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Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager vs Idira Privileged Access Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

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

Fortra's Powertech Identity...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
33rd
Average Rating
5.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Idira Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Idira Privileged Access Manager is 9.2%, down from 17.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Idira Privileged Access Manager9.2%
Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager1.0%
Other89.8%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer910470 - PeerSpot reviewer
Practice Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Inexperienced support for old product, but good flexibility for use case customization
HelpSystems Powertech is scalable if you throw more servers at it. Then you can distribute the load, which is a Microsoft SQL Server backend, and as long as you allocate enough resources to those things, then it is scalable. That's good enough. It would be an entire organization that uses it. So at a hospital for example, a healthcare system, a bank, and it would be the entire workforce on it. I haven't see a lot of customer's specific use cases, but it is for the whole workforce, everyone. The CEO of the company to the janitor. In terms of maintaining it, that requires application administrators or system administrators. There is a manual process to update the product, at least with the on-premise version.
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

"HelpSystems Powertech's feature that I have found most valuable is its flexibility. It is able to be extended. A lot of the products these days, especially the ones on the cloud, are limited and can't handle all the use cases. Often there is not even a way to customize the application to meet uncommon use cases and HelpSystems provides an infrastructure that lends itself to the ability to be customized."
"HelpSystems Powertech's feature that I have found most valuable is its flexibility."
"It is a robust product."
"CyberArk probably has probably the best vault on the market because of the multiple layered security and each password getting its own encryption."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager’s ability to safeguard credentials is very important."
"The automatic change of the password and Privileged Session Manager (PSM) are the most valuable features. With Privileged Session Manager, you can control the password management in a centralized way. You can activate these features in a session; the session isolation and recording. You apply the full intermediation principle. So, you must pass through CyberArk PAM to get access to the target system. You don't need to know the password, and everything that you do is registered and auditable. In this case, no one gets to touch the password directly. Also, you can implement detection and response behavior in case of a breach."
"I help implement and train others on how to use it in a highly secure environment."
"The product is an important security measure against credential theft. It ensures session isolation and password rotation including pushing passwords to the endpoints."
"CyberArk PAS is our go-to solution for securing against the pass the hash attack vector and auditing privileged account usage."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it's the best in the market. I haven't seen any other PAM solutions better than CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault."
 

Cons

"I would not necessarily recommend customers use it."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the support of the product. It's hard to get support for it. I think this is emblematic of the fact that they don't have a lot of employees who have long-term experience with it."
"PAM could be more user-friendly and CyberArk could update the documentation to include more real-world examples. You have to learn it yourself through trial and error. In particular, the online documentation should have more information about troubleshooting."
"What needs to be improved in CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is their customer support, particularly in terms of responsiveness, willingness to help, and being more understanding. The initial setup and upgrade process for the solution is complex and can only be done by CyberArk, so this is another area for improvement."
"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. The plug-in generator currently works only for Telnet and SSH connections. We cannot generate a plug-in for web-based applications."
"The DNA scan should be able to scan Unix machines for privileged accounts."
"To get it to a ten it should give other possibilities to select if you could follow the keystrokes. It should have a flexibility with things where people can use it a lot faster."
"I'm not a fan of technical support with CyberArk. It's like jumping through red tape and hoops. Quite frankly, it's almost like when you call CyberArk you get the Help Desk or the level-one. I'm a level-one. I got the CCD, I know how to do the initial troubleshooting. When I call CyberArk it's because I can't figure the problem out. So I need a level-two, three, four. I don't need you to tell me, "Hey, open a ticket and then give me logs.""
"The pricing is too expensive and should be reduced."
"Our DevOps team is looking in the direction of cloud, because we are not in it today. We are hoping to build it with Conjur from the ground up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's not a cheap application. It's very expensive."
"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is a very expensive product."
"I haven't seen the numbers. I know it is not cheap, but I don't know what it is. I would rate it a six out of ten in terms of pricing. It is definitely more expensive than the other product, but it also provides more functionality, and it is modular too. So, we pay for the functionality we're actually going to use, and that's nice."
"It costs us around $200 per user."
"Its price can be reduced."
"Pricing is a problem. CyberArk is expensive compared to other products I know. It is similar to buying a German car. It comes with all the bells and whistles, but some companies may find it too expensive."
"Payments have to be made on a yearly basis toward the licensing costs of the solution."
"No, I do not have any advice on the price of the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise175
 

Questions from the Community

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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 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...
What needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
I believe account discovery and rolling support need to be improved. Account discovery is important when integrating with other systems, as other PAM solutions can perform account discovery and onb...
 

Also Known As

HelpSystems Powertech Identity & Access Manager, Powertech Identity & Access Manager, BoKS, BoKS ServerControl, Fox Technologies ApplicationControl, ApplicationControl
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Integris Health
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira by Palo Alto Networks, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: July 2026.
911,436 professionals have used our research since 2012.