# Non-human identity management: what AI models recommend, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "non-human identity management platform" and as "machine identity and service account security tool", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/identity/non-human-identity-management/

**Standing:** JumpCloud leads with 14% of first choices; verdict contested. 44 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JumpCloud | 14% | 8% | 12 |
| 2 | Entro Security | 9% | 25% | 24 |
| 3 | GitGuardian NHI Governance | 9% | 8% | 13 |
| 4 | Akeyless | 7% | 4% | 28 |
| 5 | HashiCorp Vault | 7% | 30% | 40 |
| 6 | Delinea | 7% | 0% | 12 |
| 7 | Aembit | 5% | 6% | 16 |
| 8 | Token Security | 5% | 9% | 11 |
| 9 | Teleport | 5% | 10% | 10 |
| 10 | Oasis Security | 2% | 17% | 24 |
| 11 | Astrix Security | 0% | 17% | 23 |
| 12 | One Identity | 0% | 8% | 12 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: JumpCloud; alternatives Delinea, HashiCorp Vault, Natoma, Oasis Security
- GPT-5.4 mini: Entro Security; alternatives Akeyless, One Identity Manager
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Entro Security; alternatives Aembit, Akeyless, Oasis Security
- Perplexity Sonar: Frontegg; alternatives Descope, OneLogin, Stytch, WorkOS
- Grok 4.1 Fast: JumpCloud; alternatives Aembit, Akeyless, Astrix Security, One Identity
- Mistral Small: Aembit; alternatives Entro Security, Oasis Security
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Token Security; alternatives Astrix Security, Entro Security
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice; alternatives One Identity
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: JumpCloud; alternatives Aembit, Akeyless, One Identity
- Kimi K2: JumpCloud; alternatives Aembit, P0 Security
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Microsoft Entra ID; alternatives KeeperPAM, Oasis Security, One Identity
- MiniMax M2.5: JumpCloud; alternatives Oasis Security, One Identity, Saviynt Identity Cloud
- GPT-6 Luna: Token Security; alternatives Aembit, Astrix Security, Cisco, Cyera
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Entro Security, Oasis; alternatives Aembit, AppViewX, CyberArk Identity Security Platform, Defakto

## Sources the answers cite

79 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- expertinsights.com: 40 answers, 41 citations
- startupstash.com: 38 answers, 42 citations
- securityboulevard.com: 30 answers, 36 citations
- wwt.com: 29 answers, 30 citations
- oneidentity.com: 26 answers, 28 citations
- nhimg.org: 23 answers, 43 citations
- cybersecmanager.net: 22 answers, 22 citations
- akeyless.io: 21 answers, 34 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://expertinsights.com/identity-and-access-management/top-nhi-management-solutions (39 answers)
- https://startupstash.com/top-non-human-identity-management-platforms (36 answers)
- https://wwt.com/blog/non-human-identity-security-platform-assessment (29 answers)
- https://oneidentity.com/learn/top-non-human-identity-and-agentic-ai-security-tools.aspx (23 answers)
- https://cybersecmanager.net/best-non-human-identity-management-platforms (22 answers)
- https://scworld.com/buyers-guide/how-to-evaluate-non-human-identity-and-secrets-governance-platforms (18 answers)
- https://akeyless.io/blog/top-5-non-human-identity-management-tools-for-2026 (16 answers)
- https://securityboulevard.com/2026/06/top-non-human-identity-nhi-management-tools-for-2026 (15 answers)
- https://almcorp.com/blog/best-identity-and-access-management-tools (14 answers)
- https://guideflow.com/blog/machine-identity-management-software (14 answers)

## Warned against

- HashiCorp Vault: 12 of 40 labels negative. "Pure secrets managers (HashiCorp Vault alone): Don't solve the full NHI governance problem" (Kimi K2, direct prompt)
- CyberArk Identity Security Platform: 13 of 29 labels negative. "What to Avoid (for Mid-Market) - CyberArk, SailPoint, Saviynt (enterprise IGA suites)" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, direct prompt)
- Okta: 5 of 11 labels negative. "The established vendors (CyberArk, Microsoft, Saviynt) offer broader integration with your existing IAM stack but may be less purpose-built for the NHI challenge." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, scale prompt)
- Astrix Security: 4 of 23 labels negative. "I would not start with Astrix for a new purchase" (GPT-6 Luna, paraphrase prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.