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Certificate Lifecycle Manager vs UserLock 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

Certificate Lifecycle Manager
Ranking in Authentication Systems
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Certificate Management Software (2nd)
UserLock
Ranking in Authentication Systems
30th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of Certificate Lifecycle Manager is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UserLock is 1.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Authentication Systems Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Certificate Lifecycle Manager2.1%
UserLock1.0%
Other96.9%
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Deb Malya - PeerSpot reviewer
Section Head Cybersecurity at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Strong privileged access controls have protected critical sessions and improved credential oversight
The best features of CyberArk Certificate Manager include its robust privileged access management capability, session monitoring, and strong defense against threat vectors. PSM, PIM, and application legacy connectivity for CyberArk Certificate Manager are probably the best in the market. The real-time threat intelligence feature helps with preventing security breaches as it never allows any privileged access to get into the application until you check out the user ID and password, effectively managing credentials. It also includes MFA and session monitoring, tracking who is checking out the password and credentials, which are capabilities that cannot be bypassed, thus neutralizing threat protection. I use features like PSM, PIM, session monitoring, and everything else with CyberArk Certificate Manager.
Bill H. - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology at City Of Keizer
Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory
The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Certificate Manager's ability to help with compliance and regulatory requirements, including SOX and Swift, was great; this is a major selling point."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is their certificate discovery."
"The support is definitely great. What I like best about Venafi is that it's very easy to get somebody on a call and get any of my questions answered. That's probably the biggest thing. Besides the fact that it's a mature product and it works, the support is a big deal."
"It's definitely worth the money to have Venafi as a tool; it's definitely miles away from the competition, in my opinion."
"The most important feature for us is the ease of use. If something is not available, we can develop our own scripts for it. We can create change management around this tool."
"Since using CyberArk Certificate Manager, it saves a lot of time, reduces errors, and makes compliance much easier."
"Venafi's technical support is impressively fast."
"By using Certificate Manager, we have reduced our potential risk significantly due to certificate expiry, as all teams are getting emails before 60 days and 90 days, which is helpful."
"UserLock was pretty easy to set up and simple to use, and the documentation covered everything."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
"It is affordable, integrates easily with Active Directory, and is simple to install and maintain."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
 

Cons

"For the stability of the solution itself, I would rate it a seven."
"There's definitely lots of room for improvement with Venafi. They have a website where we can suggest new features, and they need to take that a little bit more seriously."
"There are quite a few different technical aspects of Venafi that I feel they just missed out on; I'd have to look at my notes for the specifics."
"Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations with public certificate authorities for DNS re-verification."
"The initial setup is complex. You need third-party support or support from CyberArk Certificate Manager if you do not have a lot of skillset inside your own company."
"In terms of scalability, given that we were in the situation where it was on-prem, there were certain limitations there."
"Venafi's overall installation could be made easier."
"I would like to see included in the next release of Venafi integration with the cloud HSM's, Hardware Security Module. Additionally, I would say other cloud services, because it's not only cloud that's essential. If you have a customer that has a lot of their IT moved into cloud, integration with different cloud services is always an area to improve."
"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."
"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market."
"The pricing model is complex, considering factors beyond the number of certificates. This complexity can make our payments to Venafi challenging if costs continue to rise. It is good but more expensive than the competitors."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Construction Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Venafi?
In terms of pricing, they are a little costly, but they are the best in the market today, so I would say they are worth every penny, rating them again at seven or eight.
What needs improvement with Venafi?
CyberArk Certificate Manager can be improved, particularly in terms of integrations with other tools. I would like to see improvements in integrations with ID, Kerberos, or with other companies for...
What advice do you have for others considering Venafi?
Since using CyberArk Certificate Manager, I have seen specific outcomes such as a reduction in incidents because I can work with CyberArk Certificate Manager, where digital certificates are everywh...
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Also Known As

Venafi
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Surescripts, CME Group, TD Bank Group, Aetna, MoneyGram, Zions Bancorp, Cisco
Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department
Find out what your peers are saying about Certificate Lifecycle Manager vs. UserLock and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.