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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 (3rd), 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

"It gives us the ability to track who is using what ID and for what purpose."
"No, the product been stable and robust, and boasts with new additional features."
"It efficiently controls the access to the resources from the privileged user thus implementing the security aspects and this provides fine granular access."
"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."
"We're happy to see it working so well with our IBM solution, saving us time and costs."
"Access Control has greatly prevented the misuse of administrator rights which is very rampant."
"This product has improved the security of the corporate network and made compliance with the safety regulations of our country."
"We have been able to exceed our audit requirements for security."
"The integrations are the most valuable aspect of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. The software offers pre-built integrations, and our team can also create custom connectors. This flexibility allows us to integrate with systems that we previously didn't consider integrating with, making it a significant advantage for us."
"All access to our servers by both staff and vendors is monitored and recorded."
"The voice technology is very good."
"The most beneficial feature in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its simple user interface."
"DVR like video recording and text-based recording for easier audits."
"The automatic rotation of credentials is probably the most useful feature."
"The best feature of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its core function: automatically managing and securing credentials."
"The password management feature is valuable."
 

Cons

"I found the installation process of Access Control challenging due to the much networking work involved in order to grant access to authorized users."
"Yes, I encountered lots of issues."
"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."
"User Interface needs to be improved."
"Automated deployment did not work as expected, had to go to a manual deployment."
"I have faced a few challenges due to the system complexity, as it involves two integrated authentication systems that have to be purchased."
"Sometimes we encounter issues whilst generating the reports."
"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."
"In terms of mean time to respond, I acknowledge variable response time. The L1 team is proactive, yet the vendor often pushes to close incidents swiftly, even when issues remain unresolved."
"We require IAM (identify and access management) capability at the administrator level because we need more identification."
"The graphical user interface could be simplified and harmonized for better usability. It should be consistent. Its GUI is very confusing."
"Small things such as resizing pop-ups but mainly the reporting possibilities: These are quite poor in my honest opinion."
"They are taking two to three days for resolution are too slow. Customers, including myself, do not want to wait this long for solutions."
"The initial setup was somewhat complex, but we received help from the product support team with the installation."
"The downside is that it's a big program. To scale excessively, locally, on an on-prem application, takes a lot of servers."
"The solution needs better features for end users to manage their own whitelisting for API retrieval."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I do not have any opinions to add about the pricing of the product."
"This solution is considered to be more expensive than others out there on the market today."
"If you are looking at implementing this solution, buy the training and go to it."
"The main problem for the tool is its licensing. I work for a really big company. When you try to develop this as a service, usually you work with leverage teams who are formed with dozens of members. You might dedicate one FTE, or less, for something, e.g., an antivirus administrator. You might have half an FTE's effort dedicated to administering the antivirus, but then you have a team of about 30 users who might access that ticket. The problem is that CyberArk eliminated the possibility of concurrent users years ago. This is a big problem for companies who work with leverage teams. You need to pay for everyone. 40 licenses are used by 20 or 30 people. This is a big problem because licenses are not precisely cheap."
"CyberArk is good at what they do, and the price reflects that. You have to pay the price for the same."
"Payments have to be made on a yearly basis toward the licensing costs of the solution."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is on the expensive side. It is very expensive."
"It costs us around $200 per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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 CyberArk, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.