Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BeyondTrust Password Safe vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
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 BeyondTrust Password Safe is 3.3%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.6% 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.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ability to manage privileged account passwords is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"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."
"It provides integrated password and session management in one solution, which is important for us because, from an auditing standpoint, we are accountable for the type of access being used. We need to ensure that accounts are securely stored and there is the right type of accountability around who is gaining the access. After gaining it, how they're using it, where they're using it, etc."
"BeyondTrust Password Safe is a good PAM tool."
"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."
"Session recording, password rotation, and password vaulting are the most valuable features."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
 

Cons

"We face screensaver timeout issues and problems with the server. I would like the product to include a server visibility feature."
"If they can create a single platform to create a connector, it would be better than using the RBS server."
"It has crashed on us in the past."
"The integration with Secure Remote Access must be improved."
"The pricing is not cheap, but it could be better."
"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."
"If there was one thing, it would be having the documentation standardized. They should keep the documentation consistent. For example, when BeyondTrust updated one of their admin guides, they left out the information on the discovery account requirements, and then over a period of time, we ended up having to search multiple different documents to put together a string of information for a specific topic, which was problematic. It was minor, but it was problematic. Standardized documentation would be the one thing I would suggest."
"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."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"I would like this solution to be simpler. It should have a one-click access that works together with AWS."
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"The management console could be improved."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This solution is not cheap—it's a very expensive solution. Very, very expensive compared to the features and functions that they offer."
"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."
"It has subscription-based licensing. BeyondTrust is three times less expensive than CyberArk."
"The product is quite affordable."
"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."
"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 version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"It is reasonably priced."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

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?
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 significan...
What is your primary use case for BeyondTrust Password Safe?
The main purpose of BeyondTrust Password Safe is for Privileged Access Management, with session monitoring being very effective for risk mitigation. It ensures we adhere to the control standards se...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I would rate it as an eight and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handl...
 

Also Known As

BeyondTrust PowerBroker Password Safe
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aera Energy LLC, Care New England, James Madison University
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Password Safe vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.