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

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 (2nd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
StrongDM
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 10.5%, down from 19.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StrongDM is 2.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager10.5%
StrongDM2.5%
Other87.0%
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.
PI
Soc Analyst at ISECURION
Access control has transformed our privileged sessions and now protects credentials with full audits
StrongDM's best feature is the session logging and audit trail, which is the single most valuable feature for me from a SOC perspective. When we investigate a security incident involving admin activity, having a full replay of what an engineer or vendor did during the privileged session is something that traditional VPN or jump box setups simply cannot provide. Other features I value are no credential exposure, just-in-time access, centralized resource management, fast offboarding, and strong SSO and MFA integration. Session logging and the audit trail help me during investigations because when investigating a security incident involving admin activity, having a full replay of what an engineer or vendor did during the privileged session is something traditional VPN or jump box setups cannot provide. StrongDM has positively impacted our organization since deployment. Access provisioning time dropped by around 40%. Offboarding that used to take hours now completes in under 10 minutes. We have also eliminated all shared credentials usage across the production environment. Additionally, audit evidence collection for privileged access reduced from days to hours, and there have been zero credentials-related incidents since deployment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"On the EBB user side, we were able to secure all the server root passwords and admin for Windows. This was a big win for us."
"The combination of CPM and PSM resolves a lot of use cases."
"Increased our insight into how privileged accounts are being used and distributed within our footprint."
"Creating policies and the password rotation feature have been valuable. We don't have to memorize our password for the ADM account."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager indeed helps meet compliance and regulatory requirements for customers, especially in the financial sector, by aligning with PCI DSS standards."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's main benefit is it provides secure access to our servers. There are features to capture the user activity, it provides video recording processing. If the users are logged in to the server, we can see what activities they are performing. It's a very nice tool for Privileged Access Management. They have plenty of useful services and the solution has fulfilled our needs."
"We can make a policy that affects everybody instantly."
"Technical support is very helpful whenever we have any questions."
"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."
"StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient."
"StrongDM has positively impacted our organization since deployment: access provisioning time dropped by around 40%, offboarding that used to take hours now completes in under 10 minutes, we have eliminated all shared credentials usage across the production environment, audit evidence collection for privileged access reduced from days to hours, and there have been zero credentials-related incidents since deployment."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
"The best features in StrongDM are that it is the easiest product in the market for this situation with easy access."
 

Cons

"I would like to see is the policy export and import. When we expend, we do not want to just hand do a policy."
"Its pricing is a big challenge here. When it started, the product came in at a very low cost. Now, they are the leaders in the market, so the cost has grown and is quite huge."
"The solution should be able to mitigate internal threats"
"When I was a component owner for PAM's Privileged Threat Analytics (PTA) component, what I wanted was a clear mapping to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, a framework which has a comprehensive list of use cases. We reached out to the vendor and asked them how much coverage they have of the uses cases found on MITRE, which would have given us a better view of things while I was the product owner. Unfortunately they did not have the capability of mapping onto MITRE's framework at that time."
"Stability is a huge concern right now. We are on a version which is very unstable. We have to upgrade to stabilize it. It is fine, but the problem is we have to hire CyberArk to do the upgrade. This costs money, and it is their bug."
"When something comes out, it's generally airtight and works as advertised. However, sometimes they are a little bit slow to keep up with what's coming out. In 2017, for example, they released support for Windows Server 2016, which had been out for a year or so."
"If we could have some kind of out-of-the box feature that you can simply say "no" so they don't have to go into a development mode, that would a really helpful feature."
"More additional features as far as the REST is concerned, because we have something which was the predecessor to REST."
"We've had a few issues with the stability of this product in the past."
"StrongDM can improve in change management, reporting customization, and the initial setup complexity because mapping all our resources correctly at the start requires dedicated time and planning."
"I think the stability of StrongDM is about four to five due to the occasional crashes that I mentioned."
"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."
"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

"CyberArk is one of the best PAM solutions and one of the most expensive, but it works better than the others, so the pricing is fair."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Its price can be reduced."
"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."
"I do not have any opinions to add about the pricing of the product."
"I have heard from my leaders that CyberArk is costlier in terms of licensing. The support and maintenance are also costly. We use their premium support, but for the price we pay, we do not get the value."
"Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive."
"Before we bought it, they were licensing each function individually, which got complicated and very expensive. When we decided to buy it, it was much more straightforward and still quite expensive, but it brings a lot of value and risk reduction to the organization."
"The licensing is per user per month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise174
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
The leadership chose StrongDM after comparative research, which suggests economic benefits. It was mentioned that while the product is rapidly gaining features, it might become cost-prohibitive for...
What needs improvement with StrongDM?
StrongDM regularly requires patches and maintenance, but I think that's a good question for the PAM architects in our organization. If you guys could offer only a cloud-native solution, you would l...
What is your primary use case for StrongDM?
My use case for StrongDM is Privileged Access Management. I have privileged accounts because I am working for the Identity and Access Management team at my company. As an engineer, I have really pr...
 

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: April 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.