Astrix Protect Secrets vs AWS Assume Role Helper: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Astrix Protect Secrets is a commercial privileged access management tool by Astrix Security. AWS Assume Role Helper is a free privileged access management tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best privileged access management fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Enterprise security teams managing AI agents and non-human identities across multi-cloud environments should pick Astrix Protect Secrets because it's the only tool that treats AI agents as a distinct asset class requiring their own discovery, governance, and lifecycle controls rather than forcing them into existing PAM frameworks. The vendor covers four NIST CSF 2.0 functions including continuous monitoring and identity access control, with particular strength in real-time inventory and abnormal activity detection across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Skip this if your organization hasn't yet deployed AI agents internally or uses a single cloud provider; the overhead of agent-centric governance only pays off once NHIs become operationally significant.
DevOps engineers and security teams managing multiple AWS accounts will find AWS Assume Role Helper valuable for reducing credential management friction without adding another IAM tool to their stack. The free, open-source approach (41 GitHub stars) eliminates manual credentials file editing, which directly cuts the most common source of exposed keys in CLI workflows. Skip this if you need centralized audit logging or cross-platform credential vaulting; this is a local efficiency play, not an access governance platform.
