AWS IAM Access Analyzer vs Kiam: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
AWS IAM Access Analyzer is a commercial identity governance and administration tool by Amazon Web Services, Inc.. Kiam is a free identity governance and administration tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best identity governance and administration fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Teams managing large AWS environments who need to eliminate excess IAM permissions without manual policy review will find AWS IAM Access Analyzer indispensable; it surfaces unused access across your account ecosystem and validates least privilege automatically. The tool covers NIST PR.AA and ID.AM functions directly, catching the permission creep that auditors flag every time. Skip this if your organization runs mostly outside AWS or treats IAM governance as a once-yearly compliance checkbox rather than ongoing hygiene.
Kubernetes teams managing pod-to-AWS IAM credential binding should know Kiam exists, but only if you're locked into an older cluster or inheriting legacy deployments; AWS IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA) is the supported standard and requires less operational overhead. Kiam has 1,147 GitHub stars and a working implementation, but the deprecation notice matters,you're committing to eventual migration rather than a long-term platform. Skip this entirely if you're building fresh infrastructure; adopt IRSA from day one instead.
