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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs IBM Security Secret Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
IBM Security Secret Server
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 19.0%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Secret Server is 1.1%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Lasantha Wijesinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
We have visibility and control through real-time user behavior analytics
It took us some time to realize its benefits because there was a learning curve for us. It took us about a year to get our heads around this product and start effectively using it. It is a journey. It takes at least five years for any company to make this product very useful and reach maturity. It is not only the product's fault. The company needs to have a vision, and the company culture needs to go with it. Senior leadership needs to support the vision. You need to have lots of ingredients for success. If everything is in place, you will see success after one year. In the first year, it is a struggle for everybody. My company was bought by a bigger company, and they were very new to privileged access management. Everybody was struggling. The advice I would give is to have a good vision for privileged access management. You need dedicated teams, senior management support, and proper company policies and standards before implementing the solution. Start building knowledge slowly and avoid jumping into the deep end without preparation. I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
AsifIqbal - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up and manage and has good scalability and stability, but its technical support team needs to be more aggressive in solving issues
What needs improvement in IBM Security Secret Server is support. The local partner provides good support, but IBM itself doesn't. Most of the time, the IBM support team does not aggressively resolve issues reported through chat or the IBM website. In the next version of IBM Security Secret Server, I want to see more lightweight recording, architecture, or infrastructure requirements. Currently, it's heavy, so I want it reduced to make adapting IBM Security Secret Server much more effortless.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate CyberArk's real-time capabilities. I can secure critical sessions, such as SSH or database sessions. As a security professional, I have real-time visibility into ongoing sessions. If anything suspicious occurs, I can terminate or freeze the session, which is part of user behavior analytics."
"All access to our servers by both staff and vendors is monitored and recorded."
"The password rotation and cyber gateway have been quite useful."
"We also use CyberArk’s Secrets Manager. Because AWS is the biggest area for us, we have accounts in AWS that are being rotated by CyberArk. We also have a manual process for the most sensitive of our AWS accounts, like root accounts. We've used Secrets Manager on those and that has resulted in a significant risk reduction, as well."
"It is a leading solution and one of the best SaaS solutions in the market."
"One of the best features of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the capability of Privileged Session Manager (PSM) because it provides visibility into user activities, audit ability, and traceability."
"The best feature of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its core function: automatically managing and securing credentials."
"We found the initial setup to be easy."
"What I like best about IBM Security Secret Server is its single-access console. It's also easy to manage and fulfills the requirements with the least resistance."
"Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution."
"As a PAM solution, Secret Server performs all the use cases in our environment."
"The live recording is a very useful feature."
"One of the most valuable features is scalability, and how it allows you to scale it without affecting the underlying core components."
 

Cons

"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."
"If CyberArk wants people to pay for cloud services, they need to make the cloud services much more real-time."
"We would, of course, always prefer it if the pricing was cheaper."
"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."
"The tool’s pricing and scalability can be better."
"In the beginning, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager didn't have a multifactor authentication feature, so that was an area for improvement, but now it's part of the solution. Having just one console for two CyberArk products would be good, particularly for the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager, with the latter being a product for endpoint management that supports the workstations and allows you to manage workstations. In the next update of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, it would be good to have a local agent where you can manage all users and processes, and have an agent on the servers such as Linux and Windows."
"Upgrading the product is very difficult, so this could be an area for improvement."
"The technical support is very poor."
"What needs improvement in IBM Security Secret Server is support. The local partner provides good support, but IBM itself doesn't. Most of the time, the IBM support team does not aggressively resolve issues reported through chat or the IBM website."
"Secret Server should have the ability to discover privileged accounts in the servers, like the administrator or users, from SQL and Oracle without having to import a script."
"The nonclustered index is working in an area with a problem that needs improvement."
"It would be preferable if the full proxy was included in the IBM Security Secret Server."
"The newer interface is more difficult to use than the previous one, and consequently, new users might need more training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CyberArk is very expensive and there are additional fees for add-ons."
"The price of CyberArk support could be a little bit less. Otherwise, pricing is fine."
"It's an affordable platform."
"CyberArk DNA is free if you purchase the CyberArk solution. There is no additional charge for CyberArk DNA, which is great."
"CyberArk is one of the best PAM solutions and one of the most expensive, but it works better than the others, so the pricing is fair."
"Although CyberArk Privileged Access Management is expensive, its protection capabilities outweigh the cost."
"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."
"Previously, the pricing was very meager. They started publicizing and advertising the solution, growing CyberArk, as an organization. They also changed their pricing with that growth, e.g., the pricier the product, the more people who will purchase it."
"I believe that we paid 35,000 or 40,000 US dollars for it."
"The price could be better. I think it's a good price for the on-premises environment and the high availability for enterprises the solution provides."
"My rating for the IBM Security Secret Server pricing is seven out of ten. It could be cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about IBM Security Secret Server?
Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution.
What needs improvement with IBM Security Secret Server?
The nonclustered index is working in an area with a problem that needs improvement. In some cases, when they create some index in the tool, you may face some problems with the parallelism and some ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Security Secret Server?
I use the tool for dynamic services, integration services, and reporting services. I have years of working experience with the tool. I am a DBA and a support administrator for SQL Server, and also ...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
IBM Secret Server, Secret Server, IBM Security Privileged Identity Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. IBM Security Secret Server and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.