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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
6.6
Number of Reviews
5
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.
reviewer2804475 - PeerSpot reviewer
Iam Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Access management has improved privileged logins while still needing fewer crashes and less upkeep
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. You just copy-paste the IP and the port number and log in over there through RDP, so I think that's pretty cool. I have used CyberArk before, but I think StrongDM as a product has pretty good potential. My impression of the credential-less access control is that it's pretty good because it reduces the attack surface. Basically, if you cannot see the password and everything, even the privileged users cannot see the password. It's a password-less system where you just log in to the servers without knowing your password, and even if you know your password, it's probably going to be rotated after a while. So, I think that's a pretty good use case for reducing the attack surface and maintaining zero trust throughout an identity perimeter. StrongDM helps with runtime features in a twenty-four-seven dynamic environment. Whenever I try to access at maybe two a.m. or three a.m. at night and I have a production issue on a server located in a different continent, I can access it right at that moment. I think the application works pretty much like a charm. It's readily available, and I think the runtime feature is pretty cool, although the application sometimes crashes when it's downloaded locally on your machine. Regarding pricing, I find StrongDM to be definitely cost-efficient. We used to use CyberArk before, but StrongDM is more cost-effective, which is why we are using it. Our director is a board member at StrongDM, allowing us to utilize the product and the flexibility it provides, which tailor-suits our needs based on the organization and is something we do not get from other PAM products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PSM (Privilege Session Manager."
"If you compare this product with anything else as far as an endpoint solution, there is nothing which even compares."
"I love how easily we could operate within Password Vault and get things done. It was almost effortless."
"With PAM in place, we've experienced a significant reduction in potential security breaches."
"It helps our customers in their software requirement imports."
"The value is probably the best of all of the other products which are offering the same services."
"We've written over a hundred custom connectors ourselves that allow us to do all types of privileged session management for various applications. On top of that, the rest of the API-based central credential providers allow us to get away from credentials that may be hard-coded in the script or some application."
"The DNA scan is very helpful and provides a security baseline for your environment."
"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."
"The best features in StrongDM are that it is the easiest product in the market for this situation with easy access."
"StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
"We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases."
"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."
 

Cons

"There were a lot of manual steps in the initial setup which could have been automated."
"My concern and area for improvement revolves around reporting."
"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault's deployment is complex for resources with little experience. Tech support needs to be improved as well based on quality and knowledge."
"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."
"With regards to potential improvements for the CyberArk product, I find the product quite expensive and I would like to see the cost reduced."
"If you are an administrator or architect, then the solution is kind of complicated, as it is mostly focused on the end user. So, they need to also focus on the people who are implementing it."
"If CyberArk wants people to pay for cloud services, they need to make the cloud services much more real-time."
"I would like to see is the policy export and import. When we expend, we do not want to just hand do a policy."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"We've had a few issues with the stability of this product in the past."
"My thoughts on the pricing of StrongDM is that it is expensive."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is on an annual basis."
"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."
"Since CyberArk is at the top of the Gartner list, the cost is indeed on the higher side, but customers must discern which entities are essential to purchase. They should weigh the cost against the quality received."
"The price of this solution is expensive."
"I'm a technician so I don't handle the licensing for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but I know that the price for the core license is about €140 per year. There's another type of license, the external vendor license, and that's about €600 and you can manage twenty devices. From what I know, the price for one device in a subscription is about €65 per year. You can buy the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager too, or you can buy some other application or application license with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but all other features, such as the Analytics Server is included in the basic CyberArk license. With WALLIX, you need to buy separate licenses for the features."
"I would rate the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager seven out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"The solution is available at a high price"
"My company always complains about the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager because it's too high."
"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
15%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 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?
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: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.