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AWS CloudTrail vs CyberArk Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 3, 2025

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

AWS CloudTrail
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
225
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the User Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of AWS CloudTrail is 7.4%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 15.4%, down from 24.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

NabeelHassan - PeerSpot reviewer
Exploring management events and insights for enhanced compliance
More controls should be introduced in CloudTrail, especially to see the logs in CloudTrail itself without saving them in S3, as S3 starts to incur charges. Real-time log submission could be improved, as sometimes there is a lag of around two to three minutes, which should be under a minute.
Abdul Durrani - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables granular and secure access with just-in-time access and Zero Trust model
CyberArk provides a good amount of control over access types. However, as a future enhancement, having additional features for cross-platform integration would be beneficial. It would be good to have integrations with other tools and firewalls, such as Zscaler and CrowdStrike. Although I am not fully aware of recent updates, more cross-platform integration would be valuable. A SOC analyst would like to have centralized access in terms of information flowing in even for privileged access management. They would like to have control over everything instead of opening four to five tabs for different sorts of information. Cross-platform integration would help with that. Customers also want CyberArk's pricing to be better so that they can implement it further and have more licenses. Implementing a privileged access management solution can be challenging. It would be great if CyberArk could provide recommendations based on the compliance standards of an organization. It would help system admins ensure that all the required ports are closed and the systems are being managed properly. If any system is not being used anymore, any ports opened for that system need to be closed. Having such recommendations would be helpful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS CloudTrail is currently underutilized and has potential for many more use cases."
"In one specific scenario, we encountered a situation where a terminated employee still had access to our environment without our knowledge. With AWS CloudTrail, we could track and monitor the employees' activities, revealing that they were downloading specific files from our customer's environment. Without it enabled, we wouldn't have been aware of this."
"One of the most valuable features of AWS CloudTrail is its ability to track and monitor API calls detailedly."
"From a scalability point of view, the tool has no issue, and it is completely fine."
"The management events and CloudTrail Insights are valuable."
"AWS CloudTrail integrates with AWS Config and provides custom event, security, and compliance auditing."
"It is a stable solution. AWS handles it well."
"AWS CloudTrail features a totally cloud-based deployment."
"It is very simple to use."
"CyberArk is a pioneer for PAM; they've always been the leader in terms of research and development and bringing new capabilities to the PAM."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager indeed helps meet compliance and regulatory requirements for customers, especially in the financial sector, by aligning with PCI DSS standards."
"CPM helps keep the password policy up to date."
"Creating policies and the password rotation feature have been valuable. We don't have to memorize our password for the ADM account."
"The most valuable features of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault are password vaulting and automatic rotation of passwords after use."
"This is a complete solution that can detect cyber attacks well."
"The most valuable feature is platform management. It is quite easy to manage privileged access for certain target platforms with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager as compared to other products I have worked with."
 

Cons

"The solution's operation visibility could be improved."
"The platform’s reporting log sheet feature could be more user-friendly."
"AWS CloudTrail only supports AWS, and Azure has its functions, GCP has their own. Dynatrace offers more flexible dashboards and services, making it more adaptable compared to AWS CloudTrail."
"I have not experienced any challenges while using it."
"AWS CloudTrail can sometimes generate too much information, which might lead to a lot of unnecessary data, particularly false positives."
"AWS CloudTrail should be redesigned to capture non-API calls. It would be more effective to have one tool that can perform multiple tasks instead of relying on multiple services for non-API activities."
"Filtering multiple values within the console is a feature that has yet to exist in AWS CloudTrail. You can look up a user identity, service, or action, but you can't search for multiple dimensions."
"The product's initial setup phase is not pretty straightforward."
"There was a situation when one of our presidents had an issue, but I can't recall the specifics."
"CyberArk could enhance its usability by simplifying its architecture and design."
"​It's hard to find competent resellers/support."
"As they grow, the technical support is having growing pains. One of the things is just being able to get somebody on the phone sometimes."
"Enhanced PSM support for Java based applications."
"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."
"CyberArk PAM is a very broad product as everyone's requirements for implementation are different. In our particular case, the initial implementation was planned and developed by people who didn't know our specific network requirements, so the initial implementation needed to be tweaked over time. While this is normal, at the time all these "major" changes required CyberArk professional services to come in-plant and "assist" with the changes."
"It could be more user-friendly. Sometimes I encounter issues, and I do not know what the issue is."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CloudTrail itself is free of cost."
"AWS CloudTrail is a cheap solution."
"AWS CloudTrail is pretty affordable, and I have to double-check, but the service is free to use. I can add logs on the console, but if I want to store logs long-term, then I have to pay a storage fee, but it's relatively inexpensive."
"It is a very cheap service because management is a SaaS offering from AWS."
"AWS CloudTrail is free."
"The solution is free if you don't need customizations but is not expensive otherwise."
"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."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is more expensive than its competitors, such as BeyondTrust, Delinea, and ManageEngine PAM360."
"This product is very expensive."
"The solution is costly but we get what we pay for."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS CloudTrail?
In one specific scenario, we encountered a situation where a terminated employee still had access to our environment without our knowledge. With AWS CloudTrail, we could track and monitor the emplo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS CloudTrail?
AWS CloudTrail is categorized into management events, data events, and CloudTrail Insights. For one hundred thousand events, management costs are approximately two dollars, data events ten cents, a...
What needs improvement with AWS CloudTrail?
I have not experienced the Trail feature of AWS CloudTrail in tracking changes to AWS infrastructure. AWS CloudTrail could benefit from more comprehensive documentation and broader service integrat...
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.
 

Also Known As

CloudTrail
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HTC, British Gas, Solinor, 2C2P
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS CloudTrail vs. CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.