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AWS CloudTrail vs Idira Privileged Access Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 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

AWS CloudTrail
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Idira Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in User Activity Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (3rd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the User Activity Monitoring category, the mindshare of AWS CloudTrail is 9.3%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Idira Privileged Access Manager is 15.9%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
User Activity Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS CloudTrail9.3%
Idira Privileged Access Manager15.9%
Other74.8%
User Activity Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Chukwudi Uzoma - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT, Infrastructure at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Comprehensive audit trails have transformed incident investigations and strengthen security posture
The best features AWS CloudTrail offers are complete API activity logging, multi-account audit visibility, integration with AWS Organizations, event history for investigation, integration with CloudWatch and Security Hub, S3 log activity, and compliance and forensic support. Using AWS CloudTrail in that investigation has significantly improved my security posture, governance capabilities, and audit readiness. It provides data accountability across the AWS environment that helps me investigate incidents much faster than would ever be possible. AWS CloudTrail has reduced investigation times dramatically. Activities that previously required hours of manual analysis can now be resolved in seconds because the audit trail is readily available. It has also simplified audit preparation because evidence of AWS activities is automatically captured and retained. I particularly value the ability to answer the questions: who did what, when, and from where. Those are the most important questions during incident investigations and audits. AWS CloudTrail has positively impacted my organization by significantly improving my security posture, audit readiness, governance, and control capabilities. It provides accountability across AWS environments and helps me investigate incident management much faster than ever was possible. I noticed that my investigations during incidents are significantly more surgical, more reliable, and straight to the point.
Mahmudul Hoque Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Engineer at intelQong Technology
Centralized access has improved privileged control and visibility yet still needs better integrations
While the access control capabilities are useful, streamlining some configuration and policy management workflows could enhance the user experience for administrators. A simpler interface for creating access policies and quickly identifying unusual activities would make day-to-day administration more efficient. Stronger integration with existing identity data and secret management could be a significant improvement for Idira Privileged Access Manager. Deeper integration with cloud solutions would make it easier to correlate privileged access activity with other security events. I would also appreciate more flexible reporting and dashboards so administrators can swiftly see access patterns and unusual privileged access from a single view.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution. AWS handles it well."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The product’s most valuable feature is monitoring. It helps us audit the changes in AWS account at the application and resource level."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has positively impacted my organization, showing significant improvement since all sessions are monitored and isolated using isolated RDP sessions, which are created temporarily and expire if not used."
"I find value in notifications from CyberArk when passwords fail verification and have other issues."
"The Password Upload Utility tool makes it easier when setting up a Safe that contains multiple accounts and has cut down the amount of time that it takes to complete the task."
"The ability to start the project, install and add the passwords in just a few days brings a big advantage for CyberArk."
"The session manager is the most critical part of CyberArk's PAM solution and it works perfectly well."
"CyberArk PAS provides isolated and recorded sessions for third-party/outsourced admin access."
"It is a robust product."
"CyberArk is a fantastic solution."
 

Cons

"AWS CloudTrail could benefit from more comprehensive documentation and broader service integration."
"The solution's operation visibility could be improved."
"The platform’s reporting log sheet feature could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"The solution should incorporate visibility for CloudWatch events."
"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."
"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."
"I have not experienced any challenges while using it."
"Transitioning from a traditional on-premises deployment to the privileged cloud has resulted in losing access to many logs and administrative tools typically available on the back end."
"Technical support from the vendor is the worst and that is one reason I stopped using CyberArk."
"The current user interface is a little dated. However, I hear there are changes coming in the next version."
"Over the past seven years, I have seen a lot of ups and downs with the product, but now I am happy with the version that we are using now."
"I would like to see a simplification of the product."
"CyberArk could enhance its usability by simplifying its architecture and design."
"There is room for improvement in the availability of custom connectors on the marketplace for this solution. Additionally, their services for the CICD pipeline and ease of integration could be improved."
"The lead product has a slow process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a very cheap service because management is a SaaS offering from AWS."
"AWS CloudTrail is free."
"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."
"The solution is free if you don't need customizations but is not expensive otherwise."
"CloudTrail itself is free of cost."
"I haven't seen the numbers. I know it is not cheap, but I don't know what it is. I would rate it a six out of ten in terms of pricing. It is definitely more expensive than the other product, but it also provides more functionality, and it is modular too. So, we pay for the functionality we're actually going to use, and that's nice."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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 provides all the features bundled. This is compared to other vendors who provide them as a different license for each functionality."
"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."
"The solution is cost-effective for the features."
"Our risk is definitely significantly lower. Also, our resources are low."
"From a client perspective, CyberArk's pricing is fair but there is a significant increase each year. They should limit the price increase because this could potentially drive customers to other partners. Price changes should be at defined intervals. There should not be sudden jumps."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
University
6%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise175
 

Questions from the Community

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?
AWS CloudTrail could be improved by adding more intelligent anomaly detection capabilities, stronger AI-assisted investigation workflows, easier root cause analysis for complex event chains, and im...
What is your primary use case for AWS CloudTrail?
The primary use case for AWS CloudTrail is auditing and security monitoring. AWS CloudTrail allows me to track all API activity across my AWS organization, investigate security events, support comp...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The pricing is reasonable compared to other software options we evaluated, and it is straightforward. However, overall costs depend on deployment size and licensing requirements.
What needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
While the access control capabilities are useful, streamlining some configuration and policy management workflows could enhance the user experience for administrators. A simpler interface for creat...
 

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. Idira Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,336 professionals have used our research since 2012.