STRONGDM VS. BRITIVE

Britive governs the entitlement. StrongDM stays for the session that follows, authorizing every action before it runs.

Britive will tell you it eliminates standing privilege across cloud IAM, SaaS apps, and AI agents from a single control plane. The question is what enforces policy once a session with your infrastructure is open.

session · prod-postgres — via StrongDM LIVE 00:15:32

09:41:02 SELECT * FROM payments WHERE created_at > … ALLOWED

09:41:07 credential injected at proxy — never exposed

09:41:11 policy re-evaluated · identity + posture ok 214 MS

09:41:19 ssh deploy@10.2.14.7 — credential brokered ALLOWED

09:41:23 DROP TABLE users; BLOCKED

09:41:24 session flagged + recorded for replay ENFORCED

● authorization evaluated continuously — every request, all session long

grant · aws-iam — via Britive NO SIGNAL --:--:--

09:41:02 access request evaluated · entitlement provisioned GRANTED

09:41:03 time-boxed credential issued to the identity ISSUED

09:41:04 —

09:41:11 (no in-session visibility)

09:41:19 (no command-level control)

09:41:24 entitlement expires on timer EXPIRED

○ involvement ends once the entitlement is provisioned

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Access control that doesn't stop at the grant

Control that lasts as long as the session does.

Britive provisions ephemeral entitlements directly through native cloud and SaaS APIs, with no proxy or agent sitting in the connection, and revokes them when a posture signal changes. StrongDM treats that grant as the point where its own job starts.

StrongDM stays in the path for the life of the session across servers, databases, Kubernetes clusters, and AI agent tool calls. It checks every command, query, and tool call against policy before it runs rather than logging it after.

StrongDM blocks and redacts specific actions. It stops a destructive SQL statement or redacts a sensitive column mid-session on Postgres and Microsoft SQL Server today, with more coverage on the roadmap.

No added friction for users. Engineers and agents keep using the tools and workflows they already use.

Gateways and relays run redundantly. Automatic failover means the control plane doesn't go down because one node did.

ONE POLICY, ONE AUDIT TRAIL

Identity security built for the AI era

StrongDM centralizes authorization across every human, machine, and AI agent identity, and enforces it at runtime instead of reviewing it after the fact.

Every tool call authorized before it runs

The StrongDM Gateway authorizes each tool call an AI agent makes before it executes. Live today for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot in VS Code, and Kiro.

The agent never holds a credential

StrongDM authorizes the action itself, never the credential behind it.

One policy flow for all identities

Service accounts and pipelines get the same policy and audit treatment as human users.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex CLI GitHub Copilot · VS Code Kiro

COMPARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STRONGDM AND BRITIVE

StrongDM reduces risk and simplifies operations

StrongDM extends access control into continuous, runtime authorization across every human, machine, and AI identity.

Criteria
In-session enforcement, human sessions	Blocks/redacts live, Postgres & SQL Server today Available	No in-session presence, revokes at the entitlement layer on a posture signal Not offered
In-session enforcement, AI agent sessions	StrongDM Gateway authorizes every tool call live Available	MCP Gateway governs agent identity with human-in-the-loop approval, at the entitlement layer Available
Cloud IAM and SaaS entitlement provisioning	Federated access to AWS, Azure, GCP consoles, not native role authoring Partial / limited	Native JIT provisioning across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and 100+ SaaS apps Available
Resource and infrastructure coverage	47+ resource types across databases, servers, K8s, cloud, network devices, and web apps, all through one proxy model Available	Cloud IAM, SaaS, and non-human identity are the core model. Servers and on-prem access run through a separate Access Broker component Partial / limited
Session recording and audit evidence	Command-level replay, RDP video, structured logs Available	No session to record. Britive logs entitlement grants and revocations instead Not offered
Continuous enforcement model	Continuous, per-action authorization for as long as a session is open Available	Continuous, signal-based revocation via SSF/CAEP when device or risk posture changes Available

Available Partial / limited Not offered

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Why the differences between StrongDM and Britive matter

Governing the entitlement is not the same as controlling the session

Britive's job is to decide what gets granted and revoked at the cloud IAM or SaaS layer, cleanly, and without a proxy in the way. That doesn't cover what happens once the grant is live.

Britive provisions the entitlement, then steps back. A posture signal is what brings it back into the picture, not the session itself.

StrongDM stays in the path for the life of the session, evaluating every command, query, or tool call against policy before it runs. The difference shows up the moment something goes wrong. Britive can revoke access. StrongDM can stop the action before it finishes.

Britive proved the model on agents. Humans got a different one.

Britive's MCP Gateway governs an AI agent as a distinct identity, with a registry and human-in-the-loop approval before it acts. Human privileged sessions work differently.

Britive's own materials describe something narrower for human sessions, entitlement provisioning and posture-based revocation, not a documented claim of blocking a specific action mid-session.

StrongDM blocks destructive SQL statements and redacts sensitive columns while a person's session is still live, today, on Postgres and Microsoft SQL Server.

Britive waits for a signal. StrongDM is already in the session.

Britive’s model depends on something else noticing that a device looks compromised or a risk score moved before it can act.

Britive waits for a posture signal from another system. Until that signal lands, the entitlement stays live and nothing inspects what the identity is doing with it.

StrongDM waits for nothing. It checks every command against policy and ties it to the individual identity behind it, whether that is an engineer, a service account, or an AI agent, at the moment the command runs.

The entitlement's job ends where StrongDM's begins

Britive focuses on making sure the right entitlement exists for exactly as long as it's needed, then disappears. Once that entitlement is provisioned, Britive's job is done until a signal tells it otherwise.

StrongDM picks up from there. It stays present for the life of the session, authorizes every action against policy before it runs, and steps in the moment something crosses the line, whether the identity on the other end is an engineer, a service account, or an AI agent.

Once Britive provisions the entitlement, its job is done until something changes. StrongDM's job isn't done until the session ends.

An ephemeral credential is still a credential someone can steal

Britive hands the identity a real, time-boxed credential or role and lets it connect directly. During that window the token is out in the open. Stolen OAuth tokens and hijacked sessions follow the same pattern. Someone uses the credential before anyone revokes it.

StrongDM brokers the connection and injects the credential at the proxy, so the person or the agent never holds it. Nobody holds a credential, so there is nothing to steal and no exposure window to exploit. Britive shortens how long the credential lives. StrongDM keeps it out of the identity’s reach in the first place.

Frequently asked questions

Can StrongDM replace Britive, or does it just work alongside it?

Both. It depends on what you need to control. If you need to control and audit what happens during a session, block a destructive query, record it, and authorize an AI agent’s tool calls, StrongDM covers that on its own and you may not need Britive at all. If you need native, API-driven entitlement provisioning across cloud IAM and 100+ SaaS apps, StrongDM runs alongside Britive instead, brokering and auditing the session while Britive handles the entitlement.

How does your AI agent governance compare to Britive's MCP Gateway?

Both authorize agent actions rather than just logging them. The enforcement point is what differs. Britive governs the agent as a distinct identity, with a registry and human-in-the-loop approval at the entitlement layer. The StrongDM Gateway enforces explicit per-tool-call policy live, ties every agent action into the same command-level audit trail as human and service account sessions, and never lets the agent hold a credential in the first place.

Does StrongDM provision native AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI IAM roles the way Britive does?

No. StrongDM brokers the connection to a resource through a proxy rather than authoring native cloud IAM policy at the entitlement layer. For native cloud IAM policy authoring, StrongDM sits alongside that tool rather than replacing it. A solutions engineer can map where the line falls in your environment.

Can StrongDM govern SaaS entitlements across 100+ apps the way Britive does?

No. Britive provisions entitlements inside SaaS applications. StrongDM gates access to SaaS and cloud resource types at the session layer, which is a different job. If SaaS entitlement governance at that breadth is the requirement, the two run together.

How does session recording compare?

Britive doesn't record sessions at all, since it isn't in the data path. StrongDM does. You get command-level replay, RDP video, and structured logs for as long as the session runs. That's one of the clearest differences between a control-plane model and a broker model.

If we're evaluating Britive today, what does adding or switching to StrongDM involve?

It depends on whether you are adding StrongDM or switching to it. If you are switching because session control is the priority, a solutions engineer discovers and onboards your infrastructure directly. That covers servers, databases, Kubernetes workloads, network devices, and cloud consoles, with no requirement to have run Britive first. If you are running both, that same onboarding happens in parallel with Britive’s existing entitlement provisioning, and you can walk through how the two fit together for your environment.

Governing the entitlement is half the problem. What happens after access opens is the other half.

Britive makes a case that no entitlement should outlive the task it was granted for. The disagreement is about where the job ends. Staying in the session, checking every action against policy, and cutting it off before it finishes closes the rest of the gap.

See StrongDM block a live query