Topic starter
22/01/2026 5:20 pm
TL;DR: Tool sprawl and deployment complexity are now governance problems as much as technology ones, as 68% of IT leaders believe their current PAM stack includes features they rarely use, according to Keeper Security. The practical lesson is that privilege control must be simpler, cloud-aware, and easier to operate than many legacy PAM models allow.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Keeper Security: “Top 7 Privileged Access Management Solutions”.
By the numbers:
- 68% of IT leaders say their current PAM solution includes unnecessary features they rarely use.
- KeeperPAM is priced at $85 per user/month, with a minimum of 5 users.
- StrongDM Essentials starts at $70 per user/month, billed annually.
Key questions
Q: How should teams decide whether a PAM platform is too complex to operate safely?
A: Teams should judge PAM complexity by how consistently the platform can be deployed, administered and used across the environments it must protect.
Q: Why do fragmented PAM workflows increase access risk?
A: Fragmented workflows split entitlement data, session evidence, and approval records across tools, which makes it hard to know who has access and for how long.
Q: What are the signs that a PAM programme is becoming shelfware?
A: Common signs include separate login paths for different privileged tasks, repeated professional-services dependency, limited use of advanced features, and administrators bypassing the platform for speed.
Practitioner guidance
- Audit feature-to-usage gaps Inventory the PAM capabilities you own, then identify which ones are rarely used, operationally duplicated or blocked by deployment friction.
- Standardise around the core privilege paths Reduce the number of workflows used for vaulting, session control, secrets management and JIT access so administrators are not forced to learn a different operating model for each environment.
- Prioritise cloud-aware access models For hybrid and cloud-first estates, choose access patterns that minimise appliances, manual handoffs and separate operational stacks.
Bottom line: PAM complexity becomes a governance issue when teams cannot operate the controls they buy consistently across cloud, hybrid and DevOps environments.
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11/10/2026 1:57 am
Feature sprawl has become a PAM governance problem, not just a buying problem: When platforms accumulate modules faster than teams can operate them, privileged access controls stop behaving like controls and start behaving like shelfware. The real risk is not that every feature is unused, but that teams cannot consistently apply the features that matter most. In practice, governance quality collapses when operational simplicity is missing.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 97% of NHIs carry excessive privileges, increasing unauthorised access and broadening the attack surface, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should organisations prioritise when moving to cloud-native privileged access?
A: They should prioritise simplicity, identity-provider integration, JIT access, session logging and low-friction deployment over broad feature sets that require dedicated maintenance. Cloud-native privilege control only works when it fits the operating model of hybrid, DevOps and multi-cloud environments instead of forcing those environments to adapt to the tool.
👉 Read our full editorial: PAM complexity is pushing teams toward cloud-native access models