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Axiad Conductor vs IBM Security Secret Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Axiad Conductor
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
49th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (26th), Identity Management (IM) (37th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (29th), Passwordless Authentication (9th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (25th), Insider Risk Management (16th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (10th), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (14th), Credential Management Systems (CMS) (5th)
IBM Security Secret Server
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
28th
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 January 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Axiad Conductor is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Secret Server is 1.2%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security Secret Server1.2%
Axiad Conductor0.6%
Other98.2%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2230065 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at a wellness & fitness company with 10,001+ employees
We have seen increased productivity now that users can self-serve their account recovery
We were looking for a way for users to self-serve and increase productivity. Before Axiad Cloud, every time a user was locked out they would have to call the help desk and wait for someone to call back and help them recover their accounts. Now users can do it themselves and cut down on the time they are down with an expired credential. That was the primary driver for why we looked at using this solution. The biggest benefit is that Axiad Cloud has increased the productivity of the business unit where it has been deployed. Before, we had anywhere between 10 and 15 percent of our users that were, at any given time, not able to sign into their systems because of expired credentials. With the introduction of the solution for that business unit, that number went down. That's a measurable advantage. Users also say it is much easier to use but that is not something that we can measure.
AsifIqbal - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
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

"Aside from Active Directory, anything that is a multi-factor platform is handled through Axiad Cloud. It is critical for helping to enforce usage of authentication devices across our organization."
"What I have found most valuable is the overall way Axiad listened to our problems and helped us solve them. They provided guidance and expertise, with their experience, that enabled us to be successful in a very challenging space."
"The solution has also saved us time by having end-users troubleshoot issues through the MyCircle feature, and has definitely reduced the efforts of our administrators. It is saving us five to 10 minutes per incident."
"The life cycle management of credentials is the aspect that we have found to be the most useful... The differentiator that Axiad provided was the ability to provide users a way to self-serve the updating of their credentials on their private keys. That was the feature we were most interested in and Axiad does an excellent job of it."
"It's very user-friendly. We're issuing YubiKeys for our corporate users and they just plug it in, go to the Axiad Cloud portal, and click the issue button. It's a couple of steps."
"And when it comes to enrolling a user, it's super easy with One Click Issuance... It's so easy now that we can offload the process to our clients who can self-enroll. Previously, we would have to do the enrollment process because it was so complicated."
"Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution."
"As a PAM solution, Secret Server performs all the use cases in our environment."
"One of the most valuable features is scalability, and how it allows you to scale it without affecting the underlying core components."
"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

"I would like a more modern look to the portal."
"I'm looking forward to seeing how they move to FIDO U2F as their primary authentication method across all of their solutions."
"There are just some minor tweaks that could be made on the front end. It would be cool to have nicknames for authenticator devices. If you have more than one, it's hard to discern what you have."
"With their licensing model, it becomes hard to scale. For example, we couldn't roll it out enterprise-wide because if you scale it across more than 100,000 users, the cost becomes too exorbitant."
"macOS is notoriously ever-evolving and it's difficult to keep pace with it as it pertains to certain kinds of crypto authentication. That's really not even on Axiad. That's a decision by Apple, but it makes it a moving target."
"We would prefer that the solution be hosted in Canada because we're a Canadian entity. That would be nice to have. It's not a feature, as such, but it would really make us a lot happier if it could be located in Canada."
"It would be preferable if the full proxy was included in the IBM Security Secret Server."
"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."
"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."
"The nonclustered index is working in an area with a problem that needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Don't just focus on the hardware or software costs of acquiring a solution, but look at it from the perspective that so much of what it takes to run a PKI environment has to do with the people who are running it.... look at the total cost of ownership and not just the cost of acquisition."
"It's very cheap on a per-year basis. The cards themselves last about three years and the license is on the order of double-digit dollars per user, and not hundreds of dollars per user, per year."
"The pricing is very competitive for what is offered at the level that we need. They are right there with what the industry standards are. They tend to be a little bit less, in terms of cost, when we are talking about security at government standards. So, I would say that they have a slight advantage on cost compared to the industry average. They are the lower cost solution and the best bargain out on the market today."
"Axiad's pricing was what we were expecting. It was at the right spot. They were competitive."
"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."
"I believe that we paid 35,000 or 40,000 US dollars for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Performing Arts
12%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
 

Also Known As

Axiad Cloud
IBM Secret Server, Secret Server, IBM Security Privileged Identity Manager
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Axiad Conductor vs. IBM Security Secret Server and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.