Best Compliance and Audit Alternatives to CyberArk

Compliance and audit capabilities are a primary driver for privileged access management adoption. CyberArk provides extensive compliance reporting and audit trails for privileged access, but organizations have several alternatives that offer strong compliance features at differen

Best picks for this use case

#1

SailPoint

SailPoint leads in compliance-driven identity governance with automated access certifications, separation of duties enforcement, and comprehensive compliance reporting across all identities and applications, not just privileged accounts.

AI-driven identity governance and administration platform

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#2

BeyondTrust

BeyondTrust provides enterprise-grade compliance capabilities with detailed session recording, comprehensive audit trails, and compliance-focused reporting that rivals CyberArk's depth while offering integrated endpoint privilege evidence.

Unified privilege management and secure remote access platform

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#3

Delinea

Delinea Secret Server delivers solid compliance reporting with audit trails, session recording, and out-of-the-box compliance report templates at a lower cost and complexity than CyberArk.

Cloud-ready PAM platform built on Secret Server and privilege management

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#4

StrongDM

StrongDM excels at query-level audit logging that provides the most granular compliance evidence for database and infrastructure access, making it particularly valuable for PCI-DSS and SOX compliance.

Infrastructure access proxy with credential injection and session recording

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#5

ManageEngine PAM360

ManageEngine PAM360 provides essential compliance reporting and audit capabilities at the most affordable price point, making compliance-grade PAM accessible to organizations with limited budgets.

Mid-market PAM from ManageEngine at a much lower price point than the leaders

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How to implement this

  1. 1

    Map Compliance Requirements to Access Controls

    Identify which compliance frameworks apply to your organization (SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIST, etc.) and map their specific requirements to privileged access controls. Document which systems are in scope, what types of access need monitoring, and what evidence auditors expect.

  2. 2

    Implement Audit Logging and Session Recording

    Enable comprehensive audit logging for all privileged access events including authentication, authorization, session start/end, and specific actions taken. Configure session recording for high-risk systems to capture video, keystrokes, and command history as compliance evidence.

  3. 3

    Configure Access Certification and Review Workflows

    Establish periodic access reviews where managers and system owners certify that each user's privileged access is still appropriate. Automate the certification process with reminders, escalations, and automatic revocation for uncertified access to maintain continuous compliance.

  4. 4

    Generate Compliance Reports and Dashboards

    Build compliance-specific reports and dashboards that map directly to audit requirements. Include reports on password rotation compliance, session recording coverage, access review completion rates, policy violations, and privileged account inventory completeness.

  5. 5

    Prepare Audit Evidence and Continuous Monitoring

    Organize audit evidence packages with session recordings, access logs, policy documentation, and compliance reports ready for auditor review. Implement continuous compliance monitoring with automated alerts for policy violations, enabling rapid response before issues become audit findings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Most major compliance frameworks address privileged access in some form. SOC 2 requires access controls and monitoring for systems handling customer data. PCI-DSS has specific requirements for privileged access to cardholder data environments. HIPAA mandates access controls for systems with protected health information. NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001 both include detailed privileged access requirements. SOX compliance requires controls over access to financial systems. GDPR requires appropriate access controls for personal data processing systems.

No compliance framework mandates a specific vendor. Auditors evaluate whether your controls meet the framework requirements, not which tool you use. Alternatives like BeyondTrust, Delinea, and even modern platforms like Teleport and StrongDM can satisfy compliance requirements as long as they provide the necessary access controls, audit logging, session recording, and reporting capabilities that your specific compliance framework demands.

Key audit evidence includes who accessed which privileged accounts and systems, when access occurred and how long it lasted, what actions were taken during privileged sessions, whether credentials were rotated according to policy, who approved access requests, records of access reviews and certifications, and evidence that least-privilege principles are enforced. The specific evidence needed varies by compliance framework.

CyberArk PSM provides the deepest session recording with video, keystroke logging, and command capture. BeyondTrust offers comparable recording through its session management module. StrongDM differentiates with query-level logging for databases. Teleport provides session recording with playback for SSH and Kubernetes sessions. Delinea and ManageEngine PAM360 offer basic but functional session recording. The right choice depends on whether you need depth of recording or breadth of coverage.
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