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IBM Resource Access Control Facility vs Idira Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

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

IBM Resource Access Control...
Ranking in Mainframe Security
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Idira Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Mainframe Security
1st
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), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Mainframe Security category, the mindshare of IBM Resource Access Control Facility is 10.6%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Idira Privileged Access Manager is 5.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Mainframe Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Idira Privileged Access Manager5.7%
IBM Resource Access Control Facility10.6%
Other83.7%
Mainframe Security
 

Featured Reviews

KC
Senior systems engineer at Unum
We're able to do role-based security so when new people join the company we're able to quickly add them to the proper security through role-based security groups.
It's completely secure. That's the best answer I can give you. We're able to do role-based security so when new people join the company we're able to quickly add them to the proper security through role-based security groups. Our resources are secured with this product I would welcome something…
Atul-Gujar - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Secures critical infrastructures with essential user session audit records
A potential area for improvement is enhancing support for cluster environments and distributed Vaults. Clients in multiple countries that need central access have different challenges that require better solutions from CyberArk. For financial services, CyberArk can improve incident response by ensuring fast support for critical priority tickets to meet compliance requirements. Providing more documentation on CyberArk is recommended for new team members to enhance their troubleshooting capabilities. I understand it's up to the client, but 99% fail to change the demo key, so it's crucial for CyberArk to emphasize changing the key and documenting it as part of the installation process.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Perfectly integrated with the z/OS operating system and all the other products in the IBM z/OS family."
"It's completely secure."
"Technical support is exceptional."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is the best solution for safeguarding sensitive patient data in healthcare, providing visibility and traceability that enhance compliance."
"It has helped us with our adoption with other teams, and it has also helped us to integrate it at the ground level."
"Password Vault's main advantage is its scalability. We constantly see huge enterprises implementing something like this, and the privileged session management is an excellent piece. You can kind of watch videos of whatever an admin has done."
"The password vault and session monitoring are useful."
"CyberArk PAS helps ensure accounts are managed according to corporate policies."
"From my experience, the kind of work I have done with this solution, it's absolutely amazing."
"Implementing CyberArk is not only rolling out a tool, it also will force the company to have a good look at the access management strategy, improve security processes and clean data."
"The Vault offers great capabilities for structuring and accessing data."
 

Cons

"I would like the generation of RACF on-screen listings and reports to be more flexible."
"The way to pull security logs could be better."
"I would welcome something that is more easily integrated with distributor platforms."
"Sometimes critical issues require follow-ups, as the support team doesn't always recognize the urgency of a critical ticket immediately."
"The solution needs better features for end users to manage their own whitelisting for API retrieval."
"it manages creds based on Organizational Units. That is, a "safe" is limited to specific OUs. That makes for very elaborate OU structure, or you risk exposing too many devices by putting most of them in fewer OUs."
"If you are an administrator or architect, then the solution is kind of complicated, as it is mostly focused on the end user. So, they need to also focus on the people who are implementing it."
"The major pain point that we have is the capacity of CyberArk due to the sheer volume of NPAs that we are managing."
"Some of the additional features that we are looking at are in the Conjur product. I am specifically discussing key management, API Keys, and things for connecting applications in the CI/CD pipelines."
"We found a lot of errors during the initial setup. They should work to improve the implementation experience and to remove errors from the process."
"CyberArk PAM is a very broad product as everyone's requirements for implementation are different. In our particular case, the initial implementation was planned and developed by people who didn't know our specific network requirements, so the initial implementation needed to be tweaked over time. While this is normal, at the time all these "major" changes required CyberArk professional services to come in-plant and "assist" with the changes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"With the current model of licensing, for my use cases, sometimes it's hard to convince the management and get budget approvals for it. It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just a control, but in terms of risk, you are covering a big impact on the company. Improvement in the licensing prices is something I would want to have."
"I'm a technician so I don't handle the licensing for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but I know that the price for the core license is about €140 per year. There's another type of license, the external vendor license, and that's about €600 and you can manage twenty devices. From what I know, the price for one device in a subscription is about €65 per year. You can buy the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager too, or you can buy some other application or application license with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but all other features, such as the Analytics Server is included in the basic CyberArk license. With WALLIX, you need to buy separate licenses for the features."
"No, I do not have any advice on the price of the product."
"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 DNA is free if you purchase the CyberArk solution. There is no additional charge for CyberArk DNA, which is great."
"This solution is expensive."
"The SaaS version of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is very expensive, but the on-premises version is relative, e.g. depending on the size of the environment, it can be a bit pricey, but it's relatively okay compared to the others."
"The price of CyberArk support could be a little bit less. Otherwise, pricing is fine."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
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

IBM RACF
CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rockwell Automation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Resource Access Control Facility vs. Idira Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
907,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.