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CA Privileged Access Manager Server Control [EOL] vs Idira Privileged Access Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

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

CA Privileged Access Manage...
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Idira Privileged Access Man...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user558603 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I like that the access control on the agent. Installation is difficult.
I would like to see some improvements, specifically in terms of some set-up items. We have spoken to CA quite a bit about the ability to have 'always-on', or 'active/active' status options, so if the infrastructure goes down, we don't lose transactions. This is very important for the environment and for the users so we cannot really afford any downtime with the solution. We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment.
Singaravelu C - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk Engineer at Tata Consultancy
Provides full visibility into user activity and ensures secure end-to-end access across critical systems
In CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, I see room for improvement as I am working in the on-premises networks, and now we are also having the cloud-based PAM. So there, everything is maintained by the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager team, and we are only maintaining the PSM servers. So it is already upgraded from the on-premises network to the cloud network. If you ask me what we can implement beyond that, I just need a few minutes to think about what new things, because it is already an end-to-end security on-premises itself. Now, when it comes to PCloud, Privileged Cloud, it is more secure than the on-premises networks because most of the things are handled using the cloud itself. So it is an already upgraded version; we do not need to implement something new. But if you think in that way, we can have a chance to implement our things. If anything could be improved in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, I think we could build a small agent AI in my team, we could give access to these logs—the Vault logs, PSM logs, and CPM logs. Whenever the system is going down, the AI will automatically check. If we actually implement agent AI in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, it will check the logs, and if any errors are coming, it automatically triggers alerts and gives the solution. That is the best improvement I can think of because these days, most things are done by agent AI. So if we also implement this agent AI in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we can add more features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Access Control enhances the security of business systems through a secured authentication and validation of users credentials before accessing organizations resources."
"No, the product been stable and robust, and boasts with new additional features."
"It efficiently controls the access to the resources from the privileged user thus implementing the security aspects and this provides fine granular access."
"It depends on the client's requirements, but for me the most valuable one is the security access management with distributed architecture and centralized management."
"This product has improved the security of the corporate network and made compliance with the safety regulations of our country."
"It gives us the ability to track who is using what ID and for what purpose."
"We're happy to see it working so well with our IBM solution, saving us time and costs."
"We have been able to exceed our audit requirements for security."
"Since then, CyberArk's Privileged Access Management is still our central solution for the entire estate, including all our servers (Windows/Unix), databases, devices, and so on, with around 5,000 to 8,000 users globally."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is excellent for meeting compliance and regulatory requirements."
"Creating policies and the password rotation feature have been valuable. We don't have to memorize our password for the ADM account."
"CyberArk PAM can be easily automated."
"The most valuable feature I find in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is that we can record the sessions. It provides flexible workflows. I can change the workflow to specify if it needs one approval or two approvals, and I can approve my peer."
"It is a scalable product."
"It's been a big win for us as we're now able to start managing service accounts with AIM."
"It gives us the capability to rotate passwords, which is the biggest thing because we do not want them being stagnant so every service account that we have needs to be rotated at least once a year."
 

Cons

"User Interface needs to be improved."
"We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment."
"Yes, I encountered lots of issues."
"The manuals for this product used to be good. We could find in one place answers to pretty much every question or situation we had. However, it's now in piece-meal fashion."
"Automated deployment did not work as expected, had to go to a manual deployment."
"I found the installation process of Access Control challenging due to the much networking work involved in order to grant access to authorized users."
"I have faced a few challenges due to the system complexity, as it involves two integrated authentication systems that have to be purchased."
"Sometimes we encounter issues whilst generating the reports."
"Currently, in Secure Connect, an end user is required to enter account information manually, and cannot save any of this information for future use."
"Maintaining the product is challenging. Upgrades require a lot of resources, as it impacts the entire organization. For example, upgrading components like the Privileged Session Manager (PSM) and the vault is time-consuming and difficult. In the long term, I would like to see these processes simplified, especially for on-premise installations."
"The installation process should be easier and more user-friendly so that you don't need to hire a third party to deploy it."
"CyberArk has a lot on the privileged access side but they have to concentrate more on the application side as well."
"Enhanced PSM support for Java based applications."
"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault can improve the distributive vault feature. Distributing the vault in multiple areas and multiple data centers should improve."
"PAM could be more user-friendly and CyberArk could update the documentation to include more real-world examples. You have to learn it yourself through trial and error. In particular, the online documentation should have more information about troubleshooting."
"The product is very vaulting-focused. I'd love to see it expanding its capabilities a bit further into areas like just-in-time elevation, and access with non-vaulted credentials."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"From a client perspective, CyberArk's pricing is fair but there is a significant increase each year. They should limit the price increase because this could potentially drive customers to other partners. Price changes should be at defined intervals. There should not be sudden jumps."
"Since CyberArk is at the top of the Gartner list, the cost is indeed on the higher side, but customers must discern which entities are essential to purchase. They should weigh the cost against the quality received."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is on the expensive side. It is very expensive."
"The solution is cost-effective for the features."
"I have heard from my leaders that CyberArk is costlier in terms of licensing. The support and maintenance are also costly. We use their premium support, but for the price we pay, we do not get the value."
"There are additional features added to our CyberArk Privileged Access Manager license. For example, features that allow us to integrate into various kinds of platforms."
"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is a very expensive product."
"I do not have any opinions to add about the pricing of the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise175
 

Questions from the Community

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How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
My thoughts on the pricing of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager depend entirely on the vendors' requirements. If they want their things to be secure, they have to spend accordingly. We have four t...
What needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
I believe account discovery and rolling support need to be improved. Account discovery is important when integrating with other systems, as other PAM solutions can perform account discovery and onb...
 

Also Known As

CA Access Control, CA Privileged Identity Manager
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Colruyt Group, Logicalis, TIS Inc.
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira by Palo Alto Networks, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: August 2026.
912,517 professionals have used our research since 2012.