CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Akeyless vs DigiCert

Akeyless is an Identity Security Platform for securing machine, AI agent, and human identities across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. DigiCert ONE is a platform that includes Trust Lifecycle Manager for organizations that require CA-agnostic certificate lifecycle management. CISO Tribune files both under Machine identity and PKI. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Akeyless
  • DigiCert
Akeyless vs DigiCert: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
AkeylessAkeyless is an Identity Security Platform for securing machine, AI agent, and human identities across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments.akeyless.ioDigiCertDigiCert ONE is a platform that includes Trust Lifecycle Manager for organizations that require CA-agnostic certificate lifecycle management.digicert.com
What it sells
  • SecretlessAI®[4]Brokers just-in-time access without exposing credentials to the agent.
  • Agentic Runtime Authority[4][6][10]Controls and audits runtime agent access to supported Dynamic Secrets.
  • AI Trust Manager[1][8]Helps organizations discover, secure, and govern AI agents, AI models, and MCP servers.
  • CertCentral[1][3]Used to order and administer DigiCert certificates.
  • Private CA[1][7]DigiCert's Private CA solutions are pointed to strictly internal use cases.
  • DigiCert X9 PKI[7]A dedicated public key infrastructure for interoperability and flexibility for non-web browsers.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Privately held[3]Not stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • October 26, 2026Akeyless announced its first inclusion in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management.[11]
  • March 31, 2026Akeyless announced Agentic Runtime Authority, a runtime control capability for AI agents, and Agentic Identity Intelligence, extending its AI Agent Identity Security solution.[10]
  • September 24, 2026DigiCert announced general availability of Quantum Central, a DigiCert ONE platform offering that helps organizations manage progress toward post-quantum cryptography readiness.[12]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[3]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
Akeyless describes a clientele that ranges from startups to multinational corporations. Akeyless is designed for cloud, multi-cloud, hybrid and on-prem environments, with a SaaS control plane and customer-deployed Gateways. Akeyless provides deployment guidance for organizations that deploy Gateway on cloud-managed compute platforms.X9 PKI is aimed at host-to-host communications (mTLS) involving multiple organizations. DigiCert issues ZertES certificates for organizations and individuals that require legally recognized digital trust under Swiss law. Trust Lifecycle Manager is described for organizations that require CA-agnostic certificate lifecycle management. DigiCert AI Trust Manager is described for organizations that need to discover, secure, and govern AI agents, AI models, and MCP servers. CertCentral Europe is hosted in European data centers for customers with data residency and sovereignty requirements.
Last verified
October 7, 2026November 5, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Akeyless and DigiCert are both filed under Machine identity and PKI.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Akeyless's primary category is Non-human identity security; DigiCert's is Machine identity and PKI.
  • Akeyless is also filed under Privileged access management and Encryption, tokenization and key management. DigiCert is also filed under Post-quantum cryptography, DNS security and Email authentication and DMARC.
  • Akeyless lists SecretlessAI® and Agentic Runtime Authority. DigiCert lists AI Trust Manager, CertCentral, Private CA and DigiCert X9 PKI.
  • Akeyless is privately held.

What it sells: Akeyless

What SecretlessAI® does[4]
SecretlessAI® brokers just-in-time access without exposing credentials to the agent. Akeyless keeps credentials out of AI agents and governs their access to enterprise systems.
What Agentic Runtime Authority does[4][6][10]
Agentic Runtime Authority controls and audits runtime agent access to supported Dynamic Secrets. Agentic Runtime Authority evaluates and enforces what agents are allowed to do at runtime. Akeyless tracks every agent session from prompt to action.

What it sells: DigiCert

What AI Trust Manager does[1][8]
DigiCert AI Trust Manager assigns each AI agent a cryptographically verifiable AI Agent Passport linked to its organizational and human ownership. DigiCert AI Trust Manager verifies AI model integrity from development through deployment and runtime. DigiCert AI Trust Manager protects AI agents, AI models, and MCP servers, as well as the systems, tools, and data they access.
What CertCentral does[1][3]
DigiCert certificates can be ordered and administered through CertCentral Europe. CertCentral Europe is hosted in European data centers to address data residency and sovereignty requirements. CertCentral Europe is part of the DigiCert ONE platform.
What DigiCert X9 PKI does[7]
DigiCert X9 PKI is a dedicated public key infrastructure designed to provide interoperability and flexibility for non-web browsers. DigiCert X9 PKI operations are governed by an ASC X9 Policy Committee and undergo an annual independent WebTrust audit. Organizations with existing PKI systems can cross-certify with the X9 PKI root. The X9 PKI is intended for non-browser TLS authentication scenarios.

Questions about Akeyless and DigiCert

What do Akeyless and DigiCert sell?
Akeyless sells SecretlessAI® and Agentic Runtime Authority. DigiCert sells AI Trust Manager, CertCentral, Private CA and DigiCert X9 PKI.
Are Akeyless and DigiCert in the same category?
They share Machine identity and PKI. Akeyless's primary category is Non-human identity security and DigiCert's is Machine identity and PKI.
Who owns Akeyless and DigiCert?
Akeyless is privately held.
Who are Akeyless and DigiCert sold to?
Akeyless describes a clientele that ranges from startups to multinational corporations. X9 PKI is aimed at host-to-host communications (mTLS) involving multiple organizations.
What have Akeyless and DigiCert announced recently?
October 26, 2026: Akeyless announced its first inclusion in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management. September 24, 2026: DigiCert announced general availability of Quantum Central, a DigiCert ONE platform offering that helps organizations manage progress toward post-quantum cryptography readiness.

About Akeyless

Akeyless is an Identity Security Platform for securing machine, AI agent, and human identities across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. Akeyless combines secrets management, Modern PAM, certificate lifecycle management, encryption and KMS, Multi-Vault Governance, and AI agent security in one platform. Akeyless manages secrets, keys, certificates and machine identities through a single policy engine, operational model and interface.[1][4][5]

Akeyless describes a situation in which AI agents, workloads and services now perform most system access, while security tools still assume a human behind the keyboard. Akeyless states that the result is secrets everywhere, standing privileges, and identities no one can fully track. Akeyless gives applications, workloads, automation and AI agents secure access to the resources they need without relying on long-lived credentials. Akeyless provides short-lived, identity-based access while centrally managing the secrets, certificates and keys that still need to exist across cloud, hybrid and on-prem environments.[4][5]

Akeyless includes enterprise secrets management, and the platform extends beyond storing and rotating secrets. Akeyless supports short-lived, identity-based access, privileged access, certificates, encryption keys, machine identities and AI agent security. Akeyless secures, stores and delivers secrets dynamically. Secretless access in Akeyless lets applications, workloads and other identities authenticate and access resources without storing long-lived credentials. Akeyless can issue short-lived, just-in-time credentials when access is required and automatically expire or revoke them afterward. Akeyless supports authentication and access for applications, workloads, services, automation and other non-human identities using methods including cloud identities, Kubernetes identities, certificates and SPIFFE/SPIRE. Akeyless centralizes and secures credentials, certificates and keys across the CI/CD pipeline.[1][4][5]

Akeyless provides multiple AI-focused capabilities across the identity security platform. Akeyless keeps credentials out of AI agents and governs their access to enterprise systems. SecretlessAI® brokers just-in-time access without exposing credentials to the agent. Agentic Runtime Authority evaluates and enforces what agents are allowed to do at runtime, and Akeyless states that every agent action is validated, scoped and enforced in session. Agentic Runtime Authority controls and audits runtime agent access to supported Dynamic Secrets. Akeyless tracks every agent session from prompt to action. Akeyless AI Insights enables natural-language interaction with Akeyless resources. Identity and Secrets Intelligence provides AI-related visibility and governance surfaces in the Console. Akeyless MCP Server integrates MCP clients and tools with Akeyless services.[4][5][6]

Akeyless automates certificate issuance, renewal and compliance, and offers automated certificate lifecycle monitoring. Akeyless centralizes visibility and policy across all vaults and environments, and provides centralized governance across distributed secrets vaults. Akeyless offers a browser plugin for creating and securing employee passwords. Akeyless centralizes and automates encryption, tokenization and key management, with centralized encryption and key management across cloud platforms. Akeyless offers customers control of their encryption keys and encrypted data.[4][5]

Akeyless uses patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography™ as the foundation of its Zero-Knowledge Architecture. Akeyless includes hybrid post-quantum encryption alongside patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography™. Akeyless is designed for cloud, multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments, with a SaaS control plane and customer-deployed Gateways for local access, policy enforcement, and cryptographic operations. Akeyless provides deployment guidance for organizations that deploy Gateway on cloud-managed compute platforms. Across EKS, AKS, GKE, and Azure Container Apps, the core Gateway model is consistent. Akeyless provides a command, eventForwarderUpdateServiceNow, that updates a service now event forwarder.[4][5][7][8]

Akeyless describes a clientele that ranges from startups to multinational corporations. Akeyless offers applications, workloads, automation and AI agents secure access to resources without long-lived credentials.[1][2][4][5][9]

Akeyless on the record

Sources

Akeyless full record

  1. [1]akeyless.ioAkeyless · akeyless.io · undated page, accessed October 7, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Press releaseAkeyless · akeyless.io · published September 10, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Akeyless Identity Security Platform Reviews & Product Details - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 31, 2026 · Tier C
  4. [4]Akeyless DocumentationAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Identity Security for Machines, AI Agents & Humans | AkeylessAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]AI Security With AkeylessAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Cloud-Managed Kubernetes PlatformsAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]/event-forwarder-update-servicenowAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Customer JourneysAkeyless · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Akeyless Launches Runtime Authority for AI Agents, Introducing Intent-Aware Security for Autonomous Systems | AkeylessAkeyless · published March 31, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Akeyless Recognized in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Privileged Access ManagementPRNewswire · published October 26, 2026 · Tier A

DigiCert full record

  1. [1]digicert.comDigiCert · digicert.com · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]TLS/SSL Certificate Authority | Leader in Digital Trust | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Solutions for the European UnionDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]What extensions and details are included in a SSL certificate?DigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]VMC | New validation stepsDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]How to trademark your logo for VMCDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]DigiCert X9 PKI | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]AI Trust Manager | Cryptographic trust for AI | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Post-Quantum Cryptography Solutions & PQC Readiness | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Why DigiCert | Unified Digital Trust Leader | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Trust Calendar: Public Trust & Compliance Changes | DigiCertDigiCert · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]DigiCert Quantum Central Now Available to Help Organizations Turn PQC Plans into ActionDigiCert · published September 24, 2026 · Tier A

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