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Cybersecurity · head to head

Delinea vs One Identity

Delinea logo

Delinea

Cybersecurity

Privileged access management from the merged Thycotic and Centrify

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
One Identity logo

One Identity

Cybersecurity

Quest-owned identity governance, PAM and Active Directory management

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; One Identity the portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.
  • They diverge on capability: Delinea covers Secret Server, One Identity covers Identity Manager.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Delinea and One Identity actually diverge.

Attributes where Delinea and One Identity differ
AttributeDelineaOne Identity
PlatformsWeb, Windows, Linux, macOSWeb, Windows, Linux

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 One Identity

  • Identity Manager
  • Safeguard
  • Active Roles
  • OneLogin
  • Password Manager
  • syslog-ng
  • Starling connectors

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 One Identity
  • A mid-market IT team that abandoned a heavier PAM rollout and needs a vault that can be in production in weeksnot One Identity
  • A company removing local administrator rights from every workstation after a ransomware incidentnot One Identity
  • An audit finding that shared service account passwords are stored in a spreadsheet and used by contractorsnot One Identity

One Identity

  • An organisation whose authoritative directory will remain on premises Active Directory and needs delegated administration with attribute-level controlnot Delinea
  • A government or defence environment requiring privileged session management on a hardened physical appliance rather than a cloud servicenot Delinea
  • A manufacturer with SAP and Active Directory needing provisioning governed under one certification processnot Delinea
  • An enterprise consolidating Active Directory after an acquisition and needing automated account lifecycle across both forestsnot 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.

One Identity

  • The portfolio is assembled from separate acquisitions, so components are separately licensed, separately administered and do not present one console, which raises operational cost.
  • Identity Manager implementations are customisation-heavy and commonly run over a year, with the services spend exceeding the licence cost in the first year.
  • Quest has changed private equity ownership more than once since the Dell separation, and buyers should ask directly about product investment commitments before signing a multi-year deal.
  • Product documentation and support sit behind a customer portal, which makes independent evaluation before purchase harder than with vendors that publish openly.
  • The cloud-native and developer experience trails the pure-play identity vendors, so organisations moving decisively to SaaS applications find the on premises heritage becomes a constraint rather than an asset.

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

One Identity

On request
  • Identity Manager$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed identity
    • On premises or hosted
    • Access certification and provisioning
  • Safeguard$undefined/year
    • Priced per privileged user or per appliance
    • Hardened appliance option for session management
    • Licensed separately from Identity Manager
  • Active Roles$undefined/year
    • Priced per managed Active Directory account
    • Delegated administration and automated provisioning
    • Licensed separately

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 One Identity if

  • You need identity manager.
  • You work on Web, Windows, Linux.
  • You also want safeguard.
One Identity review

Questions people ask

Is Delinea or One Identity better?
Neither clearly leads. Delinea starts at On request and One Identity at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Delinea or One Identity?
Delinea starts at On request and One Identity at On request.
Does Delinea or One Identity run on more platforms?
Delinea runs on Web, Windows, Linux, macOS. One Identity runs on Web, Windows, Linux.
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 One Identity is typically brought in for.
What can Delinea do that One Identity cannot?
Delinea covers Secret Server, Privileged session recording, Privilege Manager, Server PAM. One Identity covers Identity Manager, Safeguard, Active Roles, OneLogin.

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.

One Identity: Is One Identity the same company as Quest?

Yes. One Identity is Quest Software's identity and access management business unit, not a separate vendor.

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.

One Identity: Does it include privileged access?

Safeguard provides it, but it is licensed separately from Identity Manager. Neither includes the other.

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.

One Identity: Why choose this over SailPoint or Saviynt?

Almost always because of Active Directory depth via Active Roles or an appliance requirement for privileged sessions. For cloud-first estates the specialists are the stronger choice.

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