Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

Delinea vs VMware Carbon Black

Delinea logo

Delinea

Cybersecurity

Privileged access management from the merged Thycotic and Centrify

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
V

VMware Carbon Black

Cybersecurity

Cloud-delivered endpoint protection and EDR, now owned by Broadcom and positioned alongside Symantec.

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.; VMware Carbon Black broadcom's enterprise model concentrates direct sales and support on its largest accounts and moves everyone else to resellers, so a mid-size customer can lose named support contacts and face a substantially repriced renewal with limited notice.
  • They diverge on capability: Delinea covers Secret Server, VMware Carbon Black covers Endpoint Standard.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Delinea and VMware Carbon Black actually diverge.

Attributes where Delinea and VMware Carbon Black differ
AttributeDelineaVMware Carbon Black
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWeb, Windows, Linux, macOSDesktop, Api
FoundedUnknown2002

Identical on both: starting price (On request), 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 VMware Carbon Black

  • Endpoint Standard
  • Enterprise EDR
  • Audit and Remediation
  • Single sensor
  • Live Response
  • Workload protection
  • Container security
  • Watchlists and feeds

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

VMware Carbon Black

  • A SOC that wants unfiltered endpoint telemetry to hunt over rather than only vendor-generated alertsnot Delinea
  • A vSphere estate that wants workload protection deployed through the hypervisor instead of installing an agent in every guestnot Delinea
  • Replacing signature antivirus after an incident where the incumbent product had no record of what the attacker didnot Delinea
  • An organisation already inside a Broadcom or Symantec enterprise agreement that can consolidate endpoint onto an existing contractnot 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.

VMware Carbon Black

  • Broadcom's enterprise model concentrates direct sales and support on its largest accounts and moves everyone else to resellers, so a mid-size customer can lose named support contacts and face a substantially repriced renewal with limited notice.
  • Continuous EDR recording is retained for a defined window and longer retention is a paid tier, so the investigation you most need is often the one whose telemetry has already aged out, and that is discovered during the incident rather than before it.
  • The product assumes an operator: watchlists, policy tuning and alert triage are ongoing work, and organisations without a dedicated analyst or an MDR contract typically leave policies in monitor mode and pay for telemetry that is never reviewed.
  • The sensor operates in the same kernel and file-filter territory as other endpoint agents, so running it alongside an incumbent antivirus, DLP or backup agent commonly produces performance complaints and requires maintained exclusion lists on both sides.
  • Linux sensor support is tied to specific distribution and kernel versions, so a routine operating system upgrade can leave hosts without a supported sensor until a matching build ships, and anything outside the supported list gets no coverage at all.

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

VMware Carbon Black

On request
  • CB Endpoint StandardFree
    • NGAV
    • Behavioral EDR
    • Device control
  • CB Endpoint AdvancedFree
    • All Standard features
    • Threat hunting
    • Audit and remediation
  • CB Endpoint EnterpriseFree
    • All Advanced features
    • Advanced threat hunting
    • Live response

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 VMware Carbon Black if

  • You need endpoint standard.
  • You work on Desktop, Api.
  • You also want enterprise edr.
VMware Carbon Black review

Questions people ask

Is Delinea or VMware Carbon Black better?
Neither clearly leads. Delinea starts at On request and VMware Carbon Black at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Delinea or VMware Carbon Black?
Delinea starts at On request and VMware Carbon Black at On request.
Does Delinea or VMware Carbon Black run on more platforms?
Delinea runs on Web, Windows, Linux, macOS. VMware Carbon Black runs on Desktop, Api.
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 VMware Carbon Black is typically brought in for.
What can Delinea do that VMware Carbon Black cannot?
Delinea covers Secret Server, Privileged session recording, Privilege Manager, Server PAM. VMware Carbon Black covers Endpoint Standard, Enterprise EDR, Audit and Remediation, Single sensor.

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.

VMware Carbon Black: Who owns Carbon Black now?

Broadcom. It acquired VMware in November 2023, and Carbon Black now sits in Broadcom's enterprise security business alongside Symantec. VMware branding is being phased out.

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.

VMware Carbon Black: Why do the docs use names I do not recognise?

The product has been renamed repeatedly. CB Defense is now Endpoint Standard, CB ThreatHunter is Enterprise EDR and CB LiveOps is Audit and Remediation. Older community answers and runbooks still use the previous names.

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.

VMware Carbon Black: Does it replace my existing antivirus?

Yes on supported Windows, macOS and Linux versions, and running it alongside another antivirus is not recommended because the two agents contend for the same hooks. Check your compliance requirements, as some auditors still ask for a named antivirus product.

VMware Carbon Black: Do I need a full-time analyst to run it?

To get value from Enterprise EDR, effectively yes. The prevention tier can run with part-time attention, but the hunting and recording capability is only worth its cost if somebody is querying it, which is why many customers buy it through an MDR provider.

VMware Carbon Black: How is it licensed?

Per endpoint, per year, with the capability tier determining the rate and workload and container protection priced separately. Extended EDR data retention is an additional line item.

Share

Related pages

More on Delinea

More on VMware Carbon Black

Keep looking

Other head to heads