I was part of the team managing the infrastructure for a small startup company. We used StrongDM to provide access to cloud private networks, control user access to databases, hosts through SSH, and Kubernetes resources.
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Seamlessly manage cloud access with enhanced security features
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
StrongDM was able to replace the combination of different products we previously used for accessing resources on private networks. It provided a simple interface that allowed a few people to manage many resources and securely handle access management needs efficiently.
What is most valuable?
We primarily used StrongDM for access to resources on private networks like EC2 machines, Kubernetes clusters, and various databases. StrongDM facilitated secure access to these, helped with managing access securely via AWS Secrets Manager, and ensured no passwords were circulated within systems or documentation.
What needs improvement?
It would be beneficial to have better control and alignment between frequent updates and improved communication regarding possible negative effects on existing customer bases. Also, documentation sometimes lags behind the new features which can be a problem.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using StrongDM for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
StrongDM is stable and performs well as expected. We did not encounter stability issues with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our environment was small, so we didn't face any scalability issues. However, based on the architecture and provided features, I believe it can scale both vertically and horizontally if needed.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is responsive and knowledgeable. We have a ticketing system and didn't need much direct contact with sales engineers because the support handled our needs well.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used a client VPN for accessing resources and tools like KeyPass for password management. StrongDM replaced the puzzle of different solutions with one single product, which made managing resources more efficient.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was simple due to clear communication and knowledgeable sales engineers who provided necessary help immediately.
What about the implementation team?
Our team consisted of five members, with one person primarily responsible for the system. Two others, including myself, supported the configuration in specific areas like databases and SSH access.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The leadership chose StrongDM after comparative research, which suggests economic benefits. It was mentioned that while the product is rapidly gaining features, it might become cost-prohibitive for wider usage.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was not part of the evaluation process; another person was running the POC.
What other advice do I have?
The communication is sufficient for implementing StrongDM from scratch. Sales and sales engineers are knowledgeable, providing helpful resources.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Excellent Customer Support Sets StrongDM Apart
What do you like best about the product?
The support team is highly responsive, knowledgeable, and always willing to go the extra mile to help us resolve any issues or questions we have. They take the time to understand our specific needs and provide tailored guidance on how to best leverage the platform.
What do you dislike about the product?
While StrongDM gets a lot right, there are a few areas where the platform feels not quite 100% polished. We've encountered some rough edges in terms of configurability and customization options. There have been instances where we wanted to set up access controls or integrations in a specific way, but found that StrongDM didn't provide the necessary flexibility.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
StrongDM has greatly improved how we control SSH access across teams. It provides a centralized platform to manage role-based access permissions, making it easy to enforce least-privilege policies and reduce our attack surface.
Assistance with connection via sdm
What do you like best about the product?
It does exactly what I need with minimal issues.
What do you dislike about the product?
no graphical user interface support on linux
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
sdm allows us to identify and access management to services. This is done with ease to connect the right people to the right services
SteongDM review
What do you like best about the product?
Great product that fits most of our PAM use cases, and great support from the steongDM team
What do you dislike about the product?
I am a new user of the application and so far there isn't anything I dislike about the application.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It help us in onboarding internal resources such as databases, servers etc and allowing us to securely manage user access to these resources through the strongDM app.
Great tool to mange access to database servers
What do you like best about the product?
Additional modular layer for easy server access control and management.
Save connections allow automatic connections.
Easy connections to difference networks and cloud without change of network connection.
Fast response from support team.
Save connections allow automatic connections.
Easy connections to difference networks and cloud without change of network connection.
Fast response from support team.
What do you dislike about the product?
Too frequent version updates at least not too relevant to me.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Unified server access control and management
Easy to integrate, good documentation and automatically picks and provisions new resources based on tagrs
What is our primary use case?
We use it for zero-trust privileged access.
How has it helped my organization?
Any time we have a new resource, we can have it automatically picked up and provisioned based on tags to give the right people access to the right resources.
I don't have to think about giving anyone access to anything. All of the logging is handled for us, including for auditing purposes. Looking through the audit logs is not a painful experience. Everything is in one place if we need to go back and look at what happened.
What is most valuable?
I like the easiness of integrating it with all of our existing data sources. We've also found a few other use cases where we've been able to grant access to third-party resources that require IP-level whitelisting in addition to authentication for remote workers.
What needs improvement?
We started to use it as a client-side or split tunnel VPN. We are unable to overwrite the endpoints and direct traffic that way, but that's a technical limitation, and I understand why it's there.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've had a few issues in the past, but those have all been resolved based on interactions with StrongDM and the addition of some new features to the product. For example, the egress routing functionality solved a fair amount of our problems. So, I don't think there are any outstanding issues that we're aware of or have complained about.
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. The only reason it's not a ten is that there's some automated patching that happens in the background. This was years ago, but we had some issues where that were causing us problems, and we had no way of scheduling it at different times.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't run into any issues with scalability at this point.
The only issues we've encountered are when you have a very large amount of data sources, we're talking above 2000. Then, the routing algorithm for directing traffic on the StrongDM backend takes a little bit of time to figure out where to route traffic whenever you bring up and down relays or gateways.
We do not have any issues with StrongDM's scalability at the size of our organization right now.
How are customer service and support?
That's how we got some of those feature requests in. We've only contacted support one or two times without a feature request. The support interactions have been minimal because of how good the documentation is.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly straightforward as we run everything in Docker. From that side, there wasn't much effort required from StrongDM. However, integrating it into our environment was completely on us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is per user per month. It's pretty close to the same or in line with all of the other pricing for tools that do similar things.
What other advice do I have?
A first-time definitely needs to have some background experience with setting up services to run, but it's no different than onboarding any other service.
My recommendation: Do not change the gateway or relay names, and everything will be great. But that's only really a problem if you deploy within Kubernetes and use a deployment rather than a stateful set.
Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.
It is really very cool and important PAM software.
What do you like best about the product?
UI and the way they put all minimal things describe in their documentation.
What do you dislike about the product?
They have to improve StrongDM app. some time it is run in background app and was not open in display.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We can easly find who is using that perticular resources, so we can easly find if any issue occure.
Product and Service, both are top notch !!!
What do you like best about the product?
What I like best about StrongDM is how it makes managing and securing access to servers, and Kubernetes clusters so easy.
The user interface is straightforward, and the audit logging feature is great for keeping track of user activity.
And the customer support toemphasize, very prompt, clear responses and followups.
The user interface is straightforward, and the audit logging feature is great for keeping track of user activity.
And the customer support toemphasize, very prompt, clear responses and followups.
What do you dislike about the product?
One thing i felt the initial setup and configuration can be somewhat time-consuming if you're not familiar with similar tools, but that's not really an issue as we have their uncomplicated and clear documentation to go through.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's solving the main problem of secure and efficient access management to databases, servers, and k8s clusters. Also centralizing access control in their dashboard eliminating the need for managing user, credentials and permissions separately.
Great experience and most importantly - StrongDM is implementing new and very useful features fast
What do you like best about the product?
- comprehensive list of resources, everything one might need
- support for modern resources such as various flavours of Kubernetes clusters
- automation - possibility to manage entire PAM solution with Terraform is real killer feature, making resource available to end users few seconds after it's provisioned in your cloud provider (change management is important here!)
- useful integrations such as StrongDM
- helpful team and support specifically
- support for modern resources such as various flavours of Kubernetes clusters
- automation - possibility to manage entire PAM solution with Terraform is real killer feature, making resource available to end users few seconds after it's provisioned in your cloud provider (change management is important here!)
- useful integrations such as StrongDM
- helpful team and support specifically
What do you dislike about the product?
Not much to dislike, sometimes documentation is not up to speed with features released , requires spending more time and working with StrongDM support
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
- access multiple types of datasources and servers/services from a single point
- having logging and audit for any access event on multiple platforms
- good user experience for remote access
- having logging and audit for any access event on multiple platforms
- good user experience for remote access
One of the only Enterprise tools I keep coming back too
What do you like best about the product?
StrongDM is the tool to make my job easier, and I use it everyday. Granting access for others to use potentially sensitive systems couldn't be simpler.
What do you dislike about the product?
Initial sticker shock is bound to hit you for pricing, but it does make up for it in having to spend way less time supporting just in time access patterns for sensitive systems.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
For compliance reasons, having temporary access with required approvals as well as full logs of what transpired during the sessions, all wrapped in a simple to use system. What more could you ask for.
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