Azure Key Vault vs BeyondTrust Password Safe comparison

Microsoft and BeyondTrust are both solutions in the Enterprise Password Managers category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while BeyondTrust is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 27.6% mindshare in EPM, compared to BeyondTrust’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of BeyondTrust users who would recommend it.

Azure Key Vault

Read 45 Azure Key Vault reviews

19,757 Views
14,001 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

BeyondTrust Password Safe

Read 22 BeyondTrust Password Safe reviews

2,489 Views
1,655 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Azure Key Vault

BeyondTrust Password Safe

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

BeyondTrust Password Safe and Azure Key Vault both compete in the security tools category, offering features for protecting sensitive information. Password Safe has the upper hand with its strong automated account onboarding and session management, while Azure Key Vault shines with seamless Azure ecosystem integration.

Features: BeyondTrust Password Safe is noted for enterprise-focused features such as session recording, password rotation, and Smart Rules for efficient asset management. It automates account onboarding, making management efficient while ensuring strong compliance. Azure Key Vault offers secure storage and access to keys and certificates with high scalability, making it ideal for DevOps environments and simplifying identity management within Azure.

Room for Improvement: BeyondTrust Password Safe could enhance its documentation and integration capabilities, which some find complex and slow. Users have expressed concerns over RDP access, Smart Rules complexity, and database onboarding. Azure Key Vault could improve key rotation and integration with non-Microsoft services. Affordability and easing use for simpler deployments are also areas where users see room for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BeyondTrust Password Safe often requires on-premises or hybrid cloud deployment, demanding technical expertise but is backed by responsive customer service. Azure Key Vault benefits from a public cloud-centric deployment, offering simpler integration with Azure services and generally good support, though users occasionally desire better responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: BeyondTrust Password Safe offers competitive pricing based on managed assets, viewed by many as more affordable than competitors like CyberArk, providing a strong ROI. Azure Key Vault's pay-as-you-go model often results in lower costs, specifically for Azure ecosystem users, but can be perceived as high depending on key management needs, affecting ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Key Vault vs. BeyondTrust Password Safe Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Key Vault vs. BeyondTrust Password Safe

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Azure Key Vault

Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Certificate Management Software (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (14th)

BeyondTrust Password Safe

Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Privileged Access Management (PAM) (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of Azure Key Vault is 27.6%, down from 29.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BeyondTrust Password Safe is 3.7%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Password Managers

Featured Reviews

Mayur B N

Engineer at Blueocean

Offers good integration capabilities to its users

I use the tool to manage encryption keys and secrets in our application. In our company's production environment, we have some secrets and certificates that need to be accessed by the Kubernetes cluster, which is why we store those secrets in Azure Key Vault. In Kubernetes, we have a SecretProviderClass, which helps us access those keys from Azure Key Vault and then give them to our applications. Speaking about how Azure Key Vault plays a crucial role in our company's security strategy, in Kubernetes, you have to define environment variables for the application. In my company, we have around 60 to 70 environment variables, and most of them are sensitive. In Kubernetes, you define YAML files, and you can't directly use any values in YAML files and commit them to the GitHub commit because you will basically see the text values in YAML files. Instead, we store it in Azure Key Vault and then access those keys and values as variables for our company's applications. In terms of the benefits of cryptographic key management features, I would say that my company has used only the secret option in the tool, so we haven't checked out the keys and certificates. In my company, we just store key-value pairs for variables in Azure Key Vault. The product's integration capabilities are good. The tool has a pretty good firewall, which allows my company to access only private networks and certain IP addresses. Everything else is good with the product. My company doesn't use the policies in the product since we rely on roles and role assignments. One person is enough to take care of the maintenance of the solution. The product helps my company comply with the industry regulations since I believe that Azure Key Vault has its own set of SLAs and compliances, which we have gone through. I think Azure has some default compliance for each and every resource, which would be enough considering that I work in a very small organization where we didn't think of going into the details related to it. Azure is a very good platform, but it is a bit expensive. I think the price is justified because of the reduced complexity and the way it handles things, considering that Azure manages certain things better than its competitors. The tool is a bit expensive, but the management and configurations would be less expensive from the user's side. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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Vinay Dabas

Senior Sales Engineer at ForgeRock

Allows us to automatically rotate passwords, set the complexity, and enforce password policies on privileged accounts

The database instance onboarding should be simplified. The problem is that you can scan the assets and databases inside a server, but you cannot onboard them or manage them with the smart tools. It has to be done manually. I think they should try to include more custom platforms. With the databases, there were some issues. The databases are inside the servers, and it was a bit difficult to scan the databases. Apart from that, the rest of the assets were easy to scan and integrate. It's difficult to onboard the database. You can scan and find them, but you have to onboard the databases manually. You cannot onboard databases using Smart Rules databases. Database instances are difficult to onboard and must be done manually. The applications should be more like in the SDK. They have good API support now.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the search for secrets feature that we use to store our passwords and connection strings."

"The centralized storage and secure storage are features we like."

"This solution speeds up the product development life cycle. That is, the time from the development of the product to the time to market is drastically reduced because of the CI/CD pipelines. You can have your code deployed within a matter of minutes."

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Key Vault are the security and convenience of changing passwords in multiple places."

"The product’s advantageous feature is integration."

"The product's integration capabilities are good."

"A high level of security."

"I am satisfied with the product overall."

More Azure Key Vault pros

"It provides integrated password and session management in one solution, which is important for us because, from an auditing standpoint, we are accountable for the type of access being used. We need to ensure that accounts are securely stored and there is the right type of accountability around who is gaining the access. After gaining it, how they're using it, where they're using it, etc."

"It simplifies your compliance and tracking to benchmark other credentials and analytics."

"The ability to manage privileged account passwords is the most valuable feature."

"BeyondTrust Password Safe is a good PAM tool."

"Its number one feature is discovery. The discovery engine in BeyondTrust is off the charts. When they perform a discovery, you know everything there is about a server, including what software is installed. For example, if you want to group all of your database servers together, you can do that by using discovery and Smart Rules. If a server has Microsoft SQL installed, it gets put into a group based on a Smart Rule. It makes it very easy to determine what is what in your environment. As organizations grow or acquire other companies and merge, they lose track of what they have. BeyondTrust can help you throw a rope around it very rapidly."

"Session recording, password rotation, and password vaulting are the most valuable features."

"BeyondTrust Password Safe has good reporting and Smart Rules which makes it convenient. Though Smart Rules are convenient, those who do not have much experience with such things may find it difficult to understand how these things work. Otherwise, I find Smart Rules very convenient to work with."

"The actual innovations offered by the vendor stand out to me. They are quick to respond to market demands and the changing environment of privileged access management."

More BeyondTrust Password Safe pros

Cons

"The big problem with Azure Key Vault is key rotation. We haven't found a good way to synchronize the credentials between the databases and Key Vault."

"The voucher access policy can be improved by configuring it based on groups, rather than just applications or users."

"Currently, our company has to add the secrets manually, one by one, in Azure Key Vault, which is a tedious process."

"One of my previous clients was one of the big banks here in the Netherlands and the EU courts have stated that Microsoft Azure Key Vault is not, according to their perspective, secure due to the fact that Microsoft has access to Key Vault."

"If you check the capabilities of other key management services across Amazon, HashiCorp, and Google, there are features that Key Vault doesn't have. It could be the case that when you use Key Vault, you might be forced to use a third-party solution to get certain services. If those services could be included in Key Vault, there would be diminished reasons to go for a third-party key management system."

"The solution needs to improve its cost."

"We've experienced issues with configuration."

"The solution needs to improve reliability and protection."

More Azure Key Vault cons

"Its documentation can be improved. Its documentation is currently complicated, and it is not good. It needs to be better. Their technical support can also be improved. It is not bad, but it can be better."

"There are multiple features that have issues, although they could be specific to our environment. What we have seen is that whenever a user gets added to the authentication store, the sync between Password Safe and the authentication store, which is generally easy, takes a lot of time. It does not occur immediately."

"The only feature they could improve is the banners because they aren't informative. For example, if something is not correct and I open the error notification, the dialogue box simply says, "This is an error." It would be great if they could provide some valuable comments about how to fix the errors."

"We'd like to have incremental backups to ensure the solution's information is protected regularly."

"The initial server implementation tasks could be easier to process."

"If there was one thing, it would be having the documentation standardized. They should keep the documentation consistent. For example, when BeyondTrust updated one of their admin guides, they left out the information on the discovery account requirements, and then over a period of time, we ended up having to search multiple different documents to put together a string of information for a specific topic, which was problematic. It was minor, but it was problematic. Standardized documentation would be the one thing I would suggest."

"Documentation is the primary area of improvement."

"Named accounts don't work well in this solution. If you use named accounts for your administrative access, the way Smart Rules work is that it takes your SAM account name and matches it to the account name of your privileged ID, which creates limitations on size and how big those names can be because the directory has a 20-character limit."

More BeyondTrust Password Safe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find the pricing of Azure Key Vault to be reasonable."

"Azure is cheaper than CyberArk... CyberArk is good, but it's quite expensive."

"There are no extra costs beyond the standard fees, beyond maybe data transfer charges. It's $0.025 per 10,000 data transactions, so it is quite cheap."

"The cost of the Azure Key Vault is very high and the pricing model is based on the number of keys that you store and retrieve."

"The product is neither cheap nor expensive."

"We use a pay-as-you-go license for the solution, which is not very expensive."

"The product costs much less compared to other vendors."

"Azure Key Vault is an affordable solution."

More Azure Key Vault pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of BeyondTrust is very good as compared to other products. That was the main reason we decided to go with BeyondTrust at first."

"It has subscription-based licensing. BeyondTrust is three times less expensive than CyberArk."

"The pricing structure is better than the competitors. It's much cheaper than CyberArk. They do the licensing on the basis of assets, not on the number of users. For CyberArk, they base the licensing on the number of users, and they have an expensive model of pricing. BeyondTrust has a cheaper model."

"The product is quite affordable."

"At the time, BeyondTrust was significantly cheaper than CyberArk. Pricing-wise, if I remember correctly, it goes by assets. The pricing was negotiated for our instances based on the number of assets that we onboard into the system. It is a little different from CyberArk, where the pricing is by users. So, it depends. If you have a lot of assets, it can get very expensive."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"This solution is not cheap—it's a very expensive solution. Very, very expensive compared to the features and functions that they offer."

"When you buy Password Safe and perform your initial Discovery, you have all these servers that are added to your assets in BeyondTrust, but you're not using a license until you actually start managing the systems. BeyondTrust's licensing is based on the systems when they're managed, which means when an administrator is able to connect to the server through BeyondTrust with a managed account. There would be a privileged account on the endpoint when the licensing starts. A significant advantage to that is that there are many organizations that want to evaluate their environment prior to automatic management."

More BeyondTrust Password Safe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Azure Key Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?

Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution. You can easily store passwords and secrets securely and encrypt them. Azure Key Vault is a great solution to ensure you are compliant with security and governanc...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Key Vault?

With Azure Key Vault, we can generate our own keys and then import them inside the system, which provides a higher level of security than provider-managed keys.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Key Vault?

Azure Key Vault is a very, very expensive solution. Currently, the solution's pricing is based on the number of transactions, which is very high in some cases.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BeyondTrust Password Safe?

The pricing model is more affordable with the option of going for either unlimited devices or users. It is cost-effective compared to other solutions.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BeyondTrust Password Safe?

As of today, I haven't found any issues. Adding user behavior analysis to the server or messaging would be beneficial. This would help in identifying suspicious activities immediately when users lo...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for BeyondTrust Password Safe?

Our customers are looking for a product that offers provisioning in their network, and for that reason, they choose BeyondTrust Password Safe.

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Secrets Manager vs Azure Key Vault

Compared 55% of the time

HashiCorp Vault vs Azure Key Vault

Compared 12% of the time

AWS Certificate Manager vs Azure Key Vault

Compared 5% of the time

1Password vs Azure Key Vault

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Azure Key Vault

Compared 2% of the time

More Azure Key Vault Competitors

HashiCorp Vault vs BeyondTrust Password Safe

Compared 17% of the time

Delinea Secret Server vs BeyondTrust Password Safe

Compared 15% of the time

LastPass vs BeyondTrust Password Safe

Compared 11% of the time

BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs BeyondTrust Password Safe

Compared 9% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs BeyondTrust Password Safe

Compared 7% of the time

More BeyondTrust Password Safe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Key Vault

December 2024

Download Azure Key Vault product report

Buyer's Guide

BeyondTrust Password Safe

December 2024

Download BeyondTrust Password Safe product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Key Vault, MS Azure Key Vault

BeyondTrust PowerBroker Password Safe

Learn More

Microsoft

BeyondTrust

Overview

Microsoft Azure Key Vault is a cloud-based data security and storage service that allows users to keep their secrets safe from bad actors.

Benefits of Microsoft Azure Key Vault

Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Key Vault include:

Secure your secrets in a single central location, enabling you to control how your information is disseminated.

Keep your data away from bad actors. Application administrators can store their application’s security information away from the actual application. Microsoft Azure Key Vault reduces the chance that a bad actor will be able to leak an application’s secrets. Because the data is not stored in the code of the application, hackers will be unable to steal the security information.

Retrieve your information securely. When the information is needed, the application can securely retrieve it by using a uniform resource identifier (URI) to connect to Microsoft Azure Key Vault.

Securely store your digital keys and secrets. Microsoft Azure Key Vault stores data behind layers of security protocol. No one can access the information stored in a Microsoft Azure Key Vault without first obtaining the necessary authentication and authorization. The authentication process allows the system to figure out who is trying to access the vault in question. This process is performed by Azure’s Active Directory. After the person or entity is authenticated, Microsoft Azure Key Vault then assigns them a level of authorization. This determines what sort of actions they will be able to perform.

Choose from two different authorization options. The level of a user’s authorization can be either role-based or dictated by a policy that the administrator sets. Azure’s role-based access control (Azure RBAC) enables users to both manage and access stored data. A key vault access policy limits users to data access.

Secure your data in the way that best fits your needs. Your data can be protected by either industry-standard algorithm software or hardware security modules (HSMs). Your data is even safe from Microsoft, as the vaults are designed so that not even Microsoft can get in and access the information.

Easily monitor who accesses your vault(s). Microsoft Azure Key Vault enables administrators to keep a close eye on their secrets. Users can activate a vault-logging feature that will track every piece of information. It will record who accessed the vault, when they accessed it, and other pertinent details.

Choose how you want to store your logs. Users can store logs in multiple ways. These logs can be archived, sent to the Azure monitor logs area, or streamed to an events hub. The logs can be secured to prevent unauthorized viewing and deleted when they are no longer needed.

Reviews from Real Users

Microsoft Azure Key Vault stands out among their competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the overall robustness of the solution and its ability to protect and manage many different digital asset types. The many features that the solution offers allows users to tailor their experience to meet their specific needs. Its flexibility enables users to accomplish a wide variety of security and identity management related tasks. It empowers users to secure a wide array of assets. Users can keep many different types of secrets away from bad actors.

A cloud architect at a marketing services firm writes, “All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform. You can also use it in different services across the board. If you have app services, or virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Databricks, they can all use Key Vault effectively. In my opinion, in a DevSecOps, DevOps, or even in a modern Azure implementation, you have to use Azure Key Vault to make sure you're addressing security and identity management concerns. By "identity" I mean usernames, passwords, cryptography, etcetera. It's a full-blown solution and it supports most breeds of key management: how you store keys and certify.”

Roger L., the managing director of Cybersecurity Architecture at Peloton Systems, says, “The most valuable aspect of the product is its ability to keep our admin password accounts for keys and a lot of our high-value assets. It can manage those types of assets. So far, the product does a great job of managing keys.”

Beyond Trust Password Safe is an automated solution that combines password and privileged session management into a single platform. Password Safe delivers secure access control, auditing, alerting, recording, and monitoring.

This free and open-source password manager supports Windows and Linux, and some ports are available for other platforms as well. Their proprietary algorithm, Twofish, is considered highly secure, with the advantage that it is not affiliated with NIST. The Twofish algorithm secures the data while keys are delivered using SHA-256 authentication.

The application is easy to use, and you can download the Windows app from several sites. Additionally, the application is available in 14 languages.

Beyond Trust Password Safe Key Features

Continuous automated account discovery: Scan, identify and profile assets with the discovery engine. The solution has dynamic categorization that enables the automated onboarding of assets into groups.
Application-to-application password management: Password Safe offers an adaptable API interface including an unlimited number of password caches, therefore providing scalability and redundancy.
Secure SSH key management: The system automatically rotates SSH keys to enforce granular access control and workflow. Private keys securely log users onto systems without exposing them.
Adaptive access control: Evaluates context and provides access requests by considering factors such as time of access and location to determine the user’s authorization level.
Enhanced privileged session management: Admins can record, lock, and document suspicious behavior without disrupting productivity by managing sessions live.
Advanced privileged threat analytics: Password Safe monitors assets and user behavior every day, analyzing what are normal patterns and detecting deviations.
Multi-factor authentication: Password Safe supports 2FA (two-factor authentication) using Yubikey 4, Nano, or Neo.

What can you do with Password Safe?

Cross-device and cross-platform syncing: You can safely store encrypted password files online, where you can access them via Password Safe-compatible apps.
Drag and drop password: Password Safe has a “Dragbar,” which you can use to complete forms by dragging and dropping icons over the form - for example, passwords, usernames, design tiles, and emails.
Autotype: With Password Safe, when you click on a web page or login box, the autotype feature will try to fill in your credentials automatically for you.
Import and export: You can import passwords from text, XML, or CSV fails. You can also export passwords in text, XML, and the PSAFE format.
Password generator: Generate secure passwords by using the algorithm. You can also define your password rules.

Beyond Trust Password Safe Benefits

Controls third-party access: Password Safe secures the connection and automatically checks privileged credentials. The solution records all sessions.
Uses context to determine access: Password Safe considers risk factors like location, day, or time of access and uses them to adjust the permissions and privileges of each user.
Manages access for privileged and non-privileged accounts: By integrating with SailPoint IdentityIQ, Password Safe effectively manages user access for privileged as well as non-privileged accounts.
Reduces cloud risk: Password Safe simplifies secure storage and session management. It supports major cloud providers such as Azure, Amazon, Google, Rackspace, and GoGrid. It also supports social networks - Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Integrates password and privilege management: Integrates with Endpoint Privilege Management to control the resources users can access and the actions they are allowed to take

Reviews from Real Users

A PAM Architect at a tech services company says, "BeyondTrust Password Safe's features that I have found most valuable are really those that are knitted in. That is their Smart Rules and Smart Groups, where you design your administration model so you create your AD groups and your asset groups, and configure Password Safe."

An I.S. Architect at a insurance company mentions that "Session recording, password rotation, and password vaulting are the most valuable features."

"One of the most valuable features is that this is a product designed with enterprises in mind," adds a Cybersecurity Architect at a tech vendor.

Sample Customers

Adobe, DriveTime, Johnson Controls, HP, InterContinental Hotels Group, ASOS

Aera Energy LLC, Care New England, James Madison University

Buyer's Guide

Azure Key Vault vs. BeyondTrust Password Safe

December 2024

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