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AWS CloudTrail vs CyberArk Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS CloudTrail
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the User Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of AWS CloudTrail is 6.8%, down from 13.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 20.2%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadMuhammad - PeerSpot reviewer
There is no downtime and administration is very simple
The setup experience was very bad. Initially, when we began migrating our teams and configuring systems like AWS CloudTrail, we encountered some complications. Understanding the administration and navigating access loops resulted in numerous emails. However, after three or four years of experience, we understand the platform. Five to seven people including support are required for deployment. I rate the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.
Lasantha Wijesinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
We have visibility and control through real-time user behavior analytics
It took us some time to realize its benefits because there was a learning curve for us. It took us about a year to get our heads around this product and start effectively using it. It is a journey. It takes at least five years for any company to make this product very useful and reach maturity. It is not only the product's fault. The company needs to have a vision, and the company culture needs to go with it. Senior leadership needs to support the vision. You need to have lots of ingredients for success. If everything is in place, you will see success after one year. In the first year, it is a struggle for everybody. My company was bought by a bigger company, and they were very new to privileged access management. Everybody was struggling. The advice I would give is to have a good vision for privileged access management. You need dedicated teams, senior management support, and proper company policies and standards before implementing the solution. Start building knowledge slowly and avoid jumping into the deep end without preparation. I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product’s most valuable feature is monitoring. It helps us audit the changes in AWS account at the application and resource level."
"AWS CloudTrail helps in accelerating incident investigation and response. It increases it because I pull out the logs to CloudTrail, and from CloudTrail watch, I'll send it to the Security Hub and do a visualization with Prometheus and Grafana."
"AWS CloudTrail integrates with AWS Config and provides custom event, security, and compliance auditing."
"The management events and CloudTrail Insights are valuable."
"What I found most valuable in AWS CloudTrail is that it provides a good context of what's happening in the environment, so it's an excellent way to baseline what's occurring. I also like that AWS CloudTrail helps with audits."
"The solution is good as a central logging platform for showing all cloud events."
"From a scalability point of view, the tool has no issue, and it is completely fine."
"It is a stable solution. AWS handles it well."
"Our privileged accounts are now stored in a more secure location and lateral movement within the network have been lessened."
"We are able to rotate privileged user passwords to eliminate fraudulent use."
"CyberArk has resulted in a massive increase in our security footprint."
"The accounts are maintained automatically. Hence, resource and administration costs are less."
"Technical support is very helpful whenever we have any questions."
"Rather than multiple tools for maintaining regulatory compliance around passwords and privileged accounts, we have centralized as much as possible with CyberArk. This is now a one stop shop for end users to access their elevated credentials."
"We utilize PTA, and we are now integrating that into our risk management program so we can identify the uses of the vault which are outside of the norm, e.g., people accessing after hours. It has reduced the amount of time that we are looking through logs and audit logs."
"It takes people out of the machine work of ensuring credentials remain up-to-date, and handles connection brokering such that human usage and credential management remain independent."
 

Cons

"The product's initial setup phase is not pretty straightforward."
"Maybe if we could do direct queries on CloudTrail without needing to export it to Athena, that'd be great."
"The platform’s reporting log sheet feature could be more user-friendly."
"I have not experienced any challenges while using it."
"More controls should be introduced in CloudTrail, especially to see the logs in CloudTrail itself without saving them in S3, as S3 starts to incur charges."
"The solution's operation visibility could be improved."
"Once the organization defines its policies, it must immediately enable AWS CloudTrail and integrate it with auto-remediation procedures using Lambda functions. This ensures that the main administrator can receive information quickly and on time without delay."
"Filtering multiple values within the console is a feature that has yet to exist in AWS CloudTrail. You can look up a user identity, service, or action, but you can't search for multiple dimensions."
"The lead product has a slow process. There are some reports and requirements from CyberArk which are not readily available as an applicable solution. We have made consistent management requests in the logs."
"The price is high compared to Azure Key Vault. It's the most expensive solution."
"There is a bit of a learning curve, but it's a pretty complex solution."
"Online help needs to be looked into with live agent support."
"I don't know if "failed authentication" is a glitch or if that was an update... However, since we are the CyberArk support within our organization, we need to know that the password is suspended and we won't know that unless we have the ITA log up. So when a user calls and says, "Hey, I'm locked out of CyberArk, I can't get into CyberArk," we have to go through all of these other troubleshooting steps because the first thing we don't think of right now is, "The account is suspended." It doesn't say that anymore."
"Areas the product could be improved are in some of the reporting capabilities and how the reports are configured."
"What could be improved in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the licensing model. It should be more flexible in terms of the users. Currently, it's based on the number of users, but many users only log in once in four months or once in five months. It would be great if the licensing model could be modified based on user needs. We even have users who have not logged in even once."
"The turnaround time for technical support is lengthy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free if you don't need customizations but is not expensive otherwise."
"AWS CloudTrail is pretty affordable, and I have to double-check, but the service is free to use. I can add logs on the console, but if I want to store logs long-term, then I have to pay a storage fee, but it's relatively inexpensive."
"CloudTrail itself is free of cost."
"It is a very cheap service because management is a SaaS offering from AWS."
"AWS CloudTrail is a cheap solution."
"AWS CloudTrail is free."
"I would rate the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager seven out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"It is not a cheap solution. It is expensive as compared with other solutions. However, it is one of the best solutions in their domain."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is perceived to be somewhat overpriced compared to similar market products. It is a little bit overvalued. It could come down a little bit for my liking. However, the industry-leading reputation and the quality of service justify the high price point to some extent."
"CyberArk is very expensive and there are additional fees for add-ons."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution is available at a high price"
"The main problem for the tool is its licensing. I work for a really big company. When you try to develop this as a service, usually you work with leverage teams who are formed with dozens of members. You might dedicate one FTE, or less, for something, e.g., an antivirus administrator. You might have half an FTE's effort dedicated to administering the antivirus, but then you have a team of about 30 users who might access that ticket. The problem is that CyberArk eliminated the possibility of concurrent users years ago. This is a big problem for companies who work with leverage teams. You need to pay for everyone. 40 licenses are used by 20 or 30 people. This is a big problem because licenses are not precisely cheap."
"Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
34%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS CloudTrail?
In one specific scenario, we encountered a situation where a terminated employee still had access to our environment without our knowledge. With AWS CloudTrail, we could track and monitor the emplo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudTrail?
The cost depends on the volume of logs generated from various services. So, depending on how many logs are gathered, it could vary from being cheap to expensive.
What needs improvement with AWS CloudTrail?
Right now, AWS CloudTrail is perfect. I have not experienced any challenges while using it.
How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What do you like most about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution are control and analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
I focus more on the technical side, but I hear customers say that if CyberArk was more affordable, they might have acquired more licenses. Some clients consider alternative solutions due to pricing...
 

Also Known As

CloudTrail
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HTC, British Gas, Solinor, 2C2P
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudTrail vs. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
839,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.