Akeyless is an established identity security platform delivering secrets management, certificate lifecycle management, encryption/KMS, and secure remote access from a unified SaaS, using patented Distributed Fragments Cryptography (DFC) instead of a self-managed vault. In 2025–2026 it extended the platform to AI-agent identity with ephemeral, task-scoped access.
Machine Identity
Certificates and identities for machines, services, and workloads.
8 vendors ·
Quick answer
What is Machine Identity?
Short answer
Machine identity platforms issue and manage certificates, keys, and credentials for servers, workloads, and machines — at scale and across hybrid environments.
- Best for
- Platform and security teams managing TLS, mTLS, and workload identity across cloud and on-prem environments.
- When to choose
- Look at PKI coverage, automation depth (renewal, rotation), and integrations with Kubernetes, service meshes, and cloud KMS.
- When not to choose
- Skip Machine Identity tooling if a broader IAM platform already covers your needs and you don't have category-specific requirements.
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Top vendors in Machine Identity
Astrix Security discovers and secures non-human identities, AI agents, and MCP servers, and provisions secure-by-design agents through its Agent Control Plane with short-lived credentials and just-in-time access. Following its acquisition by Cisco, its capabilities are being integrated into Cisco's identity and zero-trust portfolio.
Corsha secures machine-to-machine and API communication with trusted machine identities and dynamic, MFA-style authentication (m-MFA) for machines, plus connection discovery and identity-based access control. It is purpose-built for operational technology, defense, and critical infrastructure, deployable as SaaS or self-hosted via hardware and virtual control points.
Defakto (formerly SPIRL, rebranded in 2026) is a non-human identity and access management platform built on the SPIFFE standard. It issues dynamic, cryptographically verifiable identities for services, workloads, CI/CD pipelines, and AI agents in place of static credentials and service accounts.
Entro Security is an agentic AI and non-human identity security platform that discovers, classifies, and governs NHIs and secrets across clouds, code, vaults, and collaboration tools, with behavioral threat detection via its NHIDR engine. SailPoint completed its acquisition of Entro in June 2026, making it the NHI and secrets layer of SailPoint's Agentic Fabric.
Widely used secrets management and machine identity platform, available as open source, enterprise and HCP Vault Dedicated.
Oasis Security is a non-human identity management platform covering inventory, ownership, posture, lifecycle, and secret rotation for machine identities, with AI-SPM and intent-aware access controls for AI agents. In July 2026, data-security company Cyera agreed to acquire Oasis for approximately $1 billion, with closing expected later in the year.
Token Security is a machine-first identity security platform that discovers non-human identities and AI agents across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments, then manages their posture, lifecycle, and threats. In March 2026 it introduced Intent-Based AI Agent Security, which aligns agent permissions with their stated purpose.
Related categories
Related Machine Identity comparisons
Best AI agent identity tools in 2026
Leading AI agent identity tools today come from machine identity vendors extending to agent use cases: Aembit for workload-to-workload auth, Teleport for engineering access, StrongDM for human-and-machine access, and emerging vendors like Veza for permission visibility.
Best Privileged Access Management (PAM) Tools in 2026
CyberArk and BeyondTrust lead the enterprise PAM market with broad vaulting, session management, and PEDM. StrongDM and Teleport are stronger picks for engineering-led infra access. 1Password and Keeper extend secrets and credential workflows for smaller teams.
Best Machine Identity & Non-Human Identity Tools in 2026
Aembit focuses purely on workload-to-workload identity. Teleport and StrongDM secure machine-mediated infra access. 1Password and Keeper extend secrets governance to services. Cerbos and Permit.io add policy-as-code authorization for non-human callers.
Best CyberArk alternatives in 2026
The best CyberArk alternatives are BeyondTrust for traditional PAM, StrongDM for modern infrastructure access, Teleport for engineering teams, and Keeper for SMB password management.
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