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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
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
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 May 2026, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of Bitwarden is 4.6%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 6.7%, down from 7.8% 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%
Bitwarden4.6%
Other88.7%
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

"It is open source and the premium package is reasonable."
"The product has a very friendly community."
"Having all the passwords in one place is helpful."
"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."
"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."
"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 find the discovery feature, which includes credential management, session management, monitoring, and remediation within a session, to be very valuable."
"We can make a policy that affects everybody instantly."
"It has improved our organization by being able to consolidate several privileged access technologies into a unified tool, while session recording, auditing capability, and approval workflows allow a high degree of control over the organisation’s privileged access requirements for compliance purposes."
"CyberArk is a very stable product and it's a stable product because it has a simple design and a simple architecture that allows you to leverage the economies of scale across the base of your infrastructure that you already have implemented. It doesn't really introduce any new complex pieces of infrastructure that would make it that much more difficult to scale."
"The ability of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager to safeguard the financial services infrastructure by protecting credentials is extremely important, as every activity in a financial organization needs to be recorded for accountability in auditing."
"Our security has improved since implementing CyberArk."
"Our most valuable features would probably be key rotation, the SKM or SSH key manager, and account discovery."
"In terms of stability, there are no complaints."
 

Cons

"The product must be a bit more unified and refined."
"It would be ideal if the application could be seamlessly integrated into our open-source software, especially for the purpose of enabling straightforward logging."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The solution should be made more secure as it has the banking sector and assets saved."
"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."
"I would like to log in with a master account using a passkey, that would be easy."
"As a customer, I might need a plugin for a specific product, or an application, and CyberArk might have already worked with some other client on it. There has to be some platform where it is available for everybody else to go and grab it, instead of my having to reinvent the wheel."
"There were a lot of manual steps in the initial setup which could have been automated. I read the 10.4 release that was sent out about a month or two ago, and I saw the steps required for upgrade have been reduced by about 90%. That was a big thing for me, but I still haven't seen that yet because we have not upgrade past 9.9.5."
"CyberArk's license is too expensive. I rate it seven out of 10 for affordability."
"Areas the product could be improved are in some of the reporting capabilities and how the reports are configured."
"The reporting should be improved. There should be more customization. The report should show how we are going to mitigate the risk because we cannot show the system environment to each and every auditor."
"Three-year support (unlimited case and call support) is free with license purchase but I would say sometimes it's not sufficient to resolve the issues with this model."
"Perhaps improve the user registry integration. It is already fine, but a bit atypical."
"In CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, the UI has room for improvement, as does the dashboard reporting, which could be made better or easier to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In our region, it comes at an affordable price."
"I use a free version and it works well for me."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"It is an open-source tool."
"The product is not costly. I pay $10 per month."
"This solution is considered to be more expensive than others out there on the market today."
"No, I do not have any advice on the price of the product."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The product's licensing is yearly. I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The price of CyberArk support could be a little bit less. Otherwise, pricing is fine."
"There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fees."
"The price of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager could be less expensive."
"In comparison to other products on the market, CyberArk is a more costly product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
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 Enterprise174
 

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: April 2026.
894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.