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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 (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

"The best feature of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its core function: automatically managing and securing credentials."
"It has helped us with our adoption with other teams, and it has also helped us to integrate it at the ground level."
"Overall, it has been a great product and helped out a lot with being able to manage privileged accounts."
"One of the best features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the capability of Privileged Session Manager (PSM) because it provides visibility into user activities, audit ability, and traceability."
"The solution is scalable."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager provides granularity. You can break things down into individual safes. You have specific access to safes by individual or group. The interface is with AD, with LDAP, or with local CyberArk passwords. You also have the ability to establish policies for your individual credentials."
"CyberArk is good as a technology partner for ensuring that we maintain a strong security posture throughout our digital transformation."
"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."
"The best features in StrongDM are that it is the easiest product in the market for this situation with easy access."
"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 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."
"We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
"StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient."
 

Cons

"There is a lot of room for improvement in the report section. I also work on other tools, such as Thycotic, which allows you to create customized reports for your organization's needs. In CyberArk, there are limited reports, whereas in Thycotic or some of the other PAM tools, because the database is different, you can customize the report based on your needs through SQL queries."
"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."
"I would prefer that this is a fully-managed service, rather than have to manage the software ourselves and keep it up to date."
"I would like to see better automation in granting access, better tools, more efficient tools, to be able to customize the solution that CyberArk provides."
"I find it hard to mention a point of improvement because I'm happy with the platform. The only thing I would say is that they can improve their price."
"One thing that could be improved is to create of a better alternative for fixing group policy fees. We currently use Microsoft, but they have introduced new policies that may not be compatible."
"The reporting should be improved. There should be more customization."
"It needs more plugin connectors for all devices."
"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."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"I rate the stability of the product five out of ten because crashes sometimes happen when we are working on it."
"We've had a few issues with the stability of this product in the past."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"I think the stability of StrongDM is about four to five due to the occasional crashes that I mentioned."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's licensing is yearly. I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing is slightly higher compared to other solutions, but it is reasonable because there are better security features."
"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."
"Its price can be reduced."
"There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fees."
"It's per-company, license-based."
"My company always complains about the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager because it's too high."
"If you are looking at implementing this solution, buy the training and go to it."
"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%
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.
890,124 professionals have used our research since 2012.