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ARCON Privileged Access Management 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

ARCON Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Security Secret Server
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
29th
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 July 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of ARCON Privileged Access Management is 4.0%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Secret Server is 1.0%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

PRAVINKHISMATRAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced compliance and security through detailed action recordings
We have used ARCON Privileged Access Management for recording videos of user actions taken after logging into systems. Around thirty people, including network engineers, server engineers, and application engineers, use it in the company There hasn't been a notable financial benefit for our…
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

"One important feature is the administrator access, mainly for Windows machines as well as Linux machines. It is important for us because there is accountability associated with each user ID. And the recordings are also helpful."
"One of the main benefits we've experienced is that Arcon helps us manage all our team's tasks and provides recording capabilities."
"100% compliant and you don't have to maintain ID management for each and every user."
"It gives us a lot of comfort in terms of security level. Our infrastructure devices and servers are secured and nobody can have unauthorized access to them."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not complex at all."
"The technical support is excellent."
"Video and audio logs are there for any activities that the privileged admin carries out."
"The initial setup was very simple. There was only one server we had to setup. We needed to store all the passwords, and a secure database is used."
"Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution."
"One of the most valuable features is scalability, and how it allows you to scale it without affecting the underlying core components."
"As a PAM solution, Secret Server performs all the use cases in our environment."
"The live recording is a very useful feature."
"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."
 

Cons

"This product is lacking in terms of dashboarding analytics and should have user behavior analytics. It should also have better dashboarding for executive management and security managers, which this product is missing."
"Bulk password automation is not available in ARCON when compared to other products."
"It should be browser-agnostic and, frankly, it is working well on Internet Explorer. It should work on popular browsers like Mozilla and Firefox."
"They they should focus on support. The support needs to be very strong. Since the product is becoming stronger, their support team also should be equally strong. They should respond to open queries within the time limit they have set. Their support team should be more technical, to understand the issue or the set up."
"It should support the SQL Always On platform with FQDN name instead of IP."
"The solution lacks to offer a governance mechanism for operational technology assets."
"A few areas for improvement in ARCON would be performance optimization, ensuring smoother management."
"I would like to see a "wild card" kind of a feature or something that would enable us to search the video."
"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."
"It would be preferable if the full proxy was included in the IBM Security Secret Server."
"The nonclustered index is working in an area with a problem that needs improvement."
"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 newer interface is more difficult to use than the previous one, and consequently, new users might need more training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Product pricing is based on users and connections. We did not have to pay more for additional features."
"There are no major concerns with licensing because we can handle multiple servers in our kiosk system."
"Pricing is reasonable."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The product is available with competitive pricing. Licensing is not complex. We calculated the license requirements by counting the number of admins and the number of devices which were going to integrate with it."
"ARCON is a will give you all the features in a very cost-effective solution. Pricing and licensing is very good compared to other players in the market."
"ARCON Privileged Access Management's pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing and licensing model is very economical."
"I believe that we paid 35,000 or 40,000 US dollars for it."
"My rating for the IBM Security Secret Server pricing is seven out of ten. It could be cheaper."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
5%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARCON Privileged Access Management?
From an end-user point of view, it would be beneficial if the system could provide information about the last login. This would help identify if the server was accessed by me or if someone has pote...
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Also Known As

ARCON ARCOS, ARCON PAM
IBM Secret Server, Secret Server, IBM Security Privileged Identity Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RAK Bank, AXIS Bank, Reliance Capital, Kotak Life Insurance, MTS
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ARCON Privileged Access Management vs. IBM Security Secret Server and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.