UserLock vs Venafi comparison

IS Decisions and CyberArk are both solutions in the Authentication Systems category. IS Decisions is ranked #20, while CyberArk is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.2. IS Decisions holds a 1.1% mindshare in AS, compared to CyberArk’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IS Decisions users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of CyberArk users who would recommend it.

UserLock

Read 2 UserLock reviews

971 Views
660 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Venafi

Read 13 Venafi reviews

1,129 Views
768 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

UserLock

Venafi

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

UserLock and Venafi compete in the security management software category. Based on the data comparisons, Venafi seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, despite higher pricing.

What features are offered by UserLock in comparison to Venafi?

UserLock offers robust access management, ease of deployment, and reliable customer service. Venafi provides extensive security options, including machine identity protection, comprehensive feature set, and high functionality for complex security needs.

What areas of improvement can be found in UserLock in comparison to Venafi?

UserLock could improve its reporting capabilities, scalability, and functional advancement. Venafi needs better user-friendly documentation, streamlined integration processes, and improved user support.

How is the ease of deployment and customer service of UserLock in comparison to Venafi?

UserLock has straightforward deployment and highly rated customer service. Venafi's deployment is more complex and time-consuming. UserLock's customer service is praised for responsiveness and helpfulness, whereas Venafi's customer service is seen as needing improvement.

What setup costs and ROI can be seen with UserLock in comparison to Venafi?

UserLock is recognized for cost-effectiveness and quicker ROI. Venafi, while more expensive, delivers a strong ROI due to its extensive feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed UserLock vs. Venafi Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

UserLock vs. Venafi

July 2025

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Helped 865,484 peers since 2012

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

UserLock

Ranking in Authentication Systems

20th

Average Rating

10.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Access Management (25th)

Venafi

Ranking in Authentication Systems

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Authentication Systems category, the mindshare of UserLock is 1.1%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Venafi is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

Bill H.

Information Technology at City Of Keizer

Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory

The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

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Adam Goldstein

Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Automates certificate management across platforms and has enhanced integration support

Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively. We integrated it with GlobalSign and aimed to automate DNS verification, although challenges remained. Venafi's platform-agnostic nature was beneficial for handling certificates across different systems like IIS, AWS, and Azure. It ensures centralized certificate management, which is crucial for compliance and maintaining best practices. It significantly improved our operational efficiency by automating certificate workflows. This reduced the number of certificates requiring manual management, freeing internal resources from deploying trivial certificates. While some complex certificates still needed manual intervention, automating simpler ones eliminated internal bottlenecks associated with tasks like uploading certificates to Imperva. By automating these processes, we reduced errors, streamlined workflows, and eliminated the need to repeatedly remember and execute complex procedures, ultimately increasing our overall operational efficiency. The automation capabilities are good; when properly configured, it performs as expected.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."

"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."

"We use Venafi for PKI certificates."

"We have reduced 80% to 90% of our outages with Venafi, which impacts the revenue substantially."

"Venafi's technical support is impressively fast."

"The most valuable feature of Venafi is the automation that helps save time and reduce human error."

"Venafi solved the issue of many misplaced internal certificates, as we know that at one place we can get all the information, and the problem of notifications about expiring certificates is resolved, improving our overall system for Expedia."

"Automating anything, whether on-prem or cloud, is possible."

"Venafi's automation capabilities were significant, as they allowed us to automate certificate rotation and deployment effectively."

"It's definitely worth the money to have Venafi as a tool; it's definitely miles away from the competition, in my opinion."

More Venafi pros

Cons

"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."

"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."

"Venafi excels in automating certificate rotation and deployment but could enhance its offering by improving support for hardware security modules like Fortanix and providing more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations with public certificate authorities for DNS re-verification."

"The on-prem version is far more mature than the cloud version, which lacks a lot of features that the on-prem version offers, at least when we did the POC and evaluated the product."

"The product was really good when it was a Venafi product. However, since its acquisition by CyberArk, there has been a lack of significant innovations. They are pushing for cloud adoption, but we prefer on-premises solutions due to regulatory concerns."

"Currently, specific processes require manual installations due to the lack of built-in integrations."

"There are quite a few different technical aspects of Venafi that I feel they just missed out on; I'd have to look at my notes for the specifics."

"Venafi's overall installation could be made easier."

"There's definitely lots of room for improvement with Venafi. They have a website where we can suggest new features, and they need to take that a little bit more seriously."

"Currently lacks the capability to automatically download certificates in JKS."

More Venafi cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."

"Venafi's pricing appears to be competitive within the market."

"The pricing model is complex, considering factors beyond the number of certificates. This complexity can make our payments to Venafi challenging if costs continue to rise. It is good but more expensive than the competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

15%

University

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Venafi?

We use Venafi for PKI certificates.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Venafi?

For our budget, Venafi's cost is moderate. It's not expensive as internal certificate generation is free, and we only pay for the public CA certificate signer and for storage in Venafi. With the to...

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What needs improvement with Venafi?

As an end user, I cannot specifically point out improvements, but I believe it would be beneficial to display active certificates in a separate column on the UI, so users can easily find what they ...

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Comparisons

Cisco Duo vs UserLock

Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs UserLock

Compared 19% of the time

Silverfort vs UserLock

Compared 16% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs UserLock

Compared 9% of the time

Aruba ClearPass vs UserLock

Compared 8% of the time

More UserLock Competitors

AppViewX CERT+ vs Venafi

Compared 35% of the time

DigiCert PKI Platform vs Venafi

Compared 24% of the time

i-Sprint AccessMatrix Universal Access Management vs Venafi

Compared 12% of the time

Entrust Identity Enterprise vs Venafi

Compared 10% of the time

Axiad Conductor vs Venafi

Compared 9% of the time

More Venafi Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Authentication Systems

July 2025

Download UserLock product report

Buyer's Guide

Venafi

July 2025

Download Venafi product report

Overview

Two Factor Authentication & Access Management for Windows Active Directory.

UserLock helps administrators to manage and secure access for every user, without obstructing employees or frustrating IT.

Two Factor Authentication on Windows logon, RDP, IIS and VPN connections. UserLock supports 2FA using authenticator applications which include Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator and LastPass Authenticator, or programmable hardware tokens such as YubiKey and Token2.

Single Sign-On: Secure and frictionless access to Microsoft 365 and other Cloud Applications, using on-premise Active Directory credentials.

Access Restrictions: Using the contextual information around a user’s logon, UserLock will authorize, deny or limit how a user can access the network, once authenticated.

Access Monitoring: Track and alert on all users’ logon and logoff activity in real-time. Interact remotely with any session and respond to login behavior.

Access Auditing: Record and report on all user connection events to provide a central audit across the whole network.

IS Decisions

Venafi automates protection for machine identities, which all organizations rely on to keep communications between machines secure and private. Venafi generates the machine identity intelligence necessary to automatically safeguard the flow of information to trusted machines and prevent communication with untrusted ones - all at machine speed and scale.

CyberArk

Sample Customers

Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department

Surescripts, CME Group, TD Bank Group, Aetna, MoneyGram, Zions Bancorp, Cisco

Buyer's Guide

UserLock vs. Venafi

July 2025

Free Report: UserLock vs. Venafi

Find out what your peers are saying about UserLock vs. Venafi and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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