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Bitwarden vs CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 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

Bitwarden
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
11th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of Bitwarden is 5.2%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 6.7%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Password Managers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager6.7%
Bitwarden5.2%
Other88.1%
Enterprise Password Managers
 

Featured Reviews

AF
Chief Information Technology at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Offers ease of use and app easily shows the password when I go to any application
The functionality to fully utilize passkeys could be improved. The last time I spoke to support, they said the development team was working on it. So far, it's working okay on my personal devices. I would like to log in with a master account using a passkey, that would be easy. The product is really great. I just miss the functionality to log in to Bitwarden using a passkey.
Atul-Gujar - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Secures critical infrastructures with essential user session audit records
A potential area for improvement is enhancing support for cluster environments and distributed Vaults. Clients in multiple countries that need central access have different challenges that require better solutions from CyberArk. For financial services, CyberArk can improve incident response by ensuring fast support for critical priority tickets to meet compliance requirements. Providing more documentation on CyberArk is recommended for new team members to enhance their troubleshooting capabilities. I understand it's up to the client, but 99% fail to change the demo key, so it's crucial for CyberArk to emphasize changing the key and documenting it as part of the installation process.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In our organization, we use Bitwarden for managing product credentials. Bitwarden's collection feature enables us to securely create and store credentials, and we can easily provide team members with access to the relevant collections."
"I've found something else that is extremely valuable. Bitwarden refers to it as "emergency access". It's essentially a digital legacy where you can assign approved users who can request access. If you don't decline within a certain timeframe, they can access it in case you're incapacitated or deceased. When I last checked, only a few services offered this feature. Bitwarden had the simplest and best implementation."
"Having all the passwords in one place is helpful."
"The product has a very friendly community."
"The customer service and support are good. The technician is on time and the follow-up is amazing."
"Its integration capabilities and versatility, like the ability to securely save passwords and other critical information, make it incredibly useful."
"It is open source and the premium package is reasonable."
"We are utilizing CyberArk to secure applications, credentials, and endpoints."
"Because we now have the ability to grant access to management utilities like DNS Manager, Sequel Studio, and MMC, in a secure fashion, without system admins being required to continually reenter various passwords that are stored who knows where, it has really made the system admin's job much easier. It has made the PSM's job much easier. It has made the auditor's job and the security team's job and the access manager's job significantly easier, because we're able to move much more quickly toward a role-based access management system, and that is really streamlining the whole onboarding/offboarding management process."
"The most valuable features of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault are password vaulting and automatic rotation of passwords after use."
"When we started with RPA, there was a requirement that every credential and the bots themselves be protected through the PAM system. From the get-go, we've had CyberArk in the middle... We've got a pretty robust RPA implementation with our PAM platform. Users, bots, the credentials — everything is managed via our PAM solution."
"Technical support has been very responsive in navigating challenges. It is very easy to open a ticket."
"The most valuable features of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault are password rotations and password encryptions."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager assists in meeting compliance and regulatory requirements such as HIPAA and SOX, ensuring I adhere to necessary standards in my operations."
"It allows users to self-provision access to the accounts that they need."
 

Cons

"I often use another password manager as well to keep my passwords separate, ensuring redundancy. But one simple thing Bitwarden could improve is providing an option to duplicate credentials. Often, you're creating many sets of credentials for the same thing. If they all have the same information, notes, login, collection, and naming - all you're changing is the password. The ability to duplicate credential records quickly would be a big win. It doesn't do that right now."
"Enhancing the tool by including additional security variables would be a valuable improvement."
"It would be ideal if the application could be seamlessly integrated into our open-source software, especially for the purpose of enabling straightforward logging."
"I would like to log in with a master account using a passkey, that would be easy."
"The product must be a bit more unified and refined."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The solution should be made more secure as it has the banking sector and assets saved."
"We had an issue with the Copy feature... Apparently, in version 10, that Copy feature does not work. You actually have to click Show and then copy the password from within Show and then paste it. We've had a million tickets and we had to figure out a workaround to it."
"It would be good to have integrations with other tools and firewalls, such as Zscaler and CrowdStrike. Although I am not fully aware of recent updates, more cross-platform integration would be valuable. A SOC analyst would like to have centralized access in terms of information flowing in even for privileged access management. They would like to have control over everything instead of opening four to five tabs for different sorts of information."
"The documentation is rather basic and it is missing many use cases."
"Making the reports more editable would be beneficial."
"One area for improvement is the plug-in development challenge. Although CyberArk provides a plug-in generator utility, it does not fully meet our needs, particularly for web-based applications."
"There is some stuff that we still have not fully integrated, which is our AIM solution. We are having all types of issues with it. I have been working with Level 3 support on it, but otherwise, from a functionality perspective, everything has been working except for the AIM solution."
"The solution should be able to mitigate internal threats"
"In the beginning, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager didn't have a multifactor authentication feature, so that was an area for improvement, but now it's part of the solution. Having just one console for two CyberArk products would be good, particularly for the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager, with the latter being a product for endpoint management that supports the workstations and allows you to manage workstations. In the next update of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, it would be good to have a local agent where you can manage all users and processes, and have an agent on the servers such as Linux and Windows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use a free version and it works well for me."
"In our region, it comes at an affordable price."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"The product is not costly. I pay $10 per month."
"It is an open-source tool."
"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 is good at what they do, and the price reflects that. You have to pay the price for the same."
"Pricing is quite high and it could be improved."
"I would rate the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager seven out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"This product is very expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"They have two types of licensing: purchase and subscription. You have to pay for each admin user, such as Microsoft admin, mail admin, database admin, etc."
"Quite expensive"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise173
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Bitwarden?
The product is not costly. I pay $10 per month. I use the basic plan, so I don't need the higher plan with more compliance features.
What needs improvement with Bitwarden?
The functionality to fully utilize passkeys could be improved. The last time I spoke to support, they said the development team was working on it. So far, it's working okay on my personal devices. ...
What is your primary use case for Bitwarden?
I use it to log in to my private websites, accounts, and banking information.
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?
My thoughts on the pricing of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager depend entirely on the vendors' requirements. If they want their things to be secure, they have to spend accordingly. We have four t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about Bitwarden vs. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,012 professionals have used our research since 2012.