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Cybersecurity · head to head

Delinea vs Earthly

Delinea logo

Delinea

Cybersecurity

Privileged access management from the merged Thycotic and Centrify

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Earthly logo

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Earthly has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Delinea the Thycotic and Centrify lineages are integrated unevenly, so buying the full portfolio means running consoles and agents that do not share one administrative model as cleanly as the marketing suggests.; Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • They diverge on capability: Delinea covers Secret Server, Earthly covers Policy as code.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Delinea and Earthly actually diverge.

Attributes where Delinea and Earthly differ
AttributeDelineaEarthly
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteNo pricing published on website
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Windows, Linux, macOSWeb, CLI
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
FoundedUnknown2020

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Delinea

  • Secret Server
  • Privileged session recording
  • Privilege Manager
  • Server PAM
  • Discovery
  • DevOps secrets
  • Behaviour analytics

Only in Earthly

  • Policy as code
  • Multi-stage enforcement
  • AI agent governance
  • Repository-wide policies
  • Incident response automation
  • Compliance management
  • Earthfiles build tool
  • Satellites

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Delinea

  • An organisation whose cyber insurer now requires privileged credentials to be vaulted and rotatednot Earthly
  • A mid-market IT team that abandoned a heavier PAM rollout and needs a vault that can be in production in weeksnot Earthly
  • A company removing local administrator rights from every workstation after a ransomware incidentnot Earthly
  • An audit finding that shared service account passwords are stored in a spreadsheet and used by contractorsnot Earthly

Earthly

  • Enforcing engineering standards across AI and human developersnot Delinea
  • Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot Delinea
  • Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot Delinea
  • Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot Delinea

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Delinea

  • The Thycotic and Centrify lineages are integrated unevenly, so buying the full portfolio means running consoles and agents that do not share one administrative model as cleanly as the marketing suggests.
  • Modules are licensed separately by different units, per privileged user for the vault and per endpoint for privilege management, which makes total cost hard to model and easy to underestimate at scale.
  • Delinea does not publish rates, so buyers benchmark against third party and public sector listings; expect list prices to be negotiable by a wide margin, which means the first quote is not the price.
  • Thoma Bravo ownership since 2021 has coincided with firmer renewal pricing, and buyers with a single-vendor PAM estate have little leverage once credentials are inside the vault.
  • Migrating out of a privileged access vault is a genuinely hard project because every automated process that fetches a secret has to be repointed, so the switching cost is real and the vendor knows it.

Earthly

  • Pricing model not published; requires sales contact
  • Earthly Lunar is a recent launch (2025) with limited track record
  • Primarily GitHub-focused; limited integration with other platforms
  • No public documentation on pricing or feature tiers

Pricing, plan by plan

Delinea

On request
  • Secret Server$undefined/year
    • Priced per privileged user, tiered by edition
    • Cloud or on premises deployment
    • Session recording in higher editions
  • Privilege Manager$undefined/year
    • Priced per endpoint
    • Local admin rights removal and application elevation
    • Licensed separately from Secret Server
  • Server PAM$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed server or per privileged user
    • Just-in-time server access
    • Licensed separately

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Delinea if

  • You need secret server.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Linux, macOS.
  • You also want privileged session recording.
Delinea review

Choose Earthly if

  • You need policy as code.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, CLI.
  • You also want multi-stage enforcement.
Earthly review

Questions people ask

Is Delinea or Earthly better?
Neither clearly leads. Delinea starts at On request and Earthly at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Delinea or Earthly?
Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Delinea and Free for Earthly.
Does Delinea or Earthly run on more platforms?
Delinea runs on Web, Windows, Linux, macOS. Earthly runs on Web, CLI.
Can I use Earthly for free?
Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Delinea starts at On request.
What is Delinea best used for?
Delinea is most often used for an organisation whose cyber insurer now requires privileged credentials to be vaulted and rotated, a mid-market it team that abandoned a heavier pam rollout and needs a vault that can be in production in weeks, a company removing local administrator rights from every workstation after a ransomware incident, an audit finding that shared service account passwords are stored in a spreadsheet and used by contractors. Of those, an organisation whose cyber insurer now requires privileged credentials to be vaulted and rotated and a mid-market it team that abandoned a heavier pam rollout and needs a vault that can be in production in weeks are not what Earthly is typically brought in for.
What can Delinea do that Earthly cannot?
Delinea covers Secret Server, Privileged session recording, Privilege Manager, Server PAM. Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Delinea: Is Delinea the same as Thycotic?

Delinea is the merged company formed from Thycotic and Centrify in 2021. Secret Server is the former Thycotic product; the server access products come from Centrify.

Earthly: What is the difference between Earthfiles and Earthly Lunar?

Earthfiles is an open-source build tool that reached 12,000 GitHub stars and is used by companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Databricks. Earthly Lunar is a separate governance platform launched in 2025 for enforcing standards across development workflows.

Source
Delinea: Is pricing published?

Not by Delinea. Public sector frameworks have listed Secret Server Cloud around 348 GBP per user per year, which is a reference point, not a quote.

Earthly: How does Earthly Lunar enforce standards?

Lunar converts engineering standards, compliance requirements, and processes documented in AGENTS.md files, wikis, and incident postmortems into enforceable guardrails that apply consistently across repositories and development stages.

Source
Delinea: Does one licence cover endpoints and servers?

No. Secret Server, Privilege Manager and Server PAM are separately licensed on different units. Scope all three if your requirement spans them.

Earthly: What is the pricing for Earthly Lunar?

Pricing is not published on the website. Interested customers should contact Earthly's sales team for current pricing and feature tiers.

Source
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