Opal Security vs Expel
Side-by-side comparison of AI visibility scores, market position, and capabilities
San Francisco CA identity access management platform; raised $22M+; self-service least-privilege access for cloud infrastructure, SaaS, and on-prem resources.
About
Opal Security is an identity-centric access management company founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company was founded by Umaimah Khan and Harlan Harris with the goal of making least-privilege access practical and scalable for fast-moving engineering organizations. Traditional privileged access management tools were designed for IT administrators and require significant configuration overhead, making them poorly suited for modern cloud-native companies where developers need rapid, self-service access to cloud infrastructure, databases, Kubernetes clusters, and SaaS applications.\n\nOpal raised $22 million in funding from investors including Greylock Partners and Battery Ventures. Its platform provides a developer-friendly self-service access request portal where employees can request access to specific resources, automatic approval workflows route requests to the appropriate resource owners for review, and time-bounded access grants expire automatically after a specified period. This just-in-time access model means permissions are granted only when needed and revoked automatically, implementing least-privilege without requiring manual IT tickets for every access change.\n\nOpal integrates with major identity providers including Okta, Azure AD, and Google Workspace, as well as cloud infrastructure platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure, Kubernetes environments, databases, GitHub, and popular SaaS applications. Its governance features include access reviews, audit logs for compliance, and visibility into who has access to what across all integrated resources in a single pane of glass. Opal is particularly well-suited for companies that have outgrown ad hoc access management processes but want a modern solution that fits engineering culture.
Expel is a Forrester Wave Leader in MDR with 5/5 scores across 15 criteria, providing 24/7 AI-powered threat detection and response across cloud, endpoint, identity, and network.
About
Expel is a Herndon, Virginia-based managed detection and response (MDR) company founded in 2016 that provides 24/7 security monitoring, threat detection, and incident response as a managed service. Rather than replacing a customer's existing security tools, Expel integrates with the tools organizations already have — SIEMs, EDRs, cloud platforms, and identity providers — and applies AI-powered automation and expert human analysis to triage alerts and respond to threats around the clock.
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