TELEPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IDENTITY PLATFORM
Teleport vs. StrongDM: Enterprise Zero Trust Comparison
Trusted by Market Leaders
Teleport Unifies Enterprise Zero Trust
and Identity Governance
Apply zero trust access across everyone and everything in your enterprise: humans, machines, devices, and infrastructure.
Wave goodbye to identity blindspots and embrace new AI projects while shrinking your attack surface.
Unified identity governance and least privilege enforcement simplifies engineering responsibilities. Cross-system identity correlation across Okta, AWS, GitHub, and more turns incident response from hours to minutes. Deep audit logging and universal policy enforcement means you spend less time in audits and more time building.
98% faster forensic investigations
Reduce time spent correlating audit logs by 98% from hours to minutes.
10x faster access
Automate provisioning and approvals to give engineers access in seconds.
Same-day audit readiness
Make audits turnkey with deep audit trails across identities and zero credentials to account for.
The intricacies of modern infrastructure demand more robust security solutions. Infrastructure Identity is a compelling approach to this challenge.
Stephanie Walter, Analyst-in-Residence, HyperFRAME Research
Teleport vs. StrongDM: Side-by-Side Feature Comparison
Teleport vs. StrongDM: Side-by-Side Feature Comparison
| Feature | Teleport | StrongDM |
|---|---|---|
Non-Human Identity | Native support for non-human identities (bots, CI/CD, microservices) via certificates | No built-in machine identity support |
Passwordless Access | Identity-bound, short-lived X.509 certificates eliminate the risks of storing static credentials | Aligns with traditional credential storage, including passwords, SSH keys, and secrets vaults |
Cloud Console integration | Native, secretless SSO into AWS, GCP and Azure consoles with just-in-time sessions | No built-in cloud console workflows; requires manual AWS key provisioning and rotation |
Identity Security | Unifies data from Okta, AWS, GitHub and infrastructure, applying AI-driven correlation to detect identity attacks and pinpoint risk paths; visual access relationship management and monitoring; protect sensitive resources with extra scrutiny via Crown Jewels | Relies solely on real-time access events without correlating activity across authentication providers, siloing identity threat detection |
Identity Governance | Automates access certifications, role modeling, and attestation workflows; offers native Device Trust enforcement; integrates with Jamf for endpoint compliance | Lacks native governance capabilities such as periodic access reviews or automated attestations, or integration with identity governance platforms; requires additional integrations for device trust; offers no Jamf integrations |
Per-Session MFA | MFA is embedded into session certificates, ensuring new connections trigger a fresh MFA challenge | Policy-driven MFA requires maintaining complex web of resource and action policies |
External Audit Storage | Stores audit logs and session recordings in your own S3 bucket; immediately run SQL queries with full control over retention and privacy | Streams batched log files to S3 that require custom ETL and parsing before querying; StrongDM may retain metadata or encrypted copies of logs, complicating sovereignty |
Deployment Flexibility | Self-hosted, cloud-managed, hybrid, and air-gapped environments; automatically discovers and enrolls resources | Cloud-only model with limited on-prem support; resource discovery feature available in closed-beta only |
Uptime SLA | Enterprise Cloud deployments include a SLA of 99.99% backed by a global, multi-region architecture | Offers a 99.9% monthly uptime SLA |
Air-Gapped Deployments | Supports fully air-gapped deployments when required, with no internet connectivity; isolates internal and external proxy endpoints; uses static binaries for offline installation | Does not support air-gapped use cases; requires internet connectivity for access, authentication, and policy distribution |
Virtual Network Emulation | VNet included automatically with no additional install; automatic split-DNS resolves each app’s public_addr (e.g., api.example.com) to its VNet IP transparently | Closed-beta only; requires separate adapter install; human-readable DNS aliases must be configured per resource or clients see raw IP:port |
Protected Resources | Linux SSH: Secured as a first-class resource, Windows RDP: Secured as a first-class resource, Model Context Protocol (MCP): Secured as a first-class resource, All CNCF-certified Kubernetes clusters and existing tooling, Web apps: HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, API) 26+ native database engines, Secretless cloud console access (AWS, GCP, Azure), Natively secures GitHub access, Integrates broadly with CI/CD & observability tools. | Linux SSH (access only), Windows RDP(access only), No MCP support, Supports basic HTTP applications, Limited database connectors, Limited Kubernetes support, No cloud console workflows, only key management, No native GitHub access, Limited CI/CD and observability integrations |
How Teleport Works: Common Questions Answered
Here’s a breakdown to clarify common questions about Teleport’s Infrastructure Identity Platform and how it actually works.
Does Teleport integrate with vaults?
Teleport reduces credential risk by replacing static secrets with short-lived, identity-bound certificates—nothing to rotate, store, or expose. At the same time, Teleport integrates with secret vaults (including HashiCorp Vault via PKCS#11) to guard access and enforce strong, auditable controls where vaults remain in use.
Is agent-based access required?
Agent-based access is not required. Teleport provides agentless access using native OpenSSH, with no software needed on target systems. Agents are optional and available when preferred, for advanced use cases such as BPF analysis, PAM integration, or establishing reverse tunnels.
Is it only built for modern cloud environments?
Teleport supports a wide range of infrastructure, from cloud-native environments to legacy systems, including air-gapped and FedRAMP deployments and Windows fleets with ADFS integration. Support for SSH, RDP, TCP apps, and more means you can implement zero trust anywhere.
Is high availability supported?
Teleport cloud and self-hosted offers robust HA support automatic multi-region global HA with 99.99% uptime SLA.
Will Teleport updates cause downtime?
Teleport uses zero-downtime rolling upgrades in all environments. Whether you self-host or use our cloud, updates can be applied without interrupting live access.
Is SCIM support available?
Teleport offers full SCIM integration with identity providers like Okta and Azure AD. It supports dynamic RBAC, trait-based access, and automated group syncing making it easy to manage identity at scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
Access Controls
Does StrongDM support live session controls?
No. StrongDM records sessions for later review. Teleport allows you to monitor, pause, or terminate live sessions and enforce per-session MFA.
Can I create detailed access policies?
Yes. Teleport supports role-based access by protocol, user traits, time, and session context. StrongDM supports basic roles but offers less granularity.
Compliance
What compliance standards are supported?
Teleport supports FedRAMP, FIPS, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, ISO 27001, and more. StrongDM supports SOC 2 and HIPAA but lacks coverage for higher-level or government-grade frameworks.
Can I use Teleport in air-gapped environments?
Yes. Teleport works in fully offline environments. StrongDM does not support air-gapped use cases.
Deployment
Where can each platform be deployed?
Teleport works in cloud, on-prem, hybrid, or air-gapped environments. StrongDM is cloud-only and does not support air-gapped or fully on-prem deployments.
How quickly can Teleport be deployed?
Teleport Cloud takes minutes to set up. Self-hosted deployments can be automated with Terraform and support high availability. StrongDM setup is manual and less flexible.
Fit and Migration
When do teams move from StrongDM to Teleport?
Teams often move from StrongDM to Teleport when they need to secure machine and automated access, implement just-in-time access with session controls, meet stricter compliance requirements, or deploy in environments beyond cloud-only setups, such as on-prem or air-gapped infrastructure.
Is migration from StrongDM to Teleport hard?
No. Teleport can run alongside StrongDM during transition. It supports SCIM, Terraform, and certificate-based access, making it easy to adopt without migrating stored credentials.
Identity
Does Teleport store credentials like StrongDM?
No. Teleport uses short-lived, identity-based certificates instead of passwords or SSH keys. StrongDM uses stored secrets and credential vaults, which can add risk if not rotated or managed properly.
Can Teleport manage access for machines and automation?
Yes. Teleport supports machine identities such as bots and CI/CD pipelines using standards like SPIFFE and X.509. StrongDM focuses on human access and does not offer built-in machine identity support.
How is zero trust enforced differently?
Teleport issues short-lived credentials tied to identity and policy. StrongDM uses persistent tunnels and stored credentials. This makes Teleport better suited for environments that require strict access controls and traceability.
General FAQ
What is StrongDM used for?
StrongDM is used by organizations to manage human access to infrastructure using proxy tunnels and vaulted credentials. It’s designed for visibility and access control, but does not support machine or workload identities natively, which solutions like Teleport do.
What is the difference between HashiCorp Boundary and StrongDM?
StrongDM manages human access through proxy tunnels and stored credentials, with basic session logging. HashiCorp Boundary provides just-in-time access with role-based controls but has limited visibility into active sessions and doesn’t support all protocols. Neither tool supports machine identity as a first-class feature. Teleport extends to both human and machine access, provides real-time session controls, and supports a wider range of infrastructure environments.