of standard steps:

1. Requesting a new badge during onboarding
2. Picking up the badge once Facilities notifies them
3. Activating the badge (which is done by IT), so they’re tied to the employee profile

However, the employee clarifies: “I actually just need a temporary one, I left mine at home.” 

At this point, many standard solutions would either repeat the original instructions, send a knowledge base link, or escalate to a human agent. However, Risotto understands the context and solves the problem by saying: “If you forgot your badge at home, you can stop by the reception desk to pick up a temporary badge for the day.”

❇️ Analyzing Screenshots & Previous Tickets to Provide a Current Solution

In this example, an employee uploads an image saying that the admin app is loading a blank page:

Risotto analyzes the image and determines that there are multiple potential causes for the issue. From here, our AI agent asks a clarifying question: “Can you confirm you logged into our VPN with Okta Verify?”.

The employee confirms they have a VPN on and asks if they need another app. Once Risotto understands that, it offers another solution in the form of switching the “away” status. This demonstrates Risotto’s ability to analyze screenshots, utilize previous tickets and conversations, find how other employees solved the problem, and offer the solution going forward.

❇️ Performing Intelligent, Multi-Step Triage

In the scenario below, Andrew asks: "I'm in the conference room having trouble with the camera. Can you help?"

Risotto performs triage exactly how an experienced IT agent would by asking: “Can you please tell me which conference room you are in?”. This ensures that it can provide the right instructions, based on the different configurations across various conference rooms and camera setups.

After Andrew’s answer, Risotto can provide a context-aware response: 

“The USB camera labelled “AV1 in conference room B sometimes has a poor connection. Please try these steps to fix the problem:

1. Confirm that the camera’s USB is plugged into the correct USB port (it should be labelled AV1). 
2. Try unplugging the camera’s USB cable and plugging it back into the AV1 port. 
3. Restart your meeting session (on Zoom or Teams) and check if the camera works after rejoining. 
4. If none of the above works, unplug the camera's power cable and plug it back in, and then try again [1] [2].” 

After solving the issue successfully, Risotto automatically marks the ticket as resolved (IT agents can also manually mark incoming tickets as closed using the ✅ emoji).

❇️ Recognizing When an Issue Is Beyond Its Abilities and Learning From the Solution

In certain cases, Risotto simply isn’t able to answer a question or solve a problem based on the available information. When that happens, instead of getting stuck or providing links to generic knowledge base articles, Risotto intelligently escalates the request to the relevant IT agent in Slack. 

It does that while considering who’s the most qualified agent in the department (based on the history of previous tickets) and the specific issue type.

When escalating the problem, Risotto also adds the available contextual information, such as the original question, the conversation history, and its troubleshooting attempts:

This makes it much easier for the human agent, as they don’t have to find and sift through tickets and Slack conversations manually.

Lastly, the human agent’s answer can easily be turned into a KB article via the ✍️ emoji. Again, Risotto learns from the answer and uses it to inform its answers in the future.

Benefit #3: Simple Setup & Slack-Native Design

Risotto was designed from the ground up to operate entirely in Slack, and we offer pre-built IGA automation workflows. As a result, it’s ready to use from day one in hours — no need to wait weeks or months before experiencing the benefits of our platform. 

As several customers have mentioned:

“Ease of deployment was huge. We didn’t need a consultant or months of configuration. Risotto just worked.”
– Peter Hadjisavas, Head of IT at Hazel Health

‍“The speed and simplicity of Risotto’s setup was a great sign that we had made a good decision.”
– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise

"Risotto had the most thorough onboarding experience I've ever been a part of. Alex was great - he met with us weekly and made it very easy to quickly get up and running."
– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman

Benefit #4: Multi-Department by Design

As with most IGA and IT support solutions, IT teams are the first to adopt Risotto. Our platform is designed to address their specific needs, but it’s also a fantastic option for other departments looking to automate repetitive tasks, especially knowledge-based questions.

For example, HR teams are a very common adopter, while Sales and Legal teams also frequently express interest in Risotto. (At the same time, we don’t charge extra fees for each department using Risotto, which makes it an even more attractive option).

Besides the obvious benefits for each team, the multi-department setup allows Risotto to:

• Intelligently route tickets to the correct department and person in Slack, leading to significant time savings. 
• Offer each department the flexibility to customize their own settings, like maintaining separate knowledge bases. 
• Leverage our built-in ticketing functionality, ideal for non-IT departments who need a lean, simple solution. 

Book a Demo Call with Our Team

To experience Risotto in action, we invite you to schedule a demo. 

Or, if you want to learn more about our company and product in general, we encourage you to:

• Read our origin story
• Explore all customer stories

2. Torii

Torii is a comprehensive SaaS management platform that helps organizations gain visibility and control over their software ecosystem. It enables IT, finance, and security teams to discover all applications in use and optimize software spend. Teams can also use it to:

• Manage renewals
• Automate user onboarding and offboarding processes
• Streamline workflows to reduce manual work and improve operational efficiency

Overall, the platform offers real-time app discovery and provides insights into license utilization, allowing teams to reclaim unused licenses and eliminate redundant subscriptions. Torii also facilitates secure access reviews and compliance audits, ensuring that only authorized users have access to critical applications.

3. Zylo

Zylo is an enterprise-grade SaaS management platform that helps teams optimize their software investments through AI-powered discovery, license management, and renewal oversight. It provides a comprehensive view of all applications, usage, and spend, enabling IT, procurement, and software asset management teams to reduce waste and mitigate risk.

The platform's discovery engine identifies and categorizes every SaaS application in use, providing insights into spending patterns and potential redundancies. Zylo's license management tools track entitlements and adoption, allowing organizations to reclaim unused licenses and consolidate their software stack. 

Additionally, its renewal management features provide timely alerts and benchmark data to negotiate favorable terms and avoid unexpected costs.

4. Productiv

Productiv is a platform designed to help organizations manage their entire SaaS and AI ecosystem. It can connect key systems without the need for developer intervention and provide complete visibility into every application, user, and dollar spent across the organization.

Productiv identifies duplicate tools, uncovers shadow IT, and highlights underutilized or AI-enabled features, giving teams actionable insights into usage patterns and opportunities to optimize their software portfolio. 

It also helps control spending by monitoring renewals, benchmarking costs, and identifying immediate savings, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions rather than relying on intuition. Lastly, the platform supports workflow automation for tasks such as provisioning, approvals, license assignments, and renewal management.

5. BetterCloud

BetterCloud is a SaaS lifecycle management platform for IT teams. It provides centralized visibility into all applications, users, and activity, giving organizations the ability to streamline operations, reduce costs, and strengthen security. 

IT teams can use the platform to automate repetitive tasks, manage user lifecycles, enforce compliance, and gain insights into app usage across the business.

BetterCloud also helps identify unused or duplicate licenses, control shadow IT, and reclaim costs tied to underutilized software. For companies using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, it adds powerful automation and granular governance tools that simplify management at scale.

6. CloudEagle

CloudEagle is an AI-powered platform that helps organizations manage their SaaS ecosystem. It offers visibility into SaaS usage, spend, contracts, licenses, and shadow IT. CloudEagle also enables companies to reduce waste and cut costs significantly by automatically identifying duplicate or underused applications.

The platform streamlines processes like onboarding, offboarding, procurement, and renewals by using AI to extract contract details and trigger proactive renewal alerts. It also offers a library of over 500 integrations across SSO, finance, HR, collaboration, and IT systems to connect into existing workflows.

7. SailPoint

SailPoint is a leading identity security platform that helps organizations manage and secure access to critical data and applications. It provides a comprehensive solution for identity governance, ensuring that the right individuals have the appropriate access to resources while maintaining security and compliance.

The platform offers a range of key features, including:

• Policy enforcement
• Access certifications
• Automated provisioning and deprovisioning of user accounts

SailPoint also supports both human and machine identities, enabling organizations to manage access across a diverse set of users and systems. Lastly, the platform integrates with existing IT infrastructure and applications for a unified approach to identity security.

8. Okta

Okta is an enterprise-grade, all-in-one identity and access management (IAM) service. It’s designed to help organizations connect employees, customers, partners, and AI agents to the right tools and resources securely and efficiently. Okta also helps businesses adopt various technologies without being locked into a single vendor.

The Okta Identity Platform supports both workforce and customer identity needs, offering features like:

• Threat detection
• Privileged access
• Identity governance
• Identity management
• Single sign-on (SSO) 
• Adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA)

The Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0, provides fine-grained authorization and dynamic access controls tailored to modern applications and APIs.

See Risotto in Action

Risotto is an AI-powered IT support platform that can help you manage identities and application access right inside your help desk using natural language. Unlike Lumos, Risotto doesn’t force employees to use a separate app. Instead, they simply ask for help in Slack, and our platform solves their issues automatically (or escalates them to the right people).

Thanks to these capabilities, as well as cutting-edge LLM reasoning, auto-learning from past conversations, and integrations with ticketing systems, Risotto automates up to 40% of tier-1 requests.

Schedule a demo call today to see how Risotto can transform your internal support.