Posted by Alon Bar
October 17, 2025
Summary:
Modern enterprises comparing Akeyless vs. Delinea are looking for more than legacy Privileged Access Management. Akeyless Modern PAM delivers a unified, Zero-Knowledge SaaS platform that combines secrets management, ephemeral credentials, encryption, and secure access, all without infrastructure overhead. While Delinea PRA suits traditional on-prem PAM, Akeyless enables faster deployment, deeper automation, and elastic scalability for modern PAM solutions across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. For teams exploring Delinea alternatives, Akeyless represents a future-ready, cloud-native approach to privileged access.
Introduction
Privileged Access Management (PAM) is undergoing a transformation. As infrastructure grows more ephemeral and distributed, organizations are turning to modern PAM solutions. While Delinea PRA continues to serve enterprise environments rooted in traditional infrastructure, Akeyless Modern PAM represents a SaaS-first approach designed for dynamic workloads, cloud-native architectures, and Zero Trust requirements.Whether you’re securing access to critical systems, rotating credentials automatically, or managing workload identities across environments, the question is no longer “Do you need PAM?”, but rather “What kind of PAM matches the modern enterprise?”
What Defines a Modern PAM Solution
The explosion of DevOps pipelines, multi-cloud adoption, and non-human identities has exposed major limitations in legacy PAM tooling. Static vaults, complex agent deployments, and manual session orchestration simply can’t scale to meet the demands of Kubernetes, containers, or serverless environments.
That’s why forward-leaning organizations are comparing Akeyless vs. Delinea. While both platforms address privileged access and session controls, they diverge dramatically in architecture, secrets strategy, and operational model.
Where Delinea Falls Short vs. Akeyless
Legacy-Centric Architecture
Delinea PRA requires coupling with the Delinea Secret Server, often via multiple separate modules. Each adds deployment overhead and integration complexity, making full-scale rollouts time-consuming and difficult to manage across cloud and on-premises systems.
In contrast, Akeyless delivers all core PAM functionality, including secrets, access, encryption, and auditing, from a single SaaS control plane. No clusters to provision, VPNs to manage, or patching to maintain.
Modular, Not Unified
To get secrets and session orchestration, Delinea requires integrating multiple products, Privileged Remote Access, Secret Server, and potentially Connection Manager. Each component introduces licensing, versioning, and maintenance overhead.
Akeyless Modern PAM is unified by design. Secrets, access, certificates, and encryption keys live under a single platform, with centralized policies and visibility.
Static Vaulting vs. Ephemeral Credentials
Delinea relies heavily on static vaulting and credential injection for human users (e.g., RDP/SSH). This approach is effective in legacy systems, but falls short in ephemeral or CI/CD-driven environments where secrets need to be short-lived.
Akeyless issues dynamic, just-in-time credentials that vanish after use, ideal for both human and machine identities. No standing credentials. No exposure.
Scalability Bottlenecks
Delinea’s architecture involves managing infrastructure, deploying PRA components, syncing with Secret Server, and ensuring redundancy, which adds friction as environments grow.
Akeyless SaaS gateways auto-scale globally, adapting to demand without manual intervention.
Limited Cloud-Native & Workload Support
Delinea is strongest in traditional Windows/Linux PAM use cases. But modern DevOps workflows often involve Kubernetes, containers, databases, and cloud IAM roles that fall outside PRA’s sweet spot.
Akeyless was designed for this landscape, supporting Kubernetes (K8s), cloud IAM, dynamic workloads, and CI/CD pipelines natively.
No Zero-Knowledge Guarantee
With Delinea, credentials are vaulted and encrypted, but ultimately visible to the platform. Compliance requires trusting the provider not to expose them.
Akeyless enforces Zero-Knowledge security, backed by patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography™ (DFC). Your secrets are never accessible, not even to Akeyless.
What Delinea Does Well
Delinea PRA + Secret Server remains a good solution for:
- Legacy infrastructure environments (Windows, Linux, on-prem)
- Organizations with strict compliance requirements around static secrets
- Teams comfortable orchestrating multiple tools to get full functionality
- Enterprises that prioritize RDP/SSH access for human users
But for organizations seeking operational simplicity, faster onboarding, and modern infrastructure alignment, Akeyless is a fundamentally better fit.
Akeyless Modern PAM: A Unified, Zero-Knowledge Approach
Core Differentiators
- All-in-One Platform: Secrets Management, Secure Access, KMS, and Certificate Lifecycle, unified in one service.
- Zero-Knowledge Cryptography: Your secrets, your control. Akeyless never has access.
- Instant SaaS Deployment: No setup delays, no servers to run, no agents required.
- Broad Coverage: Supports SSH, RDP, Databases, K8s, web apps, and cloud IAM workflows.
- Continuous Risk Evaluation: Real-time posture and identity enforcement during sessions, not just at login.
- Full Audit Trail: Agentless session logging, export to SIEMs, and built-in compliance dashboards.
Comparison Table: Akeyless vs. Delinea
| Feature | Delinea PRA + Secret Server | Akeyless Modern PAM |
| Deployment Model | Modular, on-prem or hybrid | SaaS-native, fully managed |
| Secrets Management | Static vault, credential injection | Vaultless, ephemeral JIT credentials |
| Identity Types | Human (Windows/Linux) | Human + Machine + Workload |
| Infrastructure | Requires orchestration | No infra to manage |
| Protocols | SSH, RDP | SSH, RDP, DBs, K8s, Web Apps |
| Session Recording | Centralized, AI-driven | Agentless, exportable, customizable |
| Zero-Knowledge | No | Yes (DFC-based) |
| Posture Enforcement | Login-time only | Continuous, session-aware |
| Browser Extension | No | Yes, with credential injection |
| Scalability | Manual scaling | Auto-scaling SaaS Gateways |
| Compliance & SIEM | Strong audit via Secret Server | Built-in auditing, SIEM-native |
| TCO | Higher (infra + modules) | Lower (SaaS, unified model) |
Modern PAM in Context
Akeyless Modern PAM redefines how enterprises manage secure access by delivering secrets, ephemeral credentials, encryption keys, and remote access in a unified, Zero-Knowledge SaaS platform. In comparing Akeyless with Delinea’s Privileged Remote Access (PRA), the differences go beyond feature checkboxes, they reflect two fundamentally different philosophies. While Delinea builds on legacy vaults and modular tools for traditional IT, Akeyless offers a cloud-native alternative purpose-built for hybrid, multi-cloud, and DevOps-first organizations. For businesses evaluating Delinea alternatives, Akeyless delivers faster rollout, deeper automation, and radically lower operational overhead.
Verdict: Akeyless Is the Modern Alternative to Delinea
Delinea continues to serve the needs of IT-centric enterprises anchored in legacy infrastructure. But the PAM needs of today are being shaped by multi-cloud, ephemeral workloads, and machine-driven automation. That’s where Akeyless stands apart.
Akeyless Modern PAM brings together access, secrets, certs, and KMS into a Zero-Knowledge, SaaS-native solution designed for agility, scale, and speed.
For security leaders and DevOps teams evaluating Delinea alternatives, Akeyless delivers faster time-to-value, lower operational complexity, and future-proof security aligned with Zero Trust and post-quantum readiness.
Next Steps
Ready to simplify privileged access for modern infrastructure?
Start your journey with Akeyless Modern PAM. Unify access, secrets, certs, and encryption, without the operational baggage.Request a demo to see how Akeyless can help your team accelerate secure access and reduce risk across your entire environment.
FAQs
Akeyless is a fully managed SaaS platform that eliminates the need for on-prem modules like Secret Server. It combines secrets, access, encryption, and certificates under a Zero-Knowledge architecture, ideal for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Yes. Akeyless offers a unified, cloud-native PAM solution designed for today’s DevOps and automation workflows, making it a top choice among Delinea alternatives.
Yes. Akeyless provides SDKs, Terraform modules, and native CLI/REST APIs for GitOps, pipelines, and workload identity.
Its patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography™ (DFC) ensures that no entity, not even Akeyless, can see or reconstruct your secrets.
Absolutely. Akeyless issues short-lived credentials such as SSH certificates, database logins, and API tokens that expire automatically, eliminating standing secrets.scale and high availability.
No. Akeyless is a managed SaaS solution, chosen by enterprises that prefer to offload infrastructure complexity while maintaining Zero-Knowledge security.
