No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

 

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 July 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 9.9%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Idira Privileged Access Manager9.9%
Fortra's Powertech Identity & Access Manager1.0%
Other89.1%
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."
"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."
"Before CyberArk, our developers would connect from the VPN directly to the jump servers to get all of their access; we have removed the jump servers to connect to CyberArk, security has improved, we know who is accessing and what they are doing, the access is secure, and CyberArk has increased our security."
"The most valuable features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager are its robust functionality and reliability."
"The solution is very complete; it has the most features on the market, session monitoring is excellent and may be the solution's most valuable aspect, and it offers very good password protection with great integration with many products."
"CyberArk is a fantastic solution."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager makes it easy for users to retrieve and manage their passwords."
"The main, most valuable aspect is its capability to secure our environment."
"The most valuable features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager include its search capabilities."
"The key aspects of privileged access management are being able rotate passwords, make sure someone is accountable, and tie it back to a user (when the system is being used)."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would not necessarily recommend customers use it."
"The current interface is not very intuitive."
"CyberArk has two disadvantages; the first is that it's insanely expensive and the other is it's very complex."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"Integration of this tool with SAML is a problem, as there is a bug."
"I sometimes require learning resources when there is a new solution for CyberArk."
"My impression of their technical support team is that it is very bad. The support team's response time is quick, however, the resolution process takes too long."
"We have had some performance and stability issues. We have had instances where things weren't as they should be, however, we worked closely with the development support teams once the issues were escalated and managed to find either a resolution or a workaround to stabilize the solution."
"The initial setup has room for improvement to be more straightforward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Quite expensive"
"It's expensive, certainly. But CyberArk is the leader in the market with regards to privileged access management. You pay a lot, but you are paying for the value that is being delivered."
"CyberArk DNA is free if you purchase the CyberArk solution. There is no additional charge for CyberArk DNA, which is great."
"With the current model of licensing, for my use cases, sometimes it's hard to convince the management and get budget approvals for it. It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just a control, but in terms of risk, you are covering a big impact on the company. Improvement in the licensing prices is something I would want to have."
"The product’s pricing is feasible for enterprise customers. The pricing is expensive for smaller businesses. You need to pay additional costs for service implementation and local support."
"The cost is high compared to other products."
"The price of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is expensive. There are no other fees other than the standard licensing fees."
"The solution is very expensive and requires a license. We pay for an enterprise license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
904,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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: June 2026.
904,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.