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Opal vs StrongDM comparison

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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

Opal
Ranking in Access Management
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (10th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (19th)
StrongDM
Ranking in Access Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Opal is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StrongDM is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StrongDM0.8%
Opal0.8%
Other98.4%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Mudasser - PeerSpot reviewer
AI/ML Engineer at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Automated access reviews have improved least privilege and simplified identity governance
The best features Opal offers are automated access reviews, centralized visibility, and just-in-time access. I especially appreciate the ability to enforce time-bound access and automatically revoke privileges, which makes least privilege management much more practical. The automated access reviews have made the process much more efficient by giving us a structured way to review and revoke unnecessary permissions. Instead of manually checking every entitlement, we can focus on exceptions and higher risk access, which makes the review process more manageable and consistent. I would also add that the context Opal provides during access reviews is valuable. You can see the access relationship and risk rather than simply approving or denying it blindly. This makes the decisions more informed and gives the team a much better audit trail.
AmitRathod - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst at Toll Holdings Limited
Secure access has transformed our audits and weekend operations run smoothly
StrongDM does not support multi-port and distributed clusters, as the raw TCP resource type is strictly single-port and cannot handle protocols requiring multiple concurrent ports or distributed brokers like Kafka. Third-party client compatibility is another area for improvement, as StrongDM is designed to work with the standard Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection on Windows but may not fully support alternative RDP clients like the Windows Store Remote Desktop.Additionally, StrongDM has limited MFA and passwordless options, relying heavily on time-based one-time passwords (OTP) or Duo, lacking support for true passwordless setups like biometrics or hardware YubiKeys, and it does not support per-session MFA. These are the drawbacks that need improvement for StrongDM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The clearest outcome I have seen is less manual effort during access reviews and better control over unnecessary or standing access, which improves the overall security posture."
"Opal has positively impacted my organization by reducing stress and increasing effectiveness for all our employees; it works better so all our employees have more time to sleep and they can investigate more."
"Previously, my phone usage was around nine hours and fifteen minutes or more, but it has significantly reduced to around six hours and thirty minutes to seven hours, meaning two and a half to three hours has been reduced after using Opal as my primary screen time blocker."
"By adopting StrongDM, we have achieved benefits such as eliminating our weekend outages, streamlining ongoing on-call workflows, enabling seamless migration with POC transitions directly into production with minimal effort, allowing our engineers to use their preferred SQL clients like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Workbench, and facilitating compliance through detailed session logs and query capture for SOC 2 and ISO audits."
"Since using StrongDM, I estimate around a 60% reduction in effort compared to other PAM tools."
"Since using StrongDM, I estimate around a 60% reduction in effort compared to other PAM tools."
"All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience."
"The best features in StrongDM are that it is the easiest product in the market for this situation with easy access."
"StrongDM has positively impacted my organization by saving me a lot of time as a security auditor, because I have to navigate settings and configurations to check the presence of certain security controls in place."
"We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases."
"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."
 

Cons

"The core platform is already strong, but I would appreciate more flexibility in customizing workflows and access review policies."
"Opal can be improved in some ways."
"My thoughts on the pricing of StrongDM is that it is expensive."
"I rate the stability of the product five out of ten because crashes sometimes happen when we are working on it."
"Integration, however, is something which admins configure with StrongDM, and in that area, it can be improved."
"It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases."
"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."
"StrongDM lacks the capability for web application injections or password injections, so we need to rely on other tools such as HashiCorp for non-human accounts or DevOps scenarios."
"I believe StrongDM can improve its initial setup and onboarding experience for larger enterprise environments like Scania, where we have a lot of processes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing is per user per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Opal?
Opal can be improved in some ways. In the paid version, there are multiple features, but in the freemium version, there are fewer features. The blockage of the application can be more rigorous. Rig...
What is your primary use case for Opal?
The main use case of Opal for me is to reduce my screen time during my work hours, during my wake-up time, and during my sleeping time to improve my focus and feasibility towards my work and my act...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StrongDM?
I cannot disclose the pricing details, but I find it competitive compared to other solutions.
What needs improvement with StrongDM?
StrongDM can be improved in many ways. For example, the access approval workflow could be faster. We face a challenge where we sometimes need temporary access to production but have to wait for an ...
What is your primary use case for StrongDM?
In our environment, we have managed Linux servers, cloud resources, and production systems, and we use StrongDM as a privileged access management solution. StrongDM authenticates users through the ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Opal vs. StrongDM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.