Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BeyondTrust Password Safe vs HashiCorp Vault comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

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

BeyondTrust Password Safe
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (8th)
HashiCorp Vault
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of BeyondTrust Password Safe is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HashiCorp Vault is 13.0%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Password Managers
 

Featured Reviews

Gary Jolley - PeerSpot reviewer
Their discovery engine is off the charts, and the ease of administration and implementation they talk about is for real
It starts with discovery. 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. Its user interface is really nice. It is very visual. When you first log in, based on your job role, you see what you have access to when you look at the screen. As an administrator, I see the configuration screen where I can go in and modify Active Directory and authentication connections. I can set up SAML, or I also have access to create Smart Rules. The access is based on the role that you have when you log in. I have six boxes or six categories of administration items, whereas when an admin user connects, he would only have one or two. So, based on your role, you see what you have access to. It is not like you click something and then it fails because you're not an administrator at that level. You actually see what you have access to, and BeyondTrust is very good at that. BeyondTrust provides the ability to connect by using not just the web interface but also the admin tools such as MobaXterm, PuTTY, or a lengthy list of other types of tools. You can use the connection string and connect through BeyondTrust, and it will be session recorded, keystroke logged, and highly available. When you bring up MobaXterm, you probably bring up one of the most complex ones because MobaXterm has the ability to have two, three, or four concurrent connections, which makes BeyondTrust Password Safe ideal. It is very easy to integrate session management into existing business processes. To make it easy for the engineers, we created templates of the connection strings and then used, believe it or not, Microsoft Excel to create custom strings for each of the engineers. We exported them to a text file that they could then import. In the case of PuTTY, because PuTTY stores the connections and the credentials in the registry, we had to do something different there, but the connection string is customizable enough to make the job fast and easily repeatable for all the other engineers. You don't have 20 or 30 engineers spending two or three days creating all these connection strings. I can create them in a matter of minutes with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and then save them to a text file or a CSV file. It is awesome. We are able to integrate session management without disrupting business processes. One of the niceties about BeyondTrust is the ability to integrate it with ticketing systems. For example, as per Sarbanes-Oxley, we have to have a reason for why an administrator is performing something. The integration with a ticketing system is ideal rather than manually typing the reason in the reason field through the GUI where most engineers, after a while, end up just typing in Work. They don't put in enough data to make it clearly visible why they connected. The integration with the ticketing system is ideal for that. Ticket-driven access makes the work very quantifiable.
AKASHGUPTA3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to manage and maintain the password API but stability could be improved
I would advise doing a Proof of Concept first and then deciding accordingly because your use case might be simple. You can try out AWS Key Management or Azure Key Vault. They are different products. Do the POC and then decide what you need. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten. No solution is a ten in my opinion.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, I rate BeyondTrust Password Safe as nine out of ten."
"The best aspect of the product is the ability to onboard devices. You can scan the IP subnets and onboard all the devices. You can then segregate them if it's a network device or a firewall. If it's a Windows server or a UNIX, you can basically scan your IT infrastructure and onboard the efforts, which should be managed. Once they have been onboarded, then the session management and password management are easy and nicely configurable."
"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 features I find valuable in Password Safe include password retention and management, session privilege monitoring, live monitoring and recording, and the use of PS automation scripts for creating connections."
"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."
"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."
"The product has improved security and login due to the system recordings. In case, there is a doubt that someone has done something which they shouldn't have been doing, we can just go back and check what the user actually did."
"The CI/CD and REST API are also satisfactory; the solution has a full PAM feature set and they all work well."
"It's stable. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten."
"It is a good product to consider for companies who are looking to build on-premise or hybrid infrastructure."
"It is user-friendly and easy to implement from any application point."
"The most valuable feature of HashiCorp Vault is the management of tickets in the pipeline."
"The feature I find most beneficial in HashiCorp Vault is the secret engine. It integrates smoothly with many applications, making it easy to set up and implement quickly. This allows you to test it easily and see good results rapidly. When you integrate an internal API or application, it quickly manages that application's secrets."
"It can still be configured by a separate team other than developers. That's why I think it's more secure."
"We use the solution for secret management."
"The solution is stable. It has been working perfectly without any problem."
 

Cons

"The pricing is not cheap, but it could be better."
"Adding user behavior analysis to the server or messaging would be beneficial."
"The product needs to have better integration with SAP products."
"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."
"If they can create a single platform to create a connector, it would be better than using the RBS server."
"When we deploy BeyondTrust, we have to deploy our own database on a SQL server. It doesn't deploy the database. I wish BeyondTrust packages the whole solution in one and includes the MySQL database so that when you deploy it, it deploys everything for you. BeyondTrust gives you the software, but you are in charge of setting up your own database. It is a single appliance just for the BeyondTrust portion but not the database. Unless that has changed in later releases, you have to set up your own database for BeyondTrust Password Safe. I find that part complex because we then need the expertise and help of the database team to set it up, which also increases the deployment time. If they can deploy the database, it will reduce the deployment time."
"We don't have much control over the appliance. When anything happens in the backend, we have to depend on the support team. We need to raise a case so that they can update the appliance. If we have control over it, we would be able to troubleshoot easily."
"We weren't aware that the Password Safe virtual appliance runs on a Windows server. As part of our monthly patching process, we ran into an issue. BeyondTrust Password Safe wasn't compatible with the patching we used to put on our server."
"I don't think there are any major improvements required—so far, so good. However, I think that having more training materials, such as videos, and documentation available would be helpful. I would prefer to have more videos available either on the official site or on YouTube."
"It would be helpful to have more advanced features."
"The technical support was hard to get a hold of and lacking in service."
"A drawback for some clients who have to be PCI compliant is that they still need to use and subscribe to an HSM (Hardware Security Module) solution."
"In my opinion, HashiCorp Vault could improve its user interface. Right now, they don't offer much in terms of a graphical interface, which means you usually have to manage things manually through API calls. I think CyberArk has a better approach because it provides a UI that integrates features across all its components, making it easier, especially for new users or those from organizations with strict licensing policies."
"An improvement needed is the ability for auto-initialization."
"The product needs to improve its customization. It should be also more like easy to plug and play."
"The onboarding is a challenge. It should be more self-service, but it involves reviews and approvals."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is quite affordable."
"We just pay for Password Safe. Session management is included, but we don't use it. There aren't any additional costs besides the standard licensing fees. We pay for an annual license."
"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."
"It has subscription-based licensing. BeyondTrust is three times less expensive than CyberArk."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's cost is reasonable."
"The AWS version is much cheaper than HashiCorp Vault."
"In my case, the open-source version works well. It's advisable for small to medium-scale organizations, but for large-scale organizations, you should go with the enterprise version."
"The product is expensive."
"I am using the open-source version of Vault and I would have to buy a license if I want to get support."
"It could do everything we wanted it to do and it is brilliant, but it is super pricey. To be fair to HashiCorp, we drove the price up with our requirements around resiliency. Because of the nature of our company, we don't really operate in the cloud."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Password Managers solutions are best for your needs.
833,377 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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...
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.
Which is better - HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?
HashiCorp Vault was designed with your needs in mind. One of the features that makes this evident is its ability to work as both a cloud-agnostic and a multi-cloud solution. As a cloud-agnostic sol...
What do you like most about HashiCorp Vault?
The feature I find most beneficial in HashiCorp Vault is the secret engine. It integrates smoothly with many applications, making it easy to set up and implement quickly. This allows you to test it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HashiCorp Vault?
The enterprise version would require considering factors like the level of support needed, the amount of secret data being stored, and replication needs. But in my case, the open-source version wor...
 

Also Known As

BeyondTrust PowerBroker Password Safe
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aera Energy LLC, Care New England, James Madison University
Adobe, SAP Ariba, Citadel, Spaceflight, Cruise
Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Password Safe vs. HashiCorp Vault and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
833,377 professionals have used our research since 2012.