Akeyless AI Agent Security vs Gardiyan PAM: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Akeyless AI Agent Security

Mid-market and enterprise teams shipping AI agents into production need Akeyless AI Agent Security because it solves the actual problem: AI workloads can't use traditional credential rotation and need identity that works across cloud, SaaS, and legacy systems simultaneously. The platform's zero-knowledge cryptography with Distributed Fragments Cryptography means secrets never exist in plaintext anywhere, and its real-time session monitoring plus AI-powered anomaly detection covers both PR.AA identity controls and DE.CM continuous monitoring that most PAM tools leave to separate tools. Skip this if you're still managing a handful of service accounts with static secrets; Akeyless assumes you've already accepted that secrets management must be automated and cryptographically separated from access decisions.

Gardiyan PAM

Mid-market and enterprise teams managing distributed remote access to critical infrastructure will find real value in Gardiyan PAM's session recording and unauthorized access blocking, which directly addresses the audit and incident response gaps most PAM deployments leave open. The tool covers all three NIST CSF 2.0 pillars,identity control, continuous monitoring, and incident mitigation,which is rare in the SMB segment where vendors typically sacrifice monitoring depth for ease of deployment. Skip this if you need a cloud-native PAM built for API-first environments or if your team lacks on-premises infrastructure; Gardiyan's hybrid model works best when you actually have systems that need to stay on-prem.