Akeyless
Identity security for machines, AI agents and humans from one unified platform.
By Akeyless · HQ New York, US · 4.2/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Enterprises consolidating secrets, keys and certificates from multiple vaults into one platform
- Security teams that need just-in-time, zero-standing-privilege access for humans and machines
- Organizations securing non-human and AI agent identities with runtime policy enforcement
- Compliance-driven buyers that want SaaS speed with hybrid, zero-knowledge deployment options
Ideal size: 200–5,000+ employees people · Cloud-native enterprise with DevSecOps, multicloud workloads and a compliance mandate
Not for
- Small teams that only need a simple shared password manager
- Organizations that want a fully air-gapped, self-hosted deployment with no SaaS control plane
- Buyers who require published self-serve list pricing before talking to sales
- Teams looking for broad ITSM or endpoint management rather than identity and secrets security
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
2–4 weeks
~30 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
$25,000/yr
Starts at $0 · Subscription with a free tier; pricing is based on clients plus annual quotas for transactions, certificates, connectors and HSM integrations.
Implementation Friction
2/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Free tier: 5 clients and 5 users. Enterprise plans custom-quoted by client quota.
Add-on costs
- Overage invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract for clients, transactions, certificates, connectors and cloud accounts.
- HSM integrations and KMIP/TDE applications are licensed as separate priced units.
Company & support
Who is behind Akeyless, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- Not recorded
- Headquarters
- New York, US
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailPlan not stated
- Live chatNot listed
- Support portal / ticketsPlan not stated
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsAll plans
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
The contact page offers a support ticket portal for service, billing and product requests, and the Trust Center gives an email address for security questions. Public product documentation is available. Support tiers and SLA terms are referenced on the pricing page but not published.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Akeyless sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line. A dashed ring marks an outlier pinned to the edge; hover for its value.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Akeyless
- Snyk
- Duo
- Contrast Security
- SureCloud
- Josys
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Akeyless. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
Ships an official MCP server. Connects to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, ChatGPT connectors and Cursor out of the box.
AI & MCP readiness
What Akeyless ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
Akeyless markets AI agent identity security: discovering AI agents, scoping their access and enforcing policy at runtime under its 'Agentic Runtime Authority' message. Its integration catalog also includes an Akeyless MCP server and plugins for common AI coding tools. No AI copilot, AI search or predictive-analytics features are described.
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Official MCP server
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Akeyless is a cloud-native identity security platform for machines, AI agents and humans. It unifies secrets management, modern PAM, certificate lifecycle management, multi-cloud KMS and multi-vault governance behind one policy engine. Deployed as Pure SaaS or Hybrid SaaS with on-premise gateways and zero-knowledge encryption, it targets enterprises replacing legacy vaults. Customers cite lower TCO and reduced operational overhead; a free tier exists and enterprise plans are quoted by client and usage quotas.
Frequently asked questions
How is Akeyless priced, and what drives cost at scale?
Pricing is subscription-based and metered by units the vendor defines: clients (human, application or server sessions counted monthly), annual transactions, managed certificates, connectors to external vaults, cloud accounts, HSM integrations and KMIP/TDE applications. Overage is notified in writing and invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract. There is a free tier with 5 clients, and enterprise plans are custom-quoted, so budget planning requires a sales conversation.
What is the difference between Pure SaaS and Hybrid SaaS deployment?
Pure SaaS is fully cloud-managed with no infrastructure to maintain, aimed at fast, cloud-native use cases. Hybrid SaaS combines the SaaS control plane with on-premise gateways included, and enables Zero-Knowledge encryption, so secret and identity data can stay inside your own infrastructure. The Starter tier includes one gateway for exploration. Compliance-heavy and highly controlled environments are the stated fit for Hybrid SaaS.
Which security and compliance standards does Akeyless hold?
The Akeyless Trust Center states FIPS 140-3, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, PCI DSS compliance and DORA. It also describes encryption in motion above TLS 1.2, comprehensive audit logs with SIEM integration, support for inheriting two-factor authentication through your identity provider, annual penetration testing, a bug bounty program and multi-region, multi-cloud disaster recovery.
Can Akeyless replace an existing HashiCorp Vault deployment?
Akeyless positions itself as an alternative to self-managed vaults, and its Universal Secrets Connector can also federate secrets from existing AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, GCP Secret Manager, Kubernetes Secrets and HashiCorp Vault environments rather than forcing immediate migration. A published customer quote describes ripping and replacing HashiCorp Vault with Akeyless. Migration effort should still be scoped in a pilot.
Does Akeyless support AI agents and MCP-based tooling?
Yes. The platform markets identity security for AI agents, including tracking agents and controlling their actions at runtime with scoped, in-session authority. Its integration catalog lists an Akeyless MCP Server under AI Integration, plus plugins and integrations for common AI development tools. Buyers should still validate agent-governance depth against their own policy and audit requirements.