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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs StrongDM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
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 (3rd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
StrongDM
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 10.4%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StrongDM is 2.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager10.4%
StrongDM2.5%
Other87.1%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MS
DevOps Engineer at Scania
Centralized access has improved privileged control and now provides strong audit visibility
I believe StrongDM can improve its initial setup and onboarding experience for larger enterprise environments like Scania, where we have a lot of processes. Integrating different teams, access policies, and existing identity workflows requires substantial planning. Additionally, I think the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible for operational teams, though new teams find it manageable. Once the platform is fully integrated, it provides significant value. Apart from the onboarding experience, I would also mention that the templates for enterprise onboarding and policy setup could benefit from innovative thinking tailored to organizations managing large AWS and Kubernetes workloads. Enhanced customization in dashboards and reporting would further ease operations and provide better insights.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CyberArk is good as a technology partner for ensuring that we maintain a strong security posture throughout our digital transformation."
"It is a leading solution and one of the best SaaS solutions in the market."
"It is useful for protecting passwords; if you need to do access security management, you can first use the CyberArk console, and after that, you can connect the firewall interface or firewall command line."
"For audit and risk purposes, CyberArk EPV has helped us meet our standards and requirements to help us comply with industry standards and banking regulations."
"Technical support is very helpful whenever we have any questions."
"The accounts are maintained automatically. Hence, resource and administration costs are less."
"It has a lot of good tools, including everything we need."
"What I appreciate about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is that it is not only for password security; we can also manage their applications and platforms, and whenever a user logs in, end-to-end protection is handled, including monitoring user activity through PSM servers and reacting to threats with Privileged Threat Analysis."
"The best features in StrongDM are that it is the easiest product in the market for this situation with easy access."
"I absolutely would say that the best features of StrongDM and what I appreciate about the solution is that time to onboard is absolutely minimal."
"StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient."
"We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases."
"The best features in StrongDM are the password rotation capabilities, which I think are pretty cool, and also how you can literally log in to any of the privileged servers through a single platform."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
"StrongDM positively impacts our organization in many ways, mainly in cost savings from the time saved, and it has significantly improved both security and operational efficiency for us."
 

Cons

"The interface on version 9 looks old."
"The management console has a lot of functionalities, but is a little bit complex to use."
"A greater number of out-of-the-box integrations with other vendors: They are working on it, but more is better!"
"The price is high compared to Azure Key Vault. It's the most expensive solution."
"The initial setup is pretty difficult and it takes a while to put into place."
"I think they can improve account onboarding. For instance, you have to use the Password Vault utility, whereas in Thycotic I think there is a feature in the user interface that allows you to upload your account with an Excel file. So I'd like to have a similar thing in CyberArk."
"It is very complex and difficult to set up the solution."
"I believe account discovery and rolling support need to be improved."
"We've had a few issues with the stability of this product in the past."
"I think the stability of StrongDM is about four to five due to the occasional crashes that I mentioned."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"My thoughts on the pricing of StrongDM is that it is expensive."
"I believe StrongDM can improve its initial setup and onboarding experience for larger enterprise environments like Scania, where we have a lot of processes."
"I rate the stability of the product five out of ten because crashes sometimes happen when we are working on it."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not a cheap application. It's very expensive."
"It's an affordable platform."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"I hope to learn how the pricing works so that I can understand it better, but I am certain it is not inexpensive."
"Payments have to be made on a yearly basis toward the licensing costs of the solution."
"It costs us around $200 per user."
"If you want a Ferrari, it will cost you. The solution is really nice, so it costs the client, but in the long run, it is very good. If you buy a solution that costs a lot to maintain because it is not stable, and you are frequently asking for consultant support, it costs more."
"The licensing is per user per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise174
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StrongDM?
My thoughts on the pricing of StrongDM is that it is expensive. Coming from knowing the landscape of the market, it is not that they are not competitive. They are still very expensive. That does no...
What needs improvement with StrongDM?
In StrongDM, I think the installation was hard, and they want to be more flexible in the initial setup. I think they want to add more features like traditional PAM. It is difficult to find document...
What is your primary use case for StrongDM?
My use case involves a company I'm working in that wants to secure the connectivity between the DevOps team and the backend server in the company.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. StrongDM and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
896,298 professionals have used our research since 2012.