Delinea vs CyberArk
Delinea and CyberArk are both evaluated in the CIOPages Privileged Access Management (PAM) Buyer's Guide and the Privileged Access Management (PAM) for Cloud & Hybrid Buyer's Guide. The guide groups Delinea under Hybrid PAM and CyberArk under Enterprise PAM.
In the Privileged Access Management (PAM) guide
| Attribute | Delinea | CyberArk |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Hybrid PAM | Enterprise PAM |
| Best for | Mid-market to large enterprises wanting modern, fast-to-deploy PAM that spans human administrators and increasingly cloud, DevOps, and JIT access | Large, compliance-driven enterprises that need the deepest privileged controls, broadest coverage, and audit-grade evidence across a hybrid estate |
From the Privileged Access Management (PAM) Buyer's Guide, updated June 2026. 8 vendors evaluated.
Delinea
Fast time-to-value and an administrator experience notably cleaner than the legacy norm: formed from Thycotic and Centrify, a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader anchored by Secret Server and a cloud-delivered platform, with the March 2026 acquisition of StrongDM adding just-in-time runtime authorization, developer-first infrastructure access, and a credible zero-standing-privilege path for cloud-native and agentic workloads. Some of the deepest, most specialized enterprise scenarios still favor CyberArk’s coverage. The StrongDM capabilities are freshly acquired, so validate how far the integration has matured for your use cases rather than assuming a single seamless platform on day one.
CyberArk
The category benchmark, and power comes with weight: a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for PAM for the seventh consecutive time, trusted by more than 10,000 organizations and over half of the Fortune 500, with the deepest enterprise vaulting and session control, the broadest connector and compliance coverage, and a serious modern stack — Secrets Manager, formerly Conjur, Secrets Hub to broker AWS, Azure, and HashiCorp Vault stores, and SPIFFE-based workload identity — unified under its Identity Security Platform. Classic deployments are complex and agent- and proxy-heavy, pricing sits at the premium end, and the SaaS modernization spans many modules to license and stitch together. The Palo Alto Networks acquisition closed in February 2026, so packaging, roadmap, and integration direction are still settling.
Also evaluated in this guide
BeyondTrust, HashiCorp Vault, Keeper Security, One Identity, Teleport, WALLIX
In the Privileged Access Management (PAM) for Cloud & Hybrid guide
| Attribute | Delinea | CyberArk |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Full-Suite | Full-Suite |
| Best for | Enterprises wanting a capable, more usable full-suite PAM with a credible path from classic vaulting toward just-in-time, zero-standing-privilege access | Large, complex enterprises that want one vendor to span human, machine, and cloud privileged identity end to end — and are comfortable with the depth and cost that implies |
From the Privileged Access Management (PAM) for Cloud & Hybrid Buyer's Guide, updated June 2026. 8 vendors evaluated.
Delinea
Usability is the differentiator, and it is a real one in a category that rarely optimizes for it: an approachable enterprise vault in Secret Server, endpoint privilege management, VPN-less privileged remote access, and strong UNIX/Linux identity-bridging heritage from the 2021 Thycotic and Centrify merger, with a Gartner PAM Leader placement and a reputation for faster time-to-value. The 2026 StrongDM acquisition adds just-in-time, runtime authorization aimed squarely at zero standing privilege for cloud and developer access. That is also the caution: the deepest cloud-native JIT capability is newer and arriving by acquisition, and a platform assembled from Thycotic, Centrify, and StrongDM deserves a direct question about how unified the experience is for your specific use cases.
CyberArk
Nobody spans more of the privileged identity problem: Privilege Cloud vaulting and session management, Secrets Manager (formerly Conjur) for machine identity, Secure Cloud Access for just-in-time cloud-console elevation, and deep machine-identity and certificate management through the Venafi acquisition — a Gartner PAM Leader for seven consecutive years, with the largest integration ecosystem. Weight is the price of that. Full deployments are complex, premium-priced, and historically vault-centric, and cloud-native JIT entrants feel lighter-touch for pure DevOps use cases. The larger unknown is ownership: the Palo Alto Networks acquisition closed in February 2026 and positions CyberArk as the identity pillar of a broader security platform, so put roadmap and platform-bundling direction on the diligence list.
Also evaluated in this guide
BeyondTrust, HashiCorp Vault (IBM), Microsoft Entra (PIM + ID Governance), Okta (Privileged Access), One Identity (Safeguard), Teleport
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