Worried about your privileged accounts?
Managing user access across hybrid environments is a huge challenge. One slip-up could expose your entire infrastructure to a devastating breach.
Choosing the wrong tool under pressure leads to compliance failures or breaches. It feels like you’re navigating a minefield with endless vendor claims.
ResearchAndMarkets highlights there were over 76,000 cybercrime incidents reported in 2022 alone. This shows just how critical protecting privileged access has become for every organization.
The right PAM tool solves this by providing centralized control over all credentials, securing your infrastructure without disrupting your team’s workflow.
In this guide, I’ll help you cut through the noise. I’m breaking down the best privileged access management software to help you make an informed decision.
You’ll find tools that automate compliance reporting, monitor sessions in real-time, and scale with your complex needs, ensuring total security.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CyberArk → | Complex hybrid environments | |
| 2 | BeyondTrust → | Hybrid and cloud enterprises | |
| 3 | Delinea → | IT directors, scalable orgs | |
| 4 | WALLIX → | Hybrid IT and OT businesses | |
| 5 | One Identity → | Hybrid enterprise security |
1. CyberArk
Struggling with access controls and compliance in hybrid environments?
You know the headache of balancing security with operational efficiency across complex IT infrastructure. CyberArk’s Identity Security Platform focuses on putting security first without sacrificing your team’s productivity.
This means you can streamline operations and give users simple, secure access to resources across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid setups. The result? Enhanced security for your most valuable assets.
Here’s how.
CyberArk tackles this by centralizing credential management and providing intelligent privilege controls. This platform extends robust security designed for the most privileged users to all identities, human and machine.
You can secure access across operating systems, endpoints, and cloud workloads with comprehensive capabilities. This includes real-time session monitoring and just-in-time access, crucial for reducing your attack surface. Additionally, it helps you take control over unmanaged privilege on endpoints, removing local admin rights and enforcing role-specific least privilege, which dramatically improves audit readiness for compliance regulations like GDPR or HIPAA.
It truly secures every identity.
While we’re discussing comprehensive security, you might find my guide on API security testing tools helpful for a different aspect of infrastructure protection.
Key features:
- Intelligent Privilege Controls extend advanced security to all human and machine identities, offering standing or just-in-time access to sensitive resources.
- Centralized Credential Management secures privileged credentials and secrets across diverse infrastructure including cloud, servers, databases, and network devices.
- Flexible Identity Automation streamlines HR processes, automates access permissions, and ensures compliance with government and industry regulations.
Learn more about CyberArk features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: With its comprehensive approach to identity security, including securing privileged access, secrets management, and endpoint privilege security, CyberArk is a standout choice for the best privileged access management software. It helps you manage complex hybrid environments and achieve automated compliance reporting, as demonstrated by an average 309% three-year ROI.
2. BeyondTrust
Is your infrastructure truly secure from privileged threats?
BeyondTrust offers comprehensive solutions to protect your critical assets and data. This means you gain control over all privileged access, reducing your attack surface significantly.
Your security evaluators face complex decisions, but BeyondTrust simplifies this with unified visibility and control over all privileged identities.
Here’s how to empower your security posture.
Beyond ensuring security visibility, understanding your marketing performance is also critical. Check out my guide on marketing analytics tools to unlock real-time insights.
BeyondTrust tackles security challenges by centralizing credential management and securing every privilege. This provides the granular control you need for compliance and operational efficiency.
You get real-time session monitoring and just-in-time access, ensuring that access is granted only when and where it’s absolutely necessary. This prevents unauthorized access and limits potential damage, especially for your complex hybrid and cloud environments. Additionally, BeyondTrust offers secure remote access for vendors and employees, ensuring productivity without compromising security.
This robust platform helps automate compliance reporting and enhances threat detection, providing the necessary tools to meet regulations like GDPR or HIPAA while minimizing disruption to your users. Plus, it scales with your infrastructure.
Secure your organization efficiently and effectively.
Key features:
- Centralized Credential Management: Securely stores and manages all privileged credentials, eliminating hardcoded passwords and reducing the risk of credential theft.
- Just-in-Time Access: Grants temporary, time-limited access for specific tasks, minimizing exposure windows and enforcing the principle of least privilege across your systems.
- Real-time Session Monitoring: Provides continuous visibility into privileged sessions, allowing for immediate detection of suspicious activity and enabling efficient audits.
Learn more about BeyondTrust features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: BeyondTrust stands out as a strong contender for best privileged access management software by delivering unified control over privileged identities and access. Its capabilities in just-in-time access, centralized credential management, and real-time session monitoring directly address the core challenges faced by IT directors and security architects, ensuring robust security and simplified compliance.
3. Delinea
Are your PAM tools causing decision paralysis?
Delinea’s platform is designed to discover all identities, assign proper access, detect irregularities, and respond to identity threats in real-time. This helps you balance compliance with operational efficiency.
The struggle to find scalable and integrable PAM solutions is real. Delinea offers intuitive solutions that secure identities at every interaction, simplifying deployment and management in hybrid environments.
It’s time for a simpler, more secure approach.
Delinea makes you more secure by centralizing authorization, governing interactions, and applying context across identities. This means you can eliminate identity-related threats across your cloud and traditional infrastructure.
Their platform helps you chart an identity security journey, allowing you to discover all identities and enforce least privilege. You can also detect and address identity threats across your entire organization, whether on-premise or in the cloud. Additionally, Delinea supports securing credentials for AI services and governing AI adoption, crucial for modern IT ecosystems.
You’ll accelerate adoption by deploying in weeks, not months, making your teams more productive by requiring 90% fewer resources to manage. Plus, with 99.995% uptime, you can depend on reliable identity security.
Secure your infrastructure with confidence.
Key features:
- Centralized Authorization: Governs identity interactions across cloud and traditional infrastructure, data, and SaaS applications to eliminate identity-related threats.
- Real-Time Threat Detection: Enables you to discover all identities, assign appropriate access levels, detect irregularities, and immediately respond to identity threats.
- AI Security & Governance: Secures credentials for AI services, protects and monitors AI, governs AI adoption, and monitors for leaked AI credentials.
Learn more about Delinea features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Delinea offers a robust solution for IT directors and security architects by centralizing authorization and providing real-time threat detection. With rapid deployment, needing 90% fewer resources, and 99.995% uptime, Delinea addresses critical pain points around scalability, integration, and operational efficiency, making it a strong contender for the best privileged access management software.
4. WALLIX
Are you struggling with complex access controls?
WALLIX simplifies identity and access security, helping you move freely in a secure digital environment. This means consolidating privileged account management, a common target for breaches.
WALLIX offers powerful solutions like WALLIX PAM and WALLIX Remote Access, designed to safeguard your critical IT assets. The result? You gain complete control over access to maintain security and enable seamless operations.
This is how WALLIX delivers solutions.
WALLIX helps you protect both IT and OT (Operational Technology) environments, ensuring comprehensive security across your infrastructure. This includes robust identity and access management for IT resources.
Furthermore, WALLIX IDaaS and Enterprise Vault enhance security and user experience by streamlining access with SSO and MFA, centralizing sensitive data. The WALLIX IAG component also provides comprehensive identity mapping to permissions, acting as a control tower for access certification and staff changes across applications. This multifaceted approach simplifies identity and access for digital and industrial environments.
WALLIX supports over 3,000 organizations in securing their digital transformation.
While we’re discussing comprehensive security, understanding how to fortify your endpoints with mobile device management software is equally important.
Key features:
- Comprehensive PAM: Controls privileged accounts and remote access, safeguarding your critical IT assets from internal and external threats, a must for hybrid environments.
- Integrated Identity Management: WALLIX IDaaS and Enterprise Vault offer SSO, MFA, and centralized sensitive identity data for enhanced security and user experience.
- Robust Access Governance: WALLIX IAG provides identity-to-permission mapping, enabling access certification campaigns and tracking staff changes for audit and compliance needs.
Learn more about WALLIX features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: WALLIX offers a flexible, resilient, and easy-to-use suite of solutions praised by analysts, making it a strong contender for the best privileged access management software, especially for complex compliance and integration requirements across hybrid IT and OT environments.
5. One Identity
Struggling with complex privileged access management?
One Identity offers solutions to achieve identity-centric cybersecurity, simplifying your approach to protecting crucial business assets. This means you can gain full visibility into access rights, how they’re used, and by whom.
For IT directors and security architects, One Identity strengthens defenses against unauthorized access. This helps you maintain compliance while reducing vulnerabilities and licensing costs.
Here’s how One Identity solves those challenges.
One Identity helps unify policies and secure access across your entire enterprise, whether it’s cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid environment. They provide privileged access risk mitigation with SaaS-based PAM solutions, minimizing breach damage. Additionally, you can centralize and secure workforce, customer, and partner identities and applications.
The result is enhanced Active Directory governance that streamlines management with enhanced security. You can also enforce the principle of least privilege, reducing attack surface by deprovisioning unneeded access. Plus, AI is built-in to deliver predictive insights, proactively identifying threats to your infrastructure.
Get complete control over your critical systems.
While discussing robust security and governance, understanding regulatory change management is crucial for ongoing compliance.
Key features:
- Privileged Access Governance: Closes the gap between privileged and standard user identities, providing comprehensive control across your entire enterprise infrastructure.
- Behavior Driven Governance: Offers continuous visibility into access levels, helping you enforce the principle of least privilege and reduce your overall risk exposure effectively.
- AI-Driven Security: Provides built-in predictive insights right out of the box, enhancing threat detection and enabling a more proactive security posture for your organization.
Learn more about One Identity features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: One Identity stands out as a strong contender for best privileged access management software by simplifying compliance and security across hybrid environments. Its AI-driven insights, combined with robust governance features and a unified identity fabric, empower IT leaders to reduce risk and achieve operational efficiencies.
6. HashiCorp
Struggling with complex cloud security and compliance?
HashiCorp offers an integrated suite of products, including Vault and Boundary, to help you secure infrastructure and manage access. This means you can effectively automate the security lifecycle of your secrets, users, and services across hybrid or cloud environments.
This focus on security lifecycle management ensures you can reduce risk and improve your security posture, addressing those critical compliance requirements without compromising operations. Here’s how.
Manage your critical infrastructure effortlessly.
HashiCorp tackles the evaluation paralysis IT directors and security architects face by providing a unified approach to Infrastructure and Security Lifecycle Management through The Infrastructure Cloud. This comprehensive platform automates crucial security processes.
Specifically, HashiCorp Vault provides identity-based secrets management, centralizing credential control and enabling real-time session monitoring. This streamlines audits and enforces scalable security policies. Additionally, Boundary offers secure remote access, further reducing your attack surface and helping you meet compliance like GDPR or HIPAA without extensive manual effort. Plus, with over 4,000 integrations, HashiCorp fits right into your existing ecosystem.
The result is efficient, automated security.
Before diving deeper into security, you might find my analysis of Laboratory Information Management System helpful for data management.
Key features:
- Identity-based secrets management: HashiCorp Vault centralizes control over secrets and credentials, ensuring robust security and simplified compliance reporting across complex infrastructures.
- Secure remote access: HashiCorp Boundary enables secure connections to your critical systems, reducing attack surface and protecting against unauthorized access and potential breaches.
- Automated lifecycle management: The Infrastructure Cloud unifies security and infrastructure as code, allowing you to build, deploy, and manage your cloud environment with integrated controls.
Learn more about HashiCorp features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: HashiCorp’s unified Infrastructure Cloud, with key components like Vault and Boundary, directly addresses the need for scalable, granular access controls and automated compliance. This makes it an ideal choice for organizations seeking the best privileged access management software that streamlines operations while significantly reducing security risk across complex, hybrid environments.
7. ManageEngine
Struggling with IT infrastructure security and compliance?
ManageEngine delivers enterprise-grade solutions to monitor, manage, and secure your IT, including advanced Identity and Access Management (IAM) for privileged access.
This means you can govern and secure digital identities and privileged access efficiently, tackling challenges like managing Active Directory and implementing Zero Trust principles.
Here’s how to simplify your security strategy.
ManageEngine’s AI-enhanced solutions help you secure your business, ensuring high availability and compliance for your infrastructure.
You can manage, govern, and secure digital identities and privileged access through robust features like MFA, SSO, and Zero Trust. This addresses key pain points like centralized credential management and real-time session monitoring.
Additionally, ManageEngine offers Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) with log management and threat detection, ensuring your network is protected from cyberattacks and compliant with regulations. It also provides advanced IT analytics for actionable insights, helping you scale smarter.
The result: a significantly reduced attack surface.
Key features:
- Identity and Access Management: Securely manage and govern digital identities and privileged access with MFA, SSO, and Zero Trust principles.
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Protect your network from cyberattacks, ensuring compliance through log management and threat detection.
- Unified Endpoint Management and Security: Manage and secure all your devices—desktops, laptops, servers, mobile devices, and browsers—from a single console.
Learn more about ManageEngine features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: ManageEngine’s comprehensive suite, particularly its robust IAM and SIEM capabilities, positions it as a strong contender for the best privileged access management software. It helps mid-market to enterprise organizations reduce attack surfaces and achieve compliance, as demonstrated by customers like LaBella Associates securing critical data.
Conclusion
Securing your infrastructure is non-negotiable.
Choosing the right PAM tool feels like a high-stakes gamble. The wrong choice could lead to devastating breaches or costly compliance failures.
CyberArk research highlights how implementing PAM best practices helps reduce attack surfaces and costs. This isn’t just about security; it’s about making your entire operation more efficient and resilient against modern threats.
So, which tool should you choose?
From my experience, CyberArk is the definitive leader here. It directly tackles the challenge of securing complex hybrid environments without sacrificing operational efficiency.
Its intelligent privilege controls and focus on securing every identity make it the best privileged access management software I’ve seen for achieving total security and audit readiness.
I strongly recommend you start a free trial of CyberArk to experience its comprehensive security capabilities firsthand.
Your entire infrastructure will be more secure.
