11 min readActive Directory auditing tools are designed to gather, structure, and retain security logs, track every change made in AD, and notify you if something seems unusual. This could be things like group memberships changing or multiple invalid logins from a single account.
Not all auditing tools are equal however. Some are more geared towards depth of forensic visibility, while others are speedy and easy to use. The best experience often combines some enterprise-level monitoring solutions with more lightweight free utilities focused on making day-to-day admin work easier.
In this article, we’ll discuss 20 of the most valuable Active Directory auditing tools in 2025, both free and paid. We’ll also explore the features, capabilities and USPs of all 20 tools.
List of 20 Best AD Auditing Tools
Below is the list of 20 best Active Directory Auditing paid and free tools:
- Lepide Auditor for Active Directory
- Netwrix Auditor
- ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
- SolarWinds Access Rights Manager
- Lepide Change Reporter for Active Directory (Free Tool)
- Quest Change Auditor for Active Director
- Lepide Account Lockout Examiner (Free Tool)
- Specops Password Auditor (Free Tool)
- Lepide Inactive Users Reporter (Free Tool)
- AD Tidy
- Lepide AD Users with Admin Privileges (Free Tool)
- Semperis Directory Services Protector
- Lepide AD User Account Status (Free Tool)
- EventSentry
- Varonis DatAdvantage
- Graylog
- BeyondTrust AD Bridge
- Netikus EventReporter
- Softerra Adaxes
- Purple Knight by Semperis (Free Tool)
1. Lepide Auditor for Active Directory
Lepide Auditor for Active Directory is a complete solution for auditing and monitoring Active Directory changes. It focuses on complete auditing of user behavior, permissions, group memberships, and more.
The platform takes raw event logs and converts them into easy-to-read, contextual information. Dashboards indicate who changed what, when, and from where, which means instant visibility without needing to dig into complicated logs.
Key Features:
- Access real-time change tracking of users, groups, permissions and GPOs
- Spot misconfigurations like inactive users, passwords that never expire, etc
- Detailed visibility into admin users and how they are getting access
- Receive real-time alerts for specific actions, such as escalations of privileges or deletions
- Generate audit-ready reports for GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, PCI-DSS, and more
- Analyze behavior to identify internal threats
- Access from a web-based console with delegation access controls
Many tools report on an event; Lepide gives you all the information you could ever need to understand and secure your Active Directory.
2. Netwrix Auditor
Netwrix Auditor is aimed at advanced change auditing and compliance. It will track changes, configuration, and access in Active Directory (AD). It retains a complete history of user activities and configuration changes for months or years after the fact for forensic investigations.
Key Features:
- Advanced change tracking
- Log retention and fast search functionality
- Instant alerts for security-sensitive events
- User behavior and risk scoring
- Out-of-the-box reports for compliance
Netwrix is well known for its mature reporting module and can scale with large environments. Implementation and configuration is often a slow process, but is most valuable when being driven by compliance regulations.
3. ManageEngine ADAudit Plus
ManageEngine ADAudit Plus provides broad visibility across logins, GPOs, and AD objects. It can monitor user activity in real-time and generate scheduled reports for audits.
Key Features:
- Track user logon/logoff activity, account management and permission adjustments
- Custom alerting and scheduled reporting
- Thorough GPO change auditing
- Integrations with SIEM tools
While ADAudit Plus has a low learning curve for end-users, the software itself has a much broader functionality. This makes it a good fit for IT teams that would benefit from solid alerting and reporting capabilities, but might not require in-depth behavioral analytics.
4. SolarWinds Access Rights Manager
SolarWinds ARM is devoted to access rights visualization and management, including permission auditing, access activity monitoring, and user provisioning and deprovisioning automation.
Key features:
- Permission mapping AD
- Automated user lifecycle management
- Access reviews based on roles
- Predefined compliance reports
For organizations with high compliance mandates, ARM eases the review process and ensures accounts do not keep unnecessary access rights.
5. Lepide Change Reporter for Active Directory (Free Tool)
This free tool monitors every adjustment in your AD environment, user adds, removals, adjustments, and GPO changes. It provides coordinate snapshots before and after a change event with the ability to export the records for audit or investigatory purposes.
Key Features:
- Tracks modifications to users, groups, group memberships, organizational units, permissions, and other AD objects.
- Transforms raw logs into meaningful, actionable information, reducing unnecessary data clutter.
- Provides predefined reports and an intuitive radar tab for tracking changes effectively.
- Simplifies installation, configuration, and usage, making it accessible for administrators.
Ideal for smaller environments or IT administrators who simply need a practical way to track AD changes without the deployment for an entire platform.
6. Quest Change Auditor for Active Directory
Quest’s solution provides real-time change tracking and centralized auditing for AD, Exchange, and Windows systems. It focuses on forensic-level detail and accountability.
Key features:
- Instant alerts for unauthorized or high-risk changes
- Full audit trails for compliance
- SIEM integration
- Visual reporting dashboards
Quest excels at scalability and granular tracking, though it’s more resource-intensive than some peers.
7. Lepide Account Lockout Examiner (Free Tool)
Account lockouts are prevalent and represent wasted effort to diagnose. This tool identifies the specific computer, service, or process that resulted in the lockout.
Key Features:
- Tracks the source of account lockouts
- Works across domains
- Delivers instant insights enabling user unlocks faster
It saves helpdesk teams lots of time by accurately identifying causes instead of stressing over guesses, especially for more robust environments with users moving throughout.
8. Specops Password Auditor (Free Tool)
This free tool reviews your AD to identify weak, non-compliant, or breached passwords, comparing them to well-known compromised databases.
Key features:
- Identify weak or duplicate passwords
- Flag accounts with breached credentials
- Audit accounts for compliance against your password policy
This is a simple but effective addition for teams working on improving authentication hygiene.
9. Lepide Inactive Users Reporter (Free Tool)
This is a specialized free tool to identify users that might be enabled but are inactive. These are common entry points for attackers. This free tool will give you a great starting point into your AD security journey.
Key Features:
- Identifies stale or inactive user account
- Allows easy export for cleanup
- Allows custom inactivity threshold
Good AD hygiene starts with cleaning up inactive users. This free tool will help you do that job.
10. AD Tidy
AD Tidy is a user-friendly tool designed to identify and clean up inactive or misconfigured user and computer accounts in your Active Directory environment. It helps maintain a secure and organized directory by allowing administrators to perform various actions on these accounts
Key Features:
- Identifies inactive or disabled accounts
- Detects permission changes and risky configurations
- Generates reports for review
- Supports AD hygiene and compliance
The tool helps IT teams quickly spot stale accounts or risky settings before they become a security problem. Its clear reporting makes cleanup and ongoing AD maintenance much easier.
11. Lepide AD Users with Admin Privileges (Free Tool)
This is a free tool that scans your AD and lists all users with administrator rights, including domain admins and enterprise admins.
Key Features:
- Reports users with elevated privileges
- Support least-privilege principles
- Data can be exported for compliance audits
Knowing your admin users is an important first step towards zero trust and limiting permissions sprawl.
12. Semperis Directory Services Protector
Semperis DSP is designed to detect, protect, and recover from AD attacks. It monitors continuously for risky changes and can automatically roll back changes if corruption occurs.
Key features:
- Continuous monitoring of replication
- Immediate rollback of anything malicious
- Hybrid AD coverage
It is particularly useful for disaster recovery and remediation after an attack.
13. Lepide AD User Account Status (Free Tool)
This free tool organizes the status of each account, whether the account is active, locked, disabled, expired, or if the password has expired.
Key Features:
- View all account statuses
- Filter and Export capabilities
- Assist in cleaning up disabled or expired users
Great for periodic audit and HR reconciliation.
14. EventSentry
EventSentry aggregates and correlates event logs across Windows systems, including AD-related events.
Key Features:
- Real-time log analysis.
- Performance and uptime monitoring.
- Security and compliance alerts.
It merges system health checks with auditing for a more comprehensive view of IT operations.
15. Varonis DatAdvantage
With Varonis, you can connect AD data to file access analytics that displays who has access to what, and whether or not they should.
Key Features:
- Tracking of data access and scoring of risk
- Recommended permissions cleanup
- Detection of insider threats in real-time.
Varonis is appropriate for organizations that consider AD a component of a larger data security platform.
16. Graylog
Graylog is an open-source logging platform that analyzes logs, collects them, and parsing AD event logs.
Key Features:
- Centralized Log Aggregation
- Custom Dashboards
- Alerting through rules or thresholds
Graylog is a solid solution for teams who are working predominantly on Linux or want the benefits of open-source flexibility.
17. BeyondTrust AD Bridge
This tool extends AD authentication and auditing to Linux and Unix systems.
Key Features:
- Platform-wide identity management that is consistent
- Thorough record-keeping of all activities and access
- Role-based access management
It is helpful in environments with a variety of operating systems that require uniform identity governance.
18. Netikus EventReporter
EventReporter forwards Windows Event Logs, including AD events, to a central server or SIEM.
Key Features:
- Effective and lightweight
- Syslog output is supported
- Connects to outside analysis tools
With little system overhead, it’s perfect for creating custom log pipelines.
19. Softerra Adaxes
Adaxes provides audit logs for each modification made via its console and automates AD tasks.
Key Features:
- Workflows for automated provisioning
- Delegated Administration
- Modify the approval and logging procedures
It is suitable for businesses seeking both accountability and automation.
20. Purple Knight by Semperis (Free Tool)
Purple Knight scans your AD environment and reports misconfigurations, privilege issues, and exposure points.
Key Features:
- Risk-scoring AD security evaluation
- Examines more than 70 known AD flaws
- Quick, no-install implementation
Before implementing a complete audit solution, it’s an excellent first step for identifying risks.
Conclusion
Active Directory auditing is now a crucial component of how contemporary businesses preserve control and safeguard identity. With clear visibility into every change, login, and permission, IT teams can detect risks early and maintain compliance without slowing operations.
The right auditing setup turns scattered log data into clear insight. It enables you to understand who uses your directory, how it works, and when something appears unusual. That degree of awareness is essential for true security in a world where identity attacks are becoming more frequent.
FAQs
Q- What are Active Directory auditing tools and why are they important?
Ans- An Active Directory auditing tool tracks every change made to your AD, who did it, what was changed, when, and from where. It helps detect misconfigurations, permission misuse, and unusual activity before they turn into security incidents. These tools are key for compliance, accountability, and stopping identity-based attacks early.
Q- What key features should I look for in an Active Directory auditing tool?
Ans- Locate the options for live change tracking, easy reporting, and alerts for high-risk actions such as privilege escalation, account deletion, and so on. It’s also helpful to have SIEM platform integrations, role-based access, and built-in compliance reports (for instance, GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, etc.), to manage visibility and control long term.
Q- Can Active Directory auditing tools detect insider threats or privilege misuse?
Ans- Yes. A variety of tools can identify risky actions like login access at unusual times, access to sensitive groups, or permission change alerts. These tools can analyze user behaviors and correlate actions across multiple systems to help identify insider misuse before a breach occurs.
Q- Do AD auditing tools support hybrid environments (on-prem + Azure AD)?
Ans- Many modern auditing tools now extend their capabilities to hybrid environments. They track changes across on-premises Active Directory and Azure AD, providing a single reporting and alerting mechanism enabling IT teams to monitor both environments from a single dashboard.
Q- What are some common challenges when implementing AD auditing tools?
Ans- Common challenges include managing log volume, tuning alerts to avoid noise, and balancing visibility with privacy. Deployment can also be tricky in large or complex AD environments, especially if there’s no clear baseline for normal behavior. Starting with a clear scope and phased rollout helps make the process smoother.
