JIT Access — Head-to-Head

BeyondTrust vs. Delinea

Both vendors compete for the buyer who has looked at CyberArk's deployment overhead and wants something lighter. Where they diverge is architecture: BeyondTrust leads with PEDM, granular command-level privilege delegation at the endpoint, while Delinea stays closer to the vault-centric model CyberArk popularized, just with a lighter footprint and stronger UX.

The fault line between them

BeyondTrust's core architecture is delegation, not brokering. PEDM grants the specific privilege needed for a specific task without checking out a vaulted credential first, and that model extends into a dedicated vendor remote access product that neither Delinea nor most vault-centric platforms match. If the privileged access problem is granular command-level control on Windows and Unix/Linux endpoints, BeyondTrust's architecture was built for exactly that.

Delinea keeps the vault as the control point, more like CyberArk, but invests heavily in deployment simplicity and user experience to differentiate from the category leader. Its Centrify lineage gives it real strength in Linux/Unix credential elevation, and Secret Server's lighter footprint makes it a realistic option for organizations that found CyberArk's deployment complexity disqualifying without wanting to give up the vault-centric model entirely.

Criteria	BeyondTrust	Delinea
Architecture
JIT model	PEDM delegation at endpoint; no vault checkout required for core flows	Vault-centric checkout via Secret Server
Endpoint privilege elevation	PEDM is the core architecture; deepest command-level delegation in the market	Available via Privilege Manager; secondary to vault-centric flows
Linux/Unix coverage	PMUL covers command-level Unix/Linux delegation	Strong, inherited from the Centrify lineage
Operational
Vendor / third-party remote access	Privileged Remote Access is a dedicated product	Not a primary differentiator
Deployment simplicity	Moderate; PEDM can deploy without full vault infrastructure	Positioned around ease of deployment and user experience
Product line clarity	Single coherent product line	Thycotic/Centrify integration still settling; verify which line maps to your environment
Pricing / TCO	Enterprise pricing	Generally lower TCO for comparable hybrid PAM scope

Capability assessments based on publicly available vendor documentation and independent coverage. Validate specific feature depth against your environment before purchase.

When each wins

BeyondTrust wins when

Command-level endpoint privilege delegation is the primary JIT requirement
Vendor and contractor remote access management is a named use case
The vault-checkout model itself is unnecessary overhead for the access pattern in question

Delinea wins when

A vault-centric model is preferred, just with less deployment overhead than CyberArk
The Linux/Unix server fleet is a significant part of the environment
Total cost of ownership and ease of deployment outweigh PEDM-style granularity

Finding

Both vendors are answering "give me CyberArk's coverage without CyberArk's overhead," but from different architectural starting points. BeyondTrust answers it by moving away from the vault model toward endpoint delegation. Delinea answers it by keeping the vault model and making it lighter. Buyers should decide which architectural assumption, brokered checkout or endpoint delegation, actually matches how their environment's privileged access requests happen.