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CyberArk Identity vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CyberArk Identity
Ranking in Access Management
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (9th), Identity Management (IM) (10th), Authorization Software (3rd), Enterprise Password Managers (8th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (9th), Active Directory Management (8th), Cloud Resource Access Management (2nd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (8th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of CyberArk Identity is 3.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Montero - PeerSpot reviewer
Access management system provides strong security and effortless user authentication
The solution can be deployed on cloud or on-premises. CyberArk is more on the cloud than on local hardware. The deployment is initially quite difficult. That said, when you are doing the implementation of CyberArk, there are so many tutorials that make the learning process very easy. The only complaint could be the language barrier. It's difficult if you don't have a very good level of English. Otherwise, it is very easy. You can have it set up within three months without much difficulty. It's hard to get started, however, once you get going, it gets easier. A full deployment takes half a year or less. There is some maintenance necessary. A company is constantly hiring and letting go of employees. The access is always changing, so access must always be adjusted. Or, if we need another law of filter, we would need to add those, or even take them away. That's another aspect of maintenance.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved user experience with seamless integration and easy installation
The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows. Additionally, it is very beneficial for deploying single sign-on sessions between different windows on a web browser, provided I am connected to the right identity provider. That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The feature that we find most valuable is the ability to integrate multiple IDs for on-premises Active Directory."
"The user self-service program and the Office 365 provisioning service feature are the most valuable. It is a very easy and feature-rich solution that gives priority to the users and security."
"The tool helps with authentication. It acts as an MFA for any kind of privileged access that occurs in our organization."
"CyberArk Identity provides identity governance and gives me control over who and how access to environments occurs, offering significant confidentiality in what is accessed."
"The solution helps with auditing, and monitoring, and integrates with Splunk for log analysis. User activity logs are captured in CyberArk Identity and sent to external tools like Splunk for analysis and monitoring."
"I had one machine that I could not use due to an invalid token. They resolved the problem immediately after I reported it, on the same day, within one hour. It is a very good experience."
"Being able to integrate CyberArk Identity with Microsoft Defender is valuable."
"I like the RBAC (Role-Based Access Control). It basically involves defining various roles, and then simply assigning those roles to users."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"The solution is easy to use for our managers."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the Active Directory."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
 

Cons

"They could improve their UI and make everything more user-friendly."
"The product needs to leverage the cloud more, especially in the financial sector, where cloud adoption might be limited. Proper reporting within the cloud is essential. The tool should be more user-friendly to expedite access for users. The current agent-based system poses challenges if a user loses access to the server, making tasks difficult to perform. It should also improve technical support."
"The OpenID features could improve in CyberArk Identity."
"We would like to see an improvement in the ability to manage mobile devices."
"There is room for improvement in documentation. The documentation could be more specific about the changes needed to achieve specific goals."
"The tool has issues with the third-party SMS gateway. The solution has its own SMS gateway. Integration support is a challenge when we don’t use their SMS gateway. The tool also needs to improve its scalability."
"To enhance the product, they can consider improving the user interface of the software and possibly the customer support team."
"The product is not cheap, especially if you opt for an on-premise deployment requiring a complex server infrastructure. On the other hand, choosing the software as a service version simplifies infrastructure requirements but necessitates being online all the time."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"The initial setup of Symantec SiteMinder was a bit tricky. I would rate it a seven on a scale of one to ten, where ten indicates an easy setup."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There could be some additional costs apart from the licensing costs of the solution when you want to develop connectors in CyberArk Identity."
"The pricing is acceptable. It is worth considering what we are protecting with the amount charged."
"I think it is a fairly priced tool. I rate the tool between six and seven on a scale of one to ten where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The solution is cheap and I rate its pricing an eight out of ten."
"CyberArk Identity is an expensive solution."
"In terms of pricing, BeyondTrust and CyberArk tend to be more expensive, with CyberArk receiving an eight out of ten, in this regard."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a seven out of ten. The product’s pricing is expensive and is on a yearly basis. You will need to pay around 10,000 GBP for 500 users."
"We find that the pricing and licensing of this solution is adequate, as compared to the other competitors in the market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Siteminder is a little costly. You pay for licensing, and they offer packages, so if you have less users, then you have to buy different products at different prices. If you have more of a user base, then the package is different. They also include other features—for example, if you have a database and you're using Siteminder, then it's good to use a Semantic-specific database, but if you are using less, then you have to purchase the database separately. Whereas if you are going for a bigger license, then it comes within the package. It depends on which plan you are using."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CyberArk Identity?
The integration capabilities, ability to integrate CyberArk into the overall IBB strategy of our current clients.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Identity?
The pricing is acceptable. It is worth considering what we are protecting with the amount charged.
What needs improvement with CyberArk Identity?
Some areas experience slowness based on the workload. There's a need to enhance network performance despite the good user experience with access management.
What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...
 

Also Known As

Idaptive
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MLB, Citi, Pfizer, SulAmerica, GE Capital, Shiseido
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Identity vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.