An open-source StrongDM alternative for database access, and what it does not replace

The short version

In one line: StrongDM is a managed, proprietary access plane for databases, servers, clusters and clouds; AccessFlow is an open-source proxy that reviews each database statement, and replaces only that slice.

StrongDM is a proprietary infrastructure access platform. A control plane hosted by StrongDM holds users, roles, policies and logs; nodes you run in your own network relay connections; and a client on each engineer's machine lets their normal tools reach any of more than sixty kinds of datasource, plus SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, remote desktops and cloud consoles. Access is granted through workflows with approvals in Slack, Teams, Jira or ServiceNow, policies written in the Cedar language can require step-up authentication or block specific database actions, and every query and session is logged and, for shells and clusters, replayable. It is sold as a single per-user subscription that includes every feature, with no open-source edition and no documented option to run the control plane yourself.

AccessFlow is an Apache 2.0 project that governs a narrower thing more deeply. It only knows about databases, outbound API calls and CI/CD deployments, and it does not relay connections at all: a statement is submitted to it, parsed, checked against written rules, scored by an AI analyzer, routed by policy to a multi-stage approval chain, and executed under column masking, row-level security and export controls, with the whole exchange recorded in a hash-chained, append-only audit log. Everything runs inside your infrastructure and, with a local model, without internet access. If you are replacing StrongDM's database slice with something you can read and run yourself, that is the comparison; if you are replacing StrongDM as your access plane, it is not.

Side by side

✓ Included · ◐ With caveats or in a paid edition · ✕ Not available · ? Not documented

Not documented means we could not find the capability in StrongDM's public documentation on the date in Sources; it does not mean the product lacks it. StrongDM's documentation is the administrator and user guides at docs.strongdm.com, which are the pages cited.

Where each one sits in the path to the database

StrongDM sits on the network. Its documentation describes three parts: an administrative web portal, a client installed on each user's workstation, and nodes that sit on servers within your infrastructure. When an engineer connects, their client reaches a proxy cluster or gateway you run, a worker checks that they are authorised, fetches the credentials for the resource, and relays the connection, so the engineer's own psql, IDE or kubectl works unchanged and never sees a password. Those proxy workers must be able to reach StrongDM's hosted control plane, which is where roles, workflows, policies and the logs live. Policies, written in Cedar, can inspect what is being attempted at a fine grain for PostgreSQL and SQL Server and can require a fresh authentication or a trusted device before allowing it. Access itself is granted through workflows: a person requests a resource for a period, a reason is recorded, and approvers respond in Slack, Teams, Jira, ServiceNow or the admin portal.

AccessFlow sits in front of the data rather than on the wire. Nothing connects through it; instead a statement arrives via its editor, its REST API or its MCP server, and is judged before it is run on the user's behalf. Parsing produces the statement type and the exact tables and columns involved, which are checked against the datasource's allow-list and, on the relational engines, against the written review rules; the AI analyzer returns a risk score and a list of issues; a routing policy decides whether the request is auto-approved, rejected, escalated or sent to a review plan with named stages; and when it executes, row-level security rewrites the predicate, masking rewrites the result, and export rules decide what may be downloaded. Each step is an audit entry chained to the previous one with a keyed hash, written by a database role that cannot update or delete, and streamable to a SIEM or to write-once storage where the segments are signed.

The difference in shape means the comparison is lopsided in both directions. StrongDM's proxy model gives engineers native tools across every kind of resource and gives you a managed control plane you never patch; AccessFlow cannot do either, and its roadmap lists a native wire-protocol gateway as unscheduled. AccessFlow's proxy model lets it read, score and rewrite the statement and prove the log has not been touched; StrongDM's documentation describes action-level policies and query logs but not masking, row rewriting, AI review or a tamper-evident chain.

Where AccessFlow is the better fit

• You need to read the source, or run with no outside dependency. Apache 2.0, one edition, no telemetry, and a daily update check that can be switched off; with a local Ollama model behind the analyzer it runs air-gapped, and there is no hosted control plane in the loop.
• The question is "should this statement run", not "may this person connect". Every query is parsed, scored, routed and approved as its own event, reads included, with a written rule catalogue and a routing policy that can auto-approve the routine ones.
• The data itself needs protecting on the way out. Column masking with no admin bypass, row-level security rewriting the query, and export governance that can watermark, cap or deny a download are all included; none is documented for StrongDM.
• An auditor will ask whether the log could have been edited. Keyed hash chaining, an append-only writer role, a verify endpoint, signed PDF and CSV reports, and a write-once S3 sink with signed segments answer that question directly.
• Self-approval must be impossible, not merely off. AccessFlow enforces it in the service layer for every role and every channel, and break-glass events must be closed by a different admin.
• You pay in engineering time rather than per seat. There is no subscription and no seat count, which changes the arithmetic for a large team that only occasionally touches production data.

Where StrongDM is the better fit

• You do not want to run a control plane. StrongDM hosts it; you run relays and the client. AccessFlow is a service with its own PostgreSQL and Redis that you deploy, upgrade and back up yourself.
• Databases are one of many resources. SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, remote desktops, cloud consoles and web applications share the same roles, workflows and logs in StrongDM; AccessFlow governs none of them.
• Engineers must keep their own tools. The StrongDM client makes psql, DataGrip and kubectl work unchanged with no credentials on the laptop; AccessFlow requires statements to come through its editor, API or MCP server.
• Context-aware policy with step-up and device trust. Cedar policies that demand a fresh MFA challenge for a destructive action, or refuse access from an untrusted device or an unexpected location, are documented StrongDM capabilities; AccessFlow's step-up covers mobile approvals only and it has no device posture.
• Session replay for shells and clusters. If SSH, Kubernetes and desktop sessions need to be replayable for compliance, StrongDM records them; AccessFlow has no interactive sessions to record.
• Breadth of datasources. More than sixty documented types, including Neptune, Athena, Trino, Presto, Teradata, Vertica, Db2 and message brokers, against AccessFlow's eighteen plus uploaded JDBC drivers.

Licence and pricing

StrongDM is commercial software. Its pricing page describes a single per-user subscription that includes every feature, so that the cost is predictable and there are no add-ons, and it does not publish a price; a conversation with sales or a demo is the route to a number. Its source is not published, there is no community edition, and the documentation we read describes no way to run the control plane on your own infrastructure: proxy nodes are expected to connect out to StrongDM's hosted service. A thirteen-month log retention window is included, with a shorter window visible in the portal on standard plans, and S3 log streaming is an Enterprise feature.

AccessFlow is released under the Apache 2.0 licence in a single edition with no seat count and nothing withheld. The price is the operational one: you run it, you upgrade it, and support is the project's public issue tracker rather than a contract. Its audit retention is whatever your PostgreSQL and your SIEM keep. What is available now and what is planned →

Running both

Because the two govern different layers, they combine without contradiction. StrongDM can stay the access plane for servers, clusters, desktops and the engineers who need native tools against a database, while AccessFlow becomes the place a statement goes when it needs a written decision and a verifiable record: the query a reviewer must sign off, the change an on-call engineer wants approved in the middle of the night, the request an AI agent submits over MCP, the outbound API call or the release that should not proceed on one person's say-so. Both forward to the same SIEM, so an investigator sees StrongDM's connection and query logs beside AccessFlow's chained, approved statements. If the budget is for one, the deciding question is whether your risk is in who can reach the host or in what runs against the data.

Sources

Checked on 16 September 2026. AccessFlow's own claims come from its source repository and the pages of this site they link to. If a vendor's documentation has changed since, please open an issue and we will correct the page.

• StrongDM pricing — the single per-user subscription and the absence of a published price or open-source edition
• What is StrongDM — the admin portal, client and node components
• How StrongDM works — where the client and nodes run
• Proxy clusters — nodes in your infrastructure connecting out to the hosted control plane
• Datasources — the datasource resource types, each with its own page
• Clusters — Kubernetes access
• Access workflows — approval types, channels, durations, the reason field and the self-approval setting
• Policies — Cedar policies, database action control, MFA on action and contextual conditions
• Logs — activity and query logs, session replay, log destinations, encryption and retention
• SSO — SAML and OIDC sign-in
• Provisioning — SCIM-based user provisioning
• Terraform — the Terraform provider
• MCP gateway — the MCP gateway resource type
• StrongDM AI — the AI page, which we could not find describing per-statement review