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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
16
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
230
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the User Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of AWS CloudTrail is 7.3%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 11.5%, down from 19.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Activity Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager11.5%
AWS CloudTrail7.3%
Other81.2%
User Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

CR
Principal Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Comprehensive log management streamlines workflow and enhances monitoring capabilities
For monitoring, we use Dynatrace. Dynatrace is connected with AWS CloudTrail, so AWS CloudTrail sends the notifications via SNS to Dynatrace. We get notifications, and Dynatrace will send notifications. AWS CloudTrail is a log function that will store all logs easily for whatever services we are using on Amazon. All logs will be stored in AWS CloudTrail for 15 years, as we have the service purchased for that duration. The logs will be stored in AWS CloudTrail via S3 bucket. In AWS CloudTrail, we have enabled CPU, disk, and RAM monitoring. These are three services we are monitoring from AWS CloudTrail. AWS CloudTrail will monitor and produce graphs. We have separate L1 teams for monitoring; they will monitor and share the information. Also, Dynatrace will receive the information, and if any service goes beyond the threshold limit, AWS CloudTrail will create an alert. CloudTrail and CloudWatch are sister services. Both should be preconfigured internally. We only watch the dashboards because we can't go and watch each service; there are multiple servers running and multiple services configured, so we watch only the dashboard graphs. If any graph goes beyond the normal limit, we take action. We watch the graph. If any of the graphs show abnormal activity, then immediately we dig into AWS CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail. We check the reason by verifying the logs. The graph will show you the time period, so we go into AWS CloudWatch, filter the logs for that particular time period, and from there, we identify the cause of the issue, and then we troubleshoot. API is a main element that allows us to connect AWS CloudWatch to AWS CloudTrail and AWS CloudTrail to Dynatrace. That connection is done via API. By API, everything is integrated. The integration part is managed by the API, transferring information from one service to another. We are not working on the API; the configuration team, the cloud operations team, they take care of it.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is good as a central logging platform for showing all cloud events."
"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."
"AWS CloudTrail is very reasonably priced and I definitely recommend AWS CloudTrail to those who are planning or considering using it; it is a must-have service in the AWS environment, and it should be used."
"What I found most valuable in AWS CloudTrail is that it provides a good context of what's happening in the environment, so it's an excellent way to baseline what's occurring. I also like that AWS CloudTrail helps with audits."
"AWS CloudTrail provides significant efficiency gains as it allows thorough monitoring of the environment, contributing substantially to security improvements."
"The product’s most valuable feature is monitoring. It helps us audit the changes in AWS account at the application and resource level."
"AWS CloudTrail integrates with AWS Config and provides custom event, security, and compliance auditing."
"AWS CloudTrail helps in accelerating incident investigation and response. It increases it because I pull out the logs to CloudTrail, and from CloudTrail watch, I'll send it to the Security Hub and do a visualization with Prometheus and Grafana."
"I love the ability to customize the passwords: the forbidden characters, the length of the password, the number of capital, lowercase, and special characters. You can customize the password so that it tailor fits, for example, mainframes that can't have more than eight characters. You can say, "I want a random password that doesn't have these special characters, but it is exactly eight characters," so that it doesn't throw errors."
"If you want more security, get CyberArk."
"On implementing the CyberArk PIM solution, we are able to achieve this goal."
"The most valuable feature is privileged session management."
"The most valuable feature I find in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is that we can record the sessions. It provides flexible workflows. I can change the workflow to specify if it needs one approval or two approvals, and I can approve my peer."
"The solution is very good for protecting full levels of data privacy."
"All of the features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager are valuable."
"Super stable and easy to scale"
 

Cons

"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."
"Searching the logs is not very easy; it requires a lot of patience and hard work to find the right information in the log."
"AWS CloudTrail can sometimes generate too much information, which might lead to a lot of unnecessary data, particularly false positives."
"I have not experienced any challenges while using it."
"Maybe if we could do direct queries on CloudTrail without needing to export it to Athena, that'd be great."
"The solution should incorporate visibility for CloudWatch events."
"AWS CloudTrail could benefit from more comprehensive documentation and broader service integration."
"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."
"CyberArk has to continue to evolve with that threat landscape to make sure that they're still protecting those credentials that are owned by those that have privileged accounts in the firms."
"it manages creds based on Organizational Units. That is, a "safe" is limited to specific OUs. That makes for very elaborate OU structure, or you risk exposing too many devices by putting most of them in fewer OUs."
"The scalability, sometimes, is lacking. It works really well for more static environments... But for an environment where you're constantly spinning up new infrastructure or new endpoints, sometimes it has a hard time keeping up."
"Performance of PIM could be better and intended for usability as well as security."
"One of the main things that could be improved would be filtering accounts on the main page and increasing the functionality of the filters. There are some filters on the side which are very specific, but I feel there could be more."
"More additional features as far as the REST is concerned, because we have something which was the predecessor to REST."
"We have had some performance and stability issues. We have had instances where things weren't as they should be, however, we worked closely with the development support teams once the issues were escalated and managed to find either a resolution or a workaround to stabilize the solution."
"Its implementation was very complex. It needs different servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS CloudTrail is a cheap solution."
"AWS CloudTrail is free."
"It is a very cheap service because management is a SaaS offering from AWS."
"The solution is free if you don't need customizations but is not expensive otherwise."
"CloudTrail itself is free of cost."
"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."
"The pricing is slightly higher compared to other solutions, but it is reasonable because there are better security features."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is more expensive than its competitors, such as BeyondTrust, Delinea, and ManageEngine PAM360."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a six out of ten."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The solution is costly but we get what we pay for."
"The price of CyberArk support could be a little bit less. Otherwise, pricing is fine."
"It can be an expensive product."
"It's an affordable platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise174
 

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 do not think there could be improvements in AWS CloudTrail because I am too small to suggest anything. It is already a well-established service from AWS, and I have only been using it for the las...
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...
 

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: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.