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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)
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 October 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of BeyondTrust Password Safe is 3.4%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Secret Server is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BeyondTrust Password Safe3.4%
IBM Security Secret Server1.0%
Other95.6%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

IshtiaqKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
Extensive experience with session management and quick technical support boost confidence
While generally a strong product, BeyondTrust Password Safe has a few areas that could use some polish. From an administrator's viewpoint, we sometimes see keystroke capturing fail. More significantly, RDP sessions occasionally disconnect without any error messages on the client side. This leaves us administrators in the dark, unable to identify the cause of the problem
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

"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."
"I rate BeyondTrust Password Safe as an overall 10 out of 10."
"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."
"Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the architecture capabilities, which allow designated server components for high availability and failover. It works well with identity and access management solutions, allowing users to be automatically onboarded and offboarded. The account mapping feature makes rollout seamless. The session monitoring capabilities are excellent, with keystroke and graphical monitoring. This enhanced our security posture by providing detailed accounts of user actions. It helped us pass our SOX audits."
"The actual innovations offered by the vendor stand out to me. They are quick to respond to market demands and the changing environment of privileged access management."
"The technical support and customer services are phenomenal."
"One of the most valuable features is that this is a product designed with enterprises in mind."
"One of the most valuable features is scalability, and how it allows you to scale it without affecting the underlying core components."
"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."
"The live recording is a very useful feature."
"As a PAM solution, Secret Server performs all the use cases in our environment."
"Stability-wise, I think it is a very good solution."
 

Cons

"We don't have much control over the appliance. When anything happens in the backend, we have to depend on the support team. We need to raise a case so that they can update the appliance. If we have control over it, we would be able to troubleshoot easily."
"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."
"The product needs to have better integration with SAP products."
"The integration with Secure Remote Access must be improved."
"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."
"Adding user behavior analysis to the server or messaging would be beneficial."
"When we deploy BeyondTrust, we have to deploy our own database on a SQL server. It doesn't deploy the database. I wish BeyondTrust packages the whole solution in one and includes the MySQL database so that when you deploy it, it deploys everything for you. BeyondTrust gives you the software, but you are in charge of setting up your own database. It is a single appliance just for the BeyondTrust portion but not the database. Unless that has changed in later releases, you have to set up your own database for BeyondTrust Password Safe. I find that part complex because we then need the expertise and help of the database team to set it up, which also increases the deployment time. If they can deploy the database, it will reduce the deployment time."
"If they can create a single platform to create a connector, it would be better than using the RBS server."
"The nonclustered index is working in an area with a problem that needs improvement."
"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."
"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

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"It has subscription-based licensing. BeyondTrust is three times less expensive than CyberArk."
"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."
"The product is quite affordable."
"This solution is not cheap—it's a very expensive solution. Very, very expensive compared to the features and functions that they offer."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Password Safe vs. IBM Security Secret Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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