Top non-human identity (NHI) & agentic AI security tools

Organizations today need a comprehensive non-human identity (NHI) management solution that allows them to discover, secure and govern every identity operating without direct human involvement. This includes service accounts, API keys, certificates, workloads, automation scripts, bots and AI agents.

This guide explains why One Identity is one of the strongest options for non-human identity management. It outlines how the platform helps organizations monitor NHIs and enforce stronger governance, and how it differs from alternative platforms that offer similar capabilities.

Non-human identity management is the set of tools and processes used to identify, secure, govern and monitor digital identities that belong to machines, applications and automated systems. Its main purpose is to ensure that every non-human identity has the right level of access, the right owner and the right controls throughout its lifecycle.

NHI management has always had a place in cybersecurity, but its criticality has increased rapidly in recent years as organizations have adopted cloud infrastructure, automation platforms, DevOps security pipelines and AI-powered systems at scale.

This shift is now significant enough that OWASP has introduced a dedicated Non-Human Identities project to keep track of the most common security risks associated with NHIs.

With that context in mind, here is how NHI management helps your organization:

• Reduce the risk of credential theft by securing API keys, secrets, certificates, tokens and service account credentials
• Prevent orphaned and overprivileged identities by assigning ownership, enforcing least privilege and removing unused access
• Improve visibility across cloud, SaaS, on-premises and hybrid environments so security teams can see which NHIs exist and what they can access
• Support safer automation by giving machines and AI agents governed access without relying on unmanaged or hard-coded credentials

We have reviewed the most relevant non-human identity management solutions to identify the top five with the best overall value for security and identity teams:

• One Identity
• Akeyless
• Okta
• Astrix
• Microsoft Entra ID

These platforms stand out in the areas that matter most for NHI management evaluation:

• NHI discovery and inventory
• Lifecycle management and governance
• Secrets, certificates, keys and token management
• Least privilege and policy enforcement
• Risk visibility, monitoring and auditability
• Support for cloud, SaaS, hybrid environments and AI agents

Here is a quick comparison table summarizing the main differences between the leading NHI management solutions. More detailed breakdowns of each platform are provided in the sections that follow.

One Identity provides a comprehensive approach to non-human identity management through its identity governance and privileged access management (PAM) ecosystem. Rather than treating NHIs as a standalone security challenge, One Identity helps organizations discover, govern, secure and monitor non-human identities alongside human identities.

Specifically, PAM Safeguard and Active Roles by One Identity have been recognized as top NHI management and security solutions.

Key features of One Identity NHI management

• Comprehensive NHI discovery and visibility: One Identity helps organizations discover privileged accounts, service accounts and other non-human identities across directories, hosts and enterprise environments.
• Lifecycle management and governance: Through automation, workflow orchestration and governance controls, One Identity helps organizations manage the full lifecycle of non-human identities.
• Privileged credential protection: Safeguard by One Identity secures privileged credentials through centralized vaulting, access controls and automated workflows. This helps reduce the risks associated with shared or hard-coded credentials commonly used by NHIs.
• Least privilege and access governance: One Identity supports role-based access controls and governance workflows that help organizations enforce least privilege across all non-human identities.
• Behavioral analytics and risk detection: Safeguard uses behavioral analytics to identify unusual activity and surface higher-risk behavior associated with privileged accounts and machine identities.
• Just-in-time (JIT) privileged access: One Identity helps organizations grant privileged access only when it is needed, instead of leaving standing access in place. This supports least privilege for service accounts and other high-risk non-human identities while reducing the risk of overexposure.

Key features of One Identity agentic AI security

As AI agents begin initiating access, executing workflows and interacting across systems with increasing autonomy, identity becomes the control layer that defines what they can do, when they can do it and under what conditions. One Identity enforces that control continuously, not just at authentication but throughout the entire lifecycle of each agent.

Here are the key features released by One Identity, and available in all identity security products for agentic AI security and management:

• Continuous discovery of AI agents and autonomous identities: One Identity surfaces AI agents, copilots, automation scripts and workload identities as they’re created and deployed. Discovery isn’t static. It continuously maps how agents behave, what they access and how they evolve over time. This is critical in environments where new agents can appear and scale rapidly.
• Identity Manager by One Identity provides driven lifecycle governance for AI agents: AI agents are onboarded, governed and retired through Identity Manager with the same rigor as human users. Each agent is assigned ownership, purpose and policy constraints. Certification campaigns, access reviews and automated deprovisioning ensure no agent operates without accountability or oversight.
• Agent-specific least privilege enforcement: Permissions are scoped to the exact function an agent performs. Instead of broad access tied to static roles, One Identity applies granular, policy-driven controls that reflect the task, data sensitivity and execution context of each agent interaction.
• Just-in-time privilege for autonomous execution: AI agents don’t retain standing access. Privileges are issued dynamically at execution time and revoked immediately after. This removes persistent access paths that attackers often exploit in automated environments.
• Secure secret and token management for AI workflows: Safeguard by One Identity protects credentials used by agents through vaulting and automated rotation. Secrets aren’t embedded in code or pipelines. This dramatically reduces exposure from leaked API keys, tokens and integration credentials.
• Behavioral baselining for agent activity: One Identity establishes expected patterns for how AI agents operate. API usage, execution timing, system interactions. When behavior drifts, the platform detects it immediately and triggers corrective action. This is particularly effective with agents, since their patterns are more deterministic than human activity.
• Adaptive, risk-based access decisions: Access is continuously recalculated based on real-time signals. Execution context, anomaly detection, data classification and environmental risk all influence whether an agent proceeds, is challenged or blocked. Identity Manager by One Identity feeds governance context directly into these decisions.
• Full observability and auditability of agent actions: Every agent action is logged, correlated and tied back to an identity record in the governance layer. Organizations can trace not just what happened, but why it was allowed. This supports both forensic analysis and regulatory compliance.
• Isolation and containment of AI agents in cloud environments: Agents are restricted to defined scopes across cloud services, regions and workloads. If compromised, their reach is limited. Segmentation ensures one agent doesn’t become a pivot point across the environment.
• Protection of critical systems from autonomous access: Tier-zero assets remain tightly controlled. AI agents cannot access identity providers, domain controllers or sensitive data stores without explicit, policy-driven authorization and governance controls enforced through PAM and identity governance and administration (IGA).
• Encryption and secure data handling for agent-driven operations: Data processed by AI agents is encrypted at rest and in transit. Combined with secure secret handling, this ensures sensitive information isn’t exposed even if workflows are intercepted or misconfigured.
• Compliance-aligned AI governance through Identity Manager by One Identity: Identity Manager supports structured governance aligned to frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, NIST and ISO 42001. It enforces lifecycle controls, access documentation and review processes across all AI-agent activity, ensuring transparency and accountability.
• Human oversight integrated into autonomous decisioning: High-impact or high-risk actions can require human approval. This balances automation with control, ensuring AI-driven decisions remain explainable and tied to business intent.
• AI-driven policy optimization and decision intelligence: Built-in AI capabilities such as risk scoring, behavioral analytics and role recommendation engines continuously refine access policies. Identity Manager uses these insights to automate governance decisions while maintaining auditability.
• Unified control plane across human, machine and AI identities: One Identity connects Identity Manager, Safeguard, Active Roles and access management into a single fabric. AI agents are governed using the same policy logic as any other identity, eliminating silos and closing visibility gaps.

AI agents now operate with autonomy, speed and scale that traditional identity models weren’t designed to handle. Governance can’t rely on static roles or periodic reviews anymore. It must be continuous, contextual and enforced at execution time.

Awards and recognition

One Identity won the 2026 Customer Choice Tech Leader Award by PeerSpot in both the Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) market categories.

PeerSpot ranked One Identity products as No. 1 for NHI management, including Active Roles and Safeguard, for NHI management.

Best fit for enterprise identity governance and privileged access programs

One Identity is particularly well suited for organizations that view non-human identities as part of a broader identity governance and privileged access strategy rather than a standalone secrets management problem.

Its combination of governance, privileged access management, auditing, analytics and lifecycle controls makes it a strong choice for enterprises that manage NHIs across regulated or highly privileged environments.

Akeyless is an AI-focused security solution designed to help organizations secure the secrets, certificates, keys and credentials used by applications, machines, AI agents and other automated systems. It is a good fit for cloud-native and DevOps-led environments.

Key features and strengths of Akeyless NHI management

• Secrets management for NHIs: Akeyless centrally manages sensitive credentials, API tokens, certificates and other secrets used by entities across your infrastructure.
• Dynamic secrets and just-in-time access: Akeyless supports dynamic secrets and JIT access to reduce reliance on standing privileges.
• Certificate lifecycle automation: Akeyless helps automate the provisioning, renewal and revocation of digital certificates used to authenticate non-human identities.
• DevOps and cloud-native integrations: Akeyless integrates with CI/CD tools, Kubernetes, orchestration platforms and developer workflows through SDKs, plug-ins and APIs.

Limitations and considerations

• May require planning for legacy environments: Akeyless is especially strong in cloud-native environments, but organizations with legacy on-premises systems or traditional vault-centric processes may need additional planning to deploy it.
• Best suited to secrets-led NHI use cases: Akeyless is a strong fit for secrets, certificates and machine credential management, but organizations looking for broader identity governance may need to pair it with additional identity and access management (IAM) or IGA capabilities.

Okta is a cybersecurity solution that also has built-in features to secure non-human identities across service accounts, tokens, workloads, AI agents and other automated systems.

Key features and strengths of Okta NHI management

• Identity security posture management: Okta provides continuous monitoring and risk analysis for NHIs. It helps detect unmanaged accounts, surface hidden risks and guide remediation.
• Privileged access for NHIs: Okta Privileged Access helps secure NHI privileges by vaulting secrets such as API keys and shared accounts. It also supports credential rotation and individual accountability.
• Zero Trust access controls: Okta supports Zero Trust principles by helping ensure non-human identities only receive the permissions they need.
• Automated risk scoring and policy automation: Okta uses risk scoring and automated policy controls to help organizations identify and respond to NHI-related threats in real time.

Limitations and considerations

• Best suited to Okta-first environments: Okta’s NHI capabilities are strongest for organizations already using the Okta Platform. Teams outside the Okta ecosystem may need to evaluate how easily the platform fits into their existing identity and security stack.
• May require multiple Okta capabilities: Organizations may need to combine several Okta products or modules to cover the full NHI lifecycle.

Microsoft Entra ID is Microsoft's cloud identity and access management platform, designed to help organizations manage and secure both human and non-human identities across Microsoft and connected environments.

Key features and strengths of Microsoft Entra ID

• Workload identity federation: Microsoft Entra ID enables external workloads, such as GitHub Actions or Kubernetes, to access Azure resources without having to rely on long-lived secrets.
• Conditional access for workloads: Entra ID can apply adaptive Zero Trust policies to service principals, including controls based on location, IP address and authentication conditions.
• Access reviews for workload permissions: Entra ID supports recurring access reviews to verify whether apps, service principals and other workload identities still need their assigned permissions.
• Identity protection and threat detection: Entra ID can flag anomalous activity behavioral risks associated with workloads and AI agents.

Limitations and considerations

• Advanced capabilities often require premium licensing: Many of Entra ID's stronger governance, identity protection and workload identity features are only available through higher-tier licensing plans.
• Can be complex to configure: Entra ID offers extensive identity capabilities, but some advanced configurations may require specialized Microsoft expertise and familiarity with the broader Microsoft ecosystem.

Here's a quick checklist you can use to compare NHI management tools and choose the right fit for your organization.

a. NHI discovery and visibility

You cannot secure identities you cannot see. Look for a solution that can discover service accounts, API keys, workloads, certificates, AI agents and other non-human identities across your environment.

b. Lifecycle management and governance

Choose a platform that can govern non-human identities throughout their lifecycle, including ownership assignment, access reviews, policy enforcement and decommissioning.

c. Secrets and credential security

Look for capabilities such as secrets management, credential vaulting, certificate management and automated rotation to reduce the risks associated with hard-coded or long-lived credentials.

d. Least-privilege access controls

The platform should support least-privilege principles through features such as just-in-time access, scoped permissions and policy-based access controls for machine identities.

e. Risk detection and monitoring

Prioritize solutions that provide continuous monitoring and threat detection for NHIs.

To secure non-human identities across your organization, you need a solution that can bring machine identities, workloads, applications and AI agents under consistent security control.

For most organizations, One Identity is the strongest overall choice because it delivers NHI discovery, privileged access management, lifecycle governance, monitoring and analytics through a unified identity security platform.