Solution

Modern, Open Source, Self-Hosted Alternative to StrongDM

Everything you need, in one platform.

A Unified Zero Trust Access Platform

A Unified Access Platform that can Operate as a Comprehensive ZTNA/BeyondCorp Platform, a Scalable Remote Access VPN, an API/AI/MCP Gateway, a PaaS-like Platform for Secure as well as Anonymous Access

A Unified Architecture for Client-based and Clientless Access

A Unified Scalable Architecture on top of Kubernetes to Provide both Zero-Config Client-based Access over WireGuard/QUIC with Centralized Private DNS as well as Public Clientless BeyondCorp and even Anonymous Access

Secretless Access to APIs, SSH, Kubernetes and Databases

Provide Dynamic Secretless Access to HTTP-based Resources without sharing API Keys, PostgreSQL and MySQL Databases without sharing Passwords, SSH Servers without Managing Keys and Certificates, Kubernetes Clusters without sharing Kubeconfigs

Secretless SSH Access at Scale

Effortless Passwordless Zero Trust SSH Access without any Changes in your SSH Servers or Clients. Seamless, Secretless SSH Access to Hosts without SSH Servers such as Containers and IoT Fleets via Embedded SSH Servers running within Octelium Clients.

A Platform for Deployment, not just Access

A PaaS-like Platform to Effortlessly Deploy, Scale and Secure Access to Containerized Applications of any Kind.

Application-layer Aware Access Control

Access Control at the Application-layer (L7) (e.g. HTTP paths and methods, Kubernetes namespaces and verbs, PostgreSQL queries, etc...) using Identity-aware Proxies (IAPs) via Context-aware Policy-as-Code via CEL and OPA

Built for Scalability and Availability

A Scalable Platform Built on top of Kubernetes for Automatic Horizontal Scalability and Availability. Eliminate the Need to Manually Deploy and Scale Gateways or Open Ports in Your Different Upstream Regions and Clouds.

Centralized, Declarative and Programmable Management

Designed to be Administered like Kubernetes via DevOps/GitOps-friendly Centralized and Declarative Way. The Cluster is furthermore fully Programmable over gRPC.

Integrate your OIDC/SAML SSO Providers

Seamlessly integrate any OpenID Connect or SAML 2.0 SSO Provider as well as GitHub OAuth2. Force Strong MFA via FIDO2 Phishing Resistant Authenticators into Access Control to Sensitive Resources.

OpenTelemetry-native Real-time Visibility

OpenTelemetry-ready Layer-7 Aware, Real-Time Visibility and Auditing to Your Log Management and SIEM Providers

Identity-based, L7-aware Dynamic Routing

Dynamically Route to different Upstreams such as Multiple Databases/APIs or Same Database/API with Multiple Credentials Mapping to Different Permissions and Accounts based on Identity and Context.

Dynamic, Native MFA and Login with FIDO2 Passkey, TPM 2.0 and TOTP

Dynamically Apply Native FIDO2 Passkey/WebAuthn, Time-based one-time Password (TOTP) Authentication and TPM 2.0 Authentication. Enforce Using Attested Hardware-based FIDO2 Authenticators in your Access Control Decisions.

Eliminate VPN Problems

Eliminate Traditional VPN Problems: Use a Single Stable Route instead of Injecting Countless Routes into Your Users' Clients. Effortless Dual-Stack Networking Regardless of the Support at the Upstream. Seamless, Unified, Automatic Private DNS.
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Capability
OcteliumBaseUnified Access Platform
StrongDMInfrastructure Access / PAM
Architecture
Architecture
Kubernetes-native identity-aware proxy/gateway architecture with separated PEP/PDP planes, client-based WireGuard/QUIC access, clientless BeyondCorp access, declarative resources, and self-hosted control/data planes.
SaaS control plane with customer-deployed gateways/relays. Protocol-aware access broker for databases, servers, Kubernetes, and web apps.
Authentication
OpenID Connect
Yes
Yes
SAML 2.0
Yes
Yes
GitHub OAuth2
Yes
Yes
Native FIDO2 / Passkey

Native means implemented by the platform itself, not merely delegated to an external IdP.

Native

Includes passkey/WebAuthn-style flows and hardware-backed attestation patterns.

No

Generally delegated to IdP.

Native TOTP
Yes
No
TPM / Device Trust
Native / hardware-backed
No
Workload Identity
OIDC assertions / workload identity
Partial
AI Agent Auth
OAuth2 / bearer / workload identity
Partial
Anonymous / Public Access
Yes
No
SCIM Provisioning

Automated user/group lifecycle provisioning via SCIM, beyond just login-time IdP federation.

SCIM 2.0 compliant
SCIM / IdP provisioning
Authorization & Policy
Policy Model
ABAC with CEL and OPA-oriented policy patterns.
RBAC/ABAC, JIT access, privileged access workflows, and runtime authorization concepts.
Policy-as-Code
CEL + OPA
Terraform/API
Per-Request Authz

For L7 products, this means each HTTP/gRPC/API/K8s request can be evaluated. For overlays, session/connection policy is not counted as per-request. This modeling choice structurally favors L7 gateways over network overlays.

Yes
Protocol/action dependent
L7-Aware Policies
HTTP, gRPC, K8s, DB, SSH, mTLS-related context
DB/SSH/K8s access and logging patterns
Zero Standing Privilege / JIT

Indicates strong architectural support for minimizing standing privilege; not an absolute claim that privileged access cannot exist.

Strong

Designed to minimize static privilege through identity/policy-scoped access.

JIT / Delinea ZSP positioning
Access Requests / Approvals

First-class request-and-approve / break-glass workflows (reviewers, time-bound grants), as opposed to static policy alone.

Policy-scoped

Access is policy/identity-scoped and can be time-bound; no first-class ticketed request-and-approve workflow in this dataset.

JIT access requests / approvals
Device Posture
TPM/FIDO2/device attributes
Yes
External Signal Integration
Yes
Partial
NIST ZTA Alignment
All data/services as resources
Yes
Yes
Secure communication regardless of network
WireGuard/QUIC and public HTTPS
Yes
Per-session / per-request access
Per-request for L7; per-session/connection for tunnels
Session/action-focused
Dynamic policy using multiple signals
Yes
Yes
Continuous monitoring / verification
OpenTelemetry-native visibility
Yes
No implicit trust zone
Identity/policy-mediated
Yes
Assume breach / least privilege
Yes
Yes
L7 Protocol Awareness & Secretless Access
HTTP / HTTPS
L7-aware + secretless credential injection
Web app access
gRPC
Native L7 mode
No
SSH
Secretless / embedded SSH patterns
Server access / recording
PostgreSQL
Secretless + query-aware policy/logging
Query logging / DB access
MySQL
Secretless + query-aware policy/logging
Query logging / DB access
Kubernetes
Secretless + verb/resource/namespace policy
Yes
RDP
TCP passthrough
Yes
DNS
Native private DNS mode
No
mTLS / cert injection
Secretless mTLS / cert injection
No
Raw TCP / UDP
TCP and UDP
TCP-oriented infra protocols
HTTP Manipulation
With native plugins including Lua, Envoy ExtProc, JSON schema validation, cache, rate limits
No
Transport & Networking
WireGuard Data Plane

Whether the product's own client/data plane is built on WireGuard, versus a proprietary or TLS-based transport.

Kernel / userspace

WireGuard via kernel module, TUN, or unprivileged userspace (wireguard-go) implementations.

No
QUIC Transport

Product-native QUIC transport/tunneling. Experimental or internal-only QUIC is marked partial.

Full QUIC-based tunneling mode
No
IPv6 Support
Dual-stack

Defaults to IPv6, with selectable IPv4-only or dual-stack cluster network ranges.

Unknown

Not documented in this dataset; verify against current StrongDM/Delinea docs.

Embedded SSH

Platform provides its own SSH server/CA or SSH implementation, rather than only tunneling an external sshd.

Secretless embedded SSH
Protocol-aware SSH proxy with recording rather than an embedded SSH CA
NAT Traversal
Via Gateways

Reaches resources behind NAT through Cluster Gateways; client-to-Gateway path rather than a direct P2P mesh.

Partial

Gateway/relay broker model, not P2P.

Visibility, Auditing & Observability
OpenTelemetry-Native
OTLP-native

More precise than saying only product with OpenTelemetry.

No
L7-Aware Access Logs
HTTP/gRPC/K8s/DB/SSH identity-aware logs
Yes
SSH Session Recording
Yes
Yes
SIEM Integration
Via OTLP / OTel Collector
Yes
Real-Time Streaming
Yes
Yes
Identity in Logs
Yes
Yes
Access Methods
Client-Based VPN / Overlay
WireGuard / QUIC
No
Clientless Browser Access
Yes
Web UI/app access; client typically needed for many infra protocols
Workload OAuth2 / Bearer
Yes
No
CLI / SDK Access
CLI + gRPC API
sdm CLI / API
Private DNS
Yes
No
Dynamic Configuration
Dynamic Upstream Routing
Yes
No
Dynamic Credential Selection
Yes
Partial
Secrets Backend Integration

Integration with external secret stores / KMS (e.g. Vault, cloud KMS) or native secretless credential handling.

Secretless injection

Native secretless credential injection; credentials managed as Cluster resources.

Secret store / credential management integrations
GitOps / Declarative Config
Kubernetes-like resources / YAML
Terraform/API
Programmable API
gRPC
Yes
SaaS / Public Cloud API Access
Secretless SaaS API Access
Yes
No
AWS API Access
Via HTTP/API credential injection pattern
Partial
GCP / Azure API Access
Via same API gateway pattern
Partial
Generic SaaS API Access
Any HTTP API with supported auth injection
No
AI / MCP / Agent Compatibility
AI / LLM Gateway
Yes
No
MCP Gateway / MCP Access
MCP-oriented gateway/access patterns
No
A2A / Agent-to-Agent Architecture
Identity-aware service/agent access
No
Agent Identity
Workload OIDC / OAuth2 client credentials
Partial
Deploy Containers / PaaS
Yes
No
Gateway Capabilities
API Gateway
Rate limit, cache, schema validation, Lua, ExtProc
No
Kubernetes Ingress / Gateway
Yes
No
Reverse Proxy / Tunneling
Yes
Partial
Scalability & Cloud-Nativeness
Kubernetes-Native
Built on Kubernetes
No
Auto Horizontal Scaling
PEP/PDP can scale independently
SaaS + gateways
Separated PEP / PDP
Yes
No
High Availability
K8s-native HA model
Yes
Openness & Self-Hosting
Fully Self-Hosted
Yes
No
Server Code Open Source
Yes
No
No Mandatory Proprietary Cloud
Yes
No
Data Sovereignty
Yes
No