CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Akeyless vs Sectigo

Akeyless is an Identity Security Platform for securing machine, AI agent, and human identities across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. Sectigo sells digital certificates and website security products for the global business community. 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
  • Sectigo
Akeyless vs Sectigo: 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.ioSectigoSectigo sells digital certificates and website security products for the global business community.sectigo.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.
  • Sectigo Certificate Manager[5][10]Finds every certificate you own, renews them automatically, and alerts you before anything expires.
  • Sectigo Partner Platform[14]A platform that lets MSPs turn certificate lifecycle management into a managed service.
  • SSL/TLS Certificates[13]Digital certificates to secure a website.
  • Mark Certificates[8]Certificates that display brand logos in email.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesScottsdale, United States[2]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Privately held[3]Owned by GI Partners since 2020[3][5][7]
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]
  • March 24, 2026Sectigo introduced Sectigo Partner Platform, a multi-tenant platform for MSPs, MSSPs, VARs and distributors to offer certificate lifecycle management services.[14]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[3]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen October 28, 2026[7]
  • 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.From its own pages, Sectigo sells mainly to organizations that need to manage certificates across the enterprise, from any source. Channel partners such as MSPs, MSSPs, VARs and distributors are the audience for Sectigo Partner Platform. Manufacturers are a named audience for Sectigo's eIDAS sealing certificates, which let them digitally seal conformity documents. Businesses that accept payment cards can use Sectigo's PCI scanning and reporting.
Last verified
October 7, 2026November 2, 2026

Where they overlap

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

Where they differ, field by field

  • Akeyless's primary category is Non-human identity security; Sectigo's is Machine identity and PKI.
  • Akeyless is also filed under Privileged access management and Encryption, tokenization and key management.
  • Akeyless lists SecretlessAI® and Agentic Runtime Authority. Sectigo lists Sectigo Certificate Manager, Sectigo Partner Platform, SSL/TLS Certificates and Mark Certificates.
  • Sectigo is headquartered in Scottsdale, United States.
  • Akeyless is privately held. Sectigo is owned by GI Partners, since 2020.

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: Sectigo

What Sectigo Certificate Manager does[5][10]
Sectigo Certificate Manager is shortened to SCM. It finds every certificate you own, renews them automatically, and alerts you before anything expires. Sectigo says its platform lets teams discover, issue, automate, and renew certificates across every team and environment.
What Sectigo Partner Platform does[14]
Sectigo Partner Platform lets MSPs turn certificate lifecycle management into a managed service. Each end customer gets a fully isolated tenant with separate usage reporting, billing, certificate inventories, and admin controls. Sectigo Partner Platform is currently available to a select number of channel partners.
What SSL/TLS Certificates does[13]
Sectigo sells digital certificates to secure a website, as a Certificate Authority. SSL/TLS certificates help secure data in transit.

Questions about Akeyless and Sectigo

What do Akeyless and Sectigo sell?
Akeyless sells SecretlessAI® and Agentic Runtime Authority. Sectigo sells Sectigo Certificate Manager, Sectigo Partner Platform, SSL/TLS Certificates and Mark Certificates.
Are Akeyless and Sectigo in the same category?
They share Machine identity and PKI. Akeyless's primary category is Non-human identity security and Sectigo's is Machine identity and PKI.
Where are Akeyless and Sectigo headquartered?
Sectigo is headquartered in Scottsdale, United States.
Who owns Akeyless and Sectigo?
Akeyless is privately held. Sectigo is owned by GI Partners, since 2020.
Who are Akeyless and Sectigo sold to?
Akeyless describes a clientele that ranges from startups to multinational corporations. From its own pages, Sectigo sells mainly to organizations that need to manage certificates across the enterprise, from any source.
What have Akeyless and Sectigo announced recently?
October 26, 2026: Akeyless announced its first inclusion in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Privileged Access Management. March 24, 2026: Sectigo introduced Sectigo Partner Platform, a multi-tenant platform for MSPs, MSSPs, VARs and distributors to offer certificate lifecycle management services.

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

Sectigo full record

  1. [1]sectigo.comSectigo · sectigo.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]SectigoGI Partners · gipartners.com · published November 14, 2024 · Tier A
  3. [3]A new chapter for sectigo with gi partnersSectigo · sectigo.com · published September 16, 2020 · Tier A
  4. [4]Certificate Management Solutions & SSL Certificates | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed October 28, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]MCP Server | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed October 28, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Using Sectigo ACME Service for InCommon | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · published March 1, 2024 · Tier A
  7. [7]Sectigo Certificate Manager Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 28, 2026 · Tier C
  8. [8]Digital Certificates, Web Security Products & More | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]About Sectigo - Global SSL, CLM & PKI Solutions Provider | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Sectigo Names Ian Hassard as Chief Product Officer to Lead Certificate Lifecycle Management… | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · published September 1, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Sectigo Names Dena Bauckman as Senior Vice President of Product | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · published April 30, 2024 · Tier A
  12. [12]eCoC Automotive Compliance | eIDAS Sealing Certificates for Vehicle Manufacturers | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Website Security Solutions: Malware, PCI & Backup | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Sectigo Introduces Industry‑First Multi‑Tenant Partner Platform for CLM Services | Sectigo® OfficialSectigo · published March 24, 2026 · Tier A

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