7 best CyberArk alternatives in 2026

CyberArk earned its position in the privileged access management (PAM) market through deep vaulting capabilities, mature secrets management via Conjur, and an integration ecosystem built over two decades. For large enterprises with dedicated PAM teams and multi-year implementation budgets, that depth delivers clear value — but it comes with tradeoffs that not every organization can absorb.

But the PAM landscape is shifting. The Verizon 2025 DBIR found that stolen credentials remain the single most common initial access vector in breaches, appearing in 22% of confirmed incidents.

Organizations running lean security teams are re-evaluating whether vaulting credentials, with the implementation timelines and overhead that approach requires, is still the right fit. Several factors are driving that re-evaluation.

This guide evaluates seven alternatives for teams weighing deployment speed, privilege architecture, and total cost of ownership.

Why teams are looking into CyberArk alternatives in 2026

CyberArk is a capable platform, but several factors are driving teams to evaluate alternatives in 2026:

• Implementation timelines and complexity: CyberArk implementations commonly take months before delivering value. For lean security teams managing privileged access alongside a dozen other priorities, that's a significant resource commitment.
• Operational overhead: Upgrade complexity requiring careful version mapping, support responsiveness gaps during deployment, and a steep learning curve drive user resistance. These patterns hit hardest for teams without dedicated PAM specialists.
• Acquisition and integration: Palo Alto Networks plans to deeply integrate CyberArk's identity and PAM capabilities into its Strata and Cortex platforms while continuing to offer CyberArk as a standalone product. As with any large acquisition and promised deep integration, enterprise customers will naturally have questions about the long-term product roadmap and how identity security capabilities will be packaged at their next renewal.
• Privilege architecture shift: The broader PAM market is moving from credential vaulting toward architectures that eliminate standing privileged accounts entirely.

Rather than storing credentials and rotating them on a schedule, ephemeral privilege models provision access for a specific task and destroy it when the session ends. That reduces the window an attacker can exploit from days or weeks to minutes.

These factors don't all carry the same weight for every organization. The right alternative depends on your privilege architecture requirements, team size, deployment timeline constraints, and how much of the CyberArk feature set you actually use.

Here's how to structure that evaluation.

How to evaluate CyberArk alternatives

Not all PAM platforms solve the same problems. As you compare options, these are the criteria that tend to separate the field:

• Privilege architecture: Does the platform vault credentials that still exist as persistent targets? Does it eliminate standing accounts entirely through just-in-time provisioning?
• Deployment timeline: Can you be operational in days or weeks, or are you looking at months of implementation before delivering value? Deployment complexity correlates directly with professional services costs.
• Secrets management: How does the platform handle passwords, API keys, certificates, and machine secrets? Key considerations include dynamic secrets with automatic rotation, CI/CD pipeline integration depth, and Kubernetes-native support.
• Session management: Does your regulatory environment require keystroke-level recording with OCR-based command analysis for NIST 800-53, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS compliance, or is session logging sufficient for your audit trails? Understand what your compliance framework requires before paying for capabilities you won't use.
• Total cost of ownership (TCO): The visible software cost often represents less than half the total spend. Professional services, infrastructure maintenance, training, and dedicated administrator headcount all factor in. Ask every vendor for a three-year TCO model that includes implementation services.
• Administrative overhead: Can your existing team manage the platform, or does it require a dedicated PAM specialist? For organizations without headcount to spare, this can be the deciding factor.

With those criteria in mind, here's how 7 alternatives compare.

7 CyberArk alternatives

1. Netwrix Privilege Secure

Netwrix Privilege Secure eliminates standing privileged accounts through its zero standing privilege engine. Rather than storing credentials in a vault, the system verifies identity in real time, creates dynamic credentials scoped to the specific task, and grants session-based access with monitoring. Credentials are automatically destroyed when the session ends.

For example, Eastern Carver County Schools, a district serving 9,300 students with limited IT staff, switched to this approach after penetration testers repeatedly exploited over-provisioned admin accounts.

The district deployed Netwrix Privilege Secure in days and eliminated standing privileges across network switches, VMware, and security cameras, replacing them with just-in-time access that's granted on demand and automatically revoked.

As Craig Larsen, Information Systems Administrator, put it: "Netwrix Privilege Secure is so simple to install and get running that we could not have solved our privileged account management problem without it."

Key capabilities:

• Zero standing privilege engine with just-in-time access provisioning and automatic credential destruction
• Activity-centric controls with granular policies scoped to specific privileged workflows and tasks
• Session recording with real-time enforcement for audit trails and forensic investigation
• Browser-based privileged access with MFA-integrated approval workflows
• Agentless privileged account discovery across hybrid environments
• Deployment measured in days, not months or quarters

Strengths:

• Deployment speed: Operational in days, not months
• Privilege architecture: Eliminates standing accounts entirely, rather than storing credentials that persist as targets
• Lower TCO: Simpler architecture, user-based licensing, and no need for a dedicated PAM administrator reduce upfront and ongoing costs
• Microsoft-heavy environments: Strong fit for organizations standardized on Active Directory and a hybrid Microsoft infrastructure
• Activity-centric controls: Protects what admins do through task-based access controls, not just the accounts they use
• Broader platform: Netwrix Privilege Secure is part of a wider platform built around data security that starts with identity. Netwrix 1Secure, the SaaS platform combining DSPM, ITDR, and compliance reporting with AI-based remediation, complements Privilege Secure.

Organizations that need privileged access controls alongside data security posture and identity threat detection get both under one vendor.

Best for: Mid-market organizations (100 to 5,000 employees) in regulated industries with Microsoft-heavy environments wanting to move from vault-based PAM to zero standing privilege without extended project timelines.

2. BeyondTrust

BeyondTrust provides session management and endpoint privilege management for enterprise environments. The platform focuses on removing local admin rights with just-in-time elevation and recording privileged sessions for compliance.

It's a common evaluation choice for organizations that need both PAM and endpoint privilege controls from a single vendor.

Key capabilities:

• Enterprise PAM with automated credential discovery and password rotation
• Endpoint privilege management removing local admin rights with just-in-time elevation
• Session monitoring with video playback and keystroke recording
• ServiceNow and ITSM integrations for workflow automation

Tradeoffs:

• Infrastructure complexity requiring specialized expertise to deploy and maintain
• Extended upgrade processes requiring careful planning and expected downtime
• Vault-centric architecture rather than ZSP
• RDP session management requires local agents, adding deployment complexity

Best for: Large enterprises requiring session-focused PAM with endpoint privilege management, ServiceNow workflow integration, and dedicated PAM teams with budget for professional services.

3. Delinea

Delinea provides password vaulting through Secret Server, identity bridging, and endpoint privilege controls. The platform positions itself as simpler than legacy PAM alternatives while retaining a credential-storage architecture.

Key capabilities:

• Secret Server for centralized password vaulting with automated credential discovery and rotation
• Privileged behavior analytics with risk scoring
• Connection Manager for session proxying and recording
• Server PAM for UNIX/Linux privilege elevation

Tradeoffs:

• Stores privileged accounts rather than eliminating standing privileges
• Scalability concerns at the enterprise scale with large endpoint deployments
• No broader data security, ITDR, or IGA capabilities in the same platform

Best for: Organizations wanting familiar vault-based PAM with fast deployment, willing to trade depth for speed, and comfortable with a PAM-only vendor.

4. ManageEngine PAM360

ManageEngine PAM360 provides traditional PAM with vaulting, session management, and pre-configured compliance reporting. The platform is designed for teams that want a straightforward deployment without extensive customization.

Key capabilities:

• Centralized password vault with automated discovery and policy-based rotation
• Real-time session shadowing with native session recording
• AI-powered privileged user behavior analytics for anomaly detection
• Pre-configured compliance reports for NIST, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, and ISO/IEC 27001

Tradeoffs:

• Requires integration with third-party MFA providers rather than offering a fully native built-in MFA solution
• Scalability concerns in very large environments
• Traditional vault-centric approach: stores credentials rather than eliminating standing privileges

Best for: Mid-market organizations needing vault-based PAM with careful cost control, particularly those with straightforward compliance requirements.

5. Akeyless

Akeyless provides a SaaS-native platform consolidating secrets management, privileged access, and certificate lifecycle management. It’s optimized for cloud-first and DevOps-heavy organizations wanting to eliminate PAM infrastructure entirely.

Key capabilities:

• Fully managed SaaS with stateless gateways and zero-knowledge architecture
• Distributed Fragments Cryptography (DFC) for cryptographic key management
• Dynamic secrets with just-in-time generation for databases, SSH, and Kubernetes
• Zero standing privilege implementation with ephemeral credentials

Tradeoffs:

• SaaS-first model creates challenges for organizations with strict on-premises requirements
• Less brand recognition than established PAM vendors
• PAM features are less mature for human-privileged access management than machine-focused capabilities
• No session recording for traditional privileged user workflows

Best for: Cloud-first and DevOps-heavy organizations prioritizing machine secrets management that want to avoid managing PAM infrastructure.

6. Silverfort

Silverfort provides identity-based, agentless privileged access security that applies MFA and just-in-time controls across hybrid environments. This is an augmentation layer that extends identity security controls to systems that traditional PAM tools often miss, not a standalone PAM replacement.

Key capabilities:

• Agentless, proxyless MFA analyzing Active Directory authentication requests in real-time
• Just-in-time privileged access through authentication-layer controls
• Deep integration with Microsoft Entra ID, Active Directory, and ADFS
• Extension of MFA to legacy applications, databases, SSH, and RDP

Tradeoffs:

• Directory-dependent architecture tied to directory health and availability
• Not a standalone replacement for traditional PAM with secrets vaulting or session recording
• Positioned as a complementary solution rather than a full PAM platform

Best for: Organizations wanting to extend MFA and just-in-time controls to legacy systems and hybrid environments as a complement to existing PAM infrastructure.

7. Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management (PIM)

Microsoft Entra ID PIM provides just-in-time elevation of privileged roles within the Microsoft ecosystem. For organizations standardized on Microsoft 365 and Azure, it's the "already in your stack" option.

Key capabilities:

• Time-bound role assignments with automatic expiration
• Just-in-time access requiring on-demand activation with MFA
• Mandatory business justification for role activations
• Integration with Conditional Access, Microsoft Defender, and Sentinel

Tradeoffs:

• Limited to the Microsoft ecosystem only: doesn't cover on-premises Active Directory, Linux, non-Microsoft databases, or third-party applications
• Session recording is available only through the Azure Bastion Premium SKU, with significant restrictions
• Requires Entra ID P2 or higher licensing, which not all organizations have
• No coverage for the hybrid and on-premises systems

Best for: Microsoft-centric organizations primarily needing admin role controls within Microsoft 365 and Azure, accepting scope limitations for non-Microsoft systems.

Choosing the right approach for your organization

The PAM market is moving from credential vaulting toward architectures that eliminate standing accounts and control what admins do, not just which accounts they use.

For organizations stretched across multiple security priorities, the implementation complexity and ongoing overhead of legacy PAM can consume more resources than the risk it reduces.

The right alternative depends on your privileged architecture requirements, how your team operates, and which capabilities matter most. There's no single answer, but the evaluation criteria in this guide should help narrow the field.

For teams that need privileged access controls that eliminate standing accounts rather than vault them, Netwrix Privilege Secure deploys in days, provides activity-centric session monitoring, and supports hybrid environments across Microsoft and non-Microsoft systems.

It's part of a broader 1Secure Platform that combines PAM, DSPM, ITDR, and compliance reporting under one vendor.

Request a Netwrix demo to see how eliminating standing privileges compares to vaulting them in your environment.

Disclaimer: The information in this article is current as of February 2026; verify details with each vendor for the latest updates.