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BeyondTrust Password Safe 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

BeyondTrust Password Safe
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (7th)
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 August 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of BeyondTrust Password Safe is 3.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Secret Server is 1.1%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Ali Hatamleh - PeerSpot reviewer
Smart tooling streamlines account organization and access through advanced grouping features
The features I find valuable in Password Safe include password retention and management, session privilege monitoring, live monitoring and recording, and the use of PS automation scripts for creating connections. The smart tooling and smart group features are also important as, after finalizing discovery, they auto-collect accounts in the environment and organize them in Smart Groups for easy access.
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 rate BeyondTrust Password Safe as an overall 10 out of 10."
"The flexibility of the licensing model is significantly better as it offers both unlimited users and unlimited devices, unlike Delinea, which is based on the number of users."
"The best aspect of the product is the ability to onboard devices. You can scan the IP subnets and onboard all the devices. You can then segregate them if it's a network device or a firewall. If it's a Windows server or a UNIX, you can basically scan your IT infrastructure and onboard the efforts, which should be managed. Once they have been onboarded, then the session management and password management are easy and nicely configurable."
"Overall, I rate BeyondTrust Password Safe as nine out of ten."
"Session recording, password rotation, and password vaulting are the most valuable features."
"It is very easy to deploy. It's easy to use. That's the major thing I like about it."
"Screen recording is valuable, and integration with applications is easy. We can customize whatever we want. We did a lot of application integration using scripting."
"The product has improved security and login due to the system recordings. In case, there is a doubt that someone has done something which they shouldn't have been doing, we can just go back and check what the user actually did."
"Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"If they can create a single platform to create a connector, it would be better than using the RBS server."
"Documentation is the primary area of improvement."
"The database instance onboarding should be simplified. The problem is that you can scan the assets and databases inside a server, but you cannot onboard them or manage them with the smart tools. It has to be done manually. I think they should try to include more custom platforms."
"We weren't aware that the Password Safe virtual appliance runs on a Windows server. As part of our monthly patching process, we ran into an issue. BeyondTrust Password Safe wasn't compatible with the patching we used to put on our server."
"Its documentation can be improved. Its documentation is currently complicated, and it is not good. It needs to be better. Their technical support can also be improved. It is not bad, but it can be better."
"The only feature they could improve is the banners because they aren't informative. For example, if something is not correct and I open the error notification, the dialogue box simply says, "This is an error." It would be great if they could provide some valuable comments about how to fix the errors."
"There is a limited capacity on the appliance, which I wasn't informed about when I purchased the product. I can have a maximum of 150 rules per appliance; any more than that and rule processing becomes very complex, especially regarding password revision. Hitting a capacity limit you don't know about can be problematic. Ideally, we would not have a limited capacity, allowing us to be in a completely managed state with password rotation for every service account, not just the highly privileged ones."
"There are multiple features that have issues, although they could be specific to our environment. What we have seen is that whenever a user gets added to the authentication store, the sync between Password Safe and the authentication store, which is generally easy, takes a lot of time. It does not occur immediately."
"The newer interface is more difficult to use than the previous one, and consequently, new users might need more training."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of BeyondTrust is very good as compared to other products. That was the main reason we decided to go with BeyondTrust at first."
"When you buy Password Safe and perform your initial Discovery, you have all these servers that are added to your assets in BeyondTrust, but you're not using a license until you actually start managing the systems. BeyondTrust's licensing is based on the systems when they're managed, which means when an administrator is able to connect to the server through BeyondTrust with a managed account. There would be a privileged account on the endpoint when the licensing starts. A significant advantage to that is that there are many organizations that want to evaluate their environment prior to automatic management."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"We just pay for Password Safe. Session management is included, but we don't use it. There aren't any additional costs besides the standard licensing fees. We pay for an annual license."
"The product is quite affordable."
"The pricing structure is better than the competitors. It's much cheaper than CyberArk. They do the licensing on the basis of assets, not on the number of users. For CyberArk, they base the licensing on the number of users, and they have an expensive model of pricing. BeyondTrust has a cheaper model."
"At the time, BeyondTrust was significantly cheaper than CyberArk. Pricing-wise, if I remember correctly, it goes by assets. The pricing was negotiated for our instances based on the number of assets that we onboard into the system. It is a little different from CyberArk, where the pricing is by users. So, it depends. If you have a lot of assets, it can get very expensive."
"It has subscription-based licensing. BeyondTrust is three times less expensive than CyberArk."
"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
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Performing Arts
9%
Insurance Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BeyondTrust Password Safe?
My experience with BeyondTrust Password Safe's pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive, primarily due to its asset-based licensing model. This is a significant advantage for us because...
What needs improvement with BeyondTrust Password Safe?
We do not utilize the dynamic privilege elevation and delegation feature yet, because the customer is not planning to use this feature. They want to control the manner of user creation processes in...
What is your primary use case for BeyondTrust Password Safe?
Currently, we have one customer using BeyondTrust Password Safe. BeyondTrust Password Safe is usually used for two things: compliance and audit.
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Also Known As

BeyondTrust PowerBroker Password Safe
IBM Secret Server, Secret Server, IBM Security Privileged Identity Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aera Energy LLC, Care New England, James Madison University
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Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Password Safe vs. IBM Security Secret Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.