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CA Privileged Access Manager Server Control [EOL] vs Idira Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

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

CA Privileged Access Manage...
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Idira Privileged Access Man...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user558603 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I like that the access control on the agent. Installation is difficult.
I would like to see some improvements, specifically in terms of some set-up items. We have spoken to CA quite a bit about the ability to have 'always-on', or 'active/active' status options, so if the infrastructure goes down, we don't lose transactions. This is very important for the environment and for the users so we cannot really afford any downtime with the solution. We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment.
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

"Access Control has greatly prevented the misuse of administrator rights which is very rampant."
"No, the product been stable and robust, and boasts with new additional features."
"Access Control enhances the security of business systems through a secured authentication and validation of users credentials before accessing organizations resources."
"We have been able to exceed our audit requirements for security."
"It gives us the ability to track who is using what ID and for what purpose."
"We're happy to see it working so well with our IBM solution, saving us time and costs."
"It depends on the client's requirements, but for me the most valuable one is the security access management with distributed architecture and centralized management."
"It efficiently controls the access to the resources from the privileged user thus implementing the security aspects and this provides fine granular access."
"The ability to monitor privileged accounts throughout the enterprises."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager’s ability to safeguard credentials is very important."
"On the customer accounts side, our account managers are responsive. If you ask them, they will get you whomever you need."
"I find the discovery feature, which includes credential management, session management, monitoring, and remediation within a session, to be very valuable."
"You can gradually implement CyberArk, starting with more easily attainable goals."
"The solution is very complete; it has the most features on the market, session monitoring is excellent and may be the solution's most valuable aspect, and it offers very good password protection with great integration with many products."
"It is expensive as compared with other solutions, however, it is one of the best solutions in their domain."
"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."
 

Cons

"We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment."
"I have faced a few challenges due to the system complexity, as it involves two integrated authentication systems that have to be purchased."
"Automated deployment did not work as expected, had to go to a manual deployment."
"Sometimes we encounter issues whilst generating the reports."
"User Interface needs to be improved."
"I found the installation process of Access Control challenging due to the much networking work involved in order to grant access to authorized users."
"The manuals for this product used to be good. We could find in one place answers to pretty much every question or situation we had. However, it's now in piece-meal fashion."
"Yes, I encountered lots of issues."
"The one place where we found that this product really needs to improve is the cloud."
"Improvements in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager should focus on simplifying installation and upgrade times, and also consider making professional services training more accessible to implementers and partners."
"Online help needs to be looked into with live agent support."
"We do see performance issues with PSM which gets very busy, and we just keep scaling the number of PSMs."
"It should be easier to install. It is a comprehensive product, which makes it difficult to install."
"​It's hard to find competent resellers/support."
"Their post-sale support area requires a big improvement. Customers cannot automate tickets directly with CyberArk. They have to come through the distributor or bring in partners who have access to the support portal. Basically, the support for post-sales implementation is there, but the role of CyberArk is very minimal. Customers have to rely on partners, which sometimes creates issues. Some of the vendors help you during the implementation process, but the CyberArk support team does not do that. They have 24/7 support for our region, but they help only if there is an emergency or there is a problem with their system. If the password vault is down or the system is down, they provide immediate attention. For almost everything else, they take more time to respond. They give low priority to service-related or migration-related questions."
"From what I can see, the Systems Integrator is useless. When I ask for the information, nothing is given to me."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"CyberArk provides all the features bundled. This is compared to other vendors who provide them as a different license for each functionality."
"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."
"It is in line with its competitors, but all such solutions cost too much money."
"The solution is cost-effective for the features."
"I believe that this solution is priced well. It's the market leader and I think that it's the best solution."
"Payments have to be made on a yearly basis toward the licensing costs of the solution."
"It's expensive, certainly. But CyberArk is the leader in the market with regards to privileged access management. You pay a lot, but you are paying for the value that is being delivered."
"Network and security licenses are currently being managed by other outsource vendors, so they are facing some type of problems in the digital aspect."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise175
 

Questions from the Community

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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?
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 needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
I believe account discovery and rolling support need to be improved. Account discovery is important when integrating with other systems, as other PAM solutions can perform account discovery and onb...
 

Also Known As

CA Access Control, CA Privileged Identity Manager
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Colruyt Group, Logicalis, TIS Inc.
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira by Palo Alto Networks, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: July 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.