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ForgeRock vs StrongDM 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

ForgeRock
Ranking in Access Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (5th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
StrongDM
Ranking in Access Management
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StrongDM is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock5.2%
StrongDM0.6%
Other94.2%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
reviewer2804475 - PeerSpot reviewer
Iam Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Access management has improved privileged logins while still needing fewer crashes and less upkeep
The best features in StrongDM are the password rotation capabilities, which I think are pretty cool, and also how you can literally log in to any of the privileged servers through a single platform. You just copy-paste the IP and the port number and log in over there through RDP, so I think that's pretty cool. I have used CyberArk before, but I think StrongDM as a product has pretty good potential. My impression of the credential-less access control is that it's pretty good because it reduces the attack surface. Basically, if you cannot see the password and everything, even the privileged users cannot see the password. It's a password-less system where you just log in to the servers without knowing your password, and even if you know your password, it's probably going to be rotated after a while. So, I think that's a pretty good use case for reducing the attack surface and maintaining zero trust throughout an identity perimeter. StrongDM helps with runtime features in a twenty-four-seven dynamic environment. Whenever I try to access at maybe two a.m. or three a.m. at night and I have a production issue on a server located in a different continent, I can access it right at that moment. I think the application works pretty much like a charm. It's readily available, and I think the runtime feature is pretty cool, although the application sometimes crashes when it's downloaded locally on your machine. Regarding pricing, I find StrongDM to be definitely cost-efficient. We used to use CyberArk before, but StrongDM is more cost-effective, which is why we are using it. Our director is a board member at StrongDM, allowing us to utilize the product and the flexibility it provides, which tailor-suits our needs based on the organization and is something we do not get from other PAM products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ForgeRock is an extensive product with many functionalities and capabilities, much more than many other tools combined."
"One of the interesting projects was to use ForgeRock as software as a service for the biggest telecommunication company in Switzerland, where they used it as a service for their customers."
"ForgeRock enabled us to deliver a more secure and compliant onboarding experience while also improving efficiency."
"ForgeRock has had a very positive impact on my organization, especially in terms of standardization, security posture, and operational efficiency."
"Better Access Management."
"ForgeRock products are customizable, and the out-of-the-box features are solid, too."
"The integration has been smooth and the costs have been significantly reduced."
"We were previously using a different solution, and switched as this product provided much better, and more efficient security for our customers."
"The best features in StrongDM are the password rotation capabilities, which I think are pretty cool, and also how you can literally log in to any of the privileged servers through a single platform."
"We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases."
"StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
 

Cons

"They should improve the solution by include reporting."
"ForgeRock can be a complex product that requires a lot of time to learn and understand its real value."
"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"Improve the software quality (bugs in new versions)."
"ForgeRock can improve by offering a unified development IDE for workflows, as we currently maintain BPMN, XML, JSON, and JavaScript separately."
"A point for improvement would be to bring more of these errors to the UI for administrators to help them understand what happened and how to fix it."
"The solution's deployment should be made easier."
"The solution requires more simplified customization."
"I think the stability of StrongDM is about four to five due to the occasional crashes that I mentioned."
"We've had a few issues with the stability of this product in the past."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is purchased annually per user. However, you can negotiate if you are signing for a longer period of time. When comparing this solution to others on the market it is priced fair, it is not at the top of the price range or at the bottom end."
"We have multiple clients we are looking at right now. We are at a very small number, however, the idea and the goal is to grow. We are looking at about $100,000 and $50,000 a minimum a month cost. That'd be minimum maybe in a couple of years."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis, but it also depends on the contract that you have with the vendor. They have multiple types of contracts. There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. If you need some of the features, you have to pay more."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"The pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"The licensing is per user per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate that it is very straightforward and helpful.
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
I wish the JavaScript part could be improved, as not everyone is proficient in JavaScript, so automating that or reducing the reliance on it could be beneficial. Additionally, having only one realm...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
My main use case for ForgeRock is designing user journeys, specifically customer user journeys, and how they interact with the system. A specific example of a user journey I designed using ForgeRoc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StrongDM?
The leadership chose StrongDM after comparative research, which suggests economic benefits. It was mentioned that while the product is rapidly gaining features, it might become cost-prohibitive for...
What needs improvement with StrongDM?
StrongDM regularly requires patches and maintenance, but I think that's a good question for the PAM architects in our organization. If you guys could offer only a cloud-native solution, you would l...
What is your primary use case for StrongDM?
My use case for StrongDM is Privileged Access Management. I have privileged accounts because I am working for the Identity and Access Management team at my company. As an engineer, I have really pr...
 

Also Known As

ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ForgeRock vs. StrongDM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.