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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 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 Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 19.0%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.5%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Lasantha Wijesinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
We have visibility and control through real-time user behavior analytics
It took us some time to realize its benefits because there was a learning curve for us. It took us about a year to get our heads around this product and start effectively using it. It is a journey. It takes at least five years for any company to make this product very useful and reach maturity. It is not only the product's fault. The company needs to have a vision, and the company culture needs to go with it. Senior leadership needs to support the vision. You need to have lots of ingredients for success. If everything is in place, you will see success after one year. In the first year, it is a struggle for everybody. My company was bought by a bigger company, and they were very new to privileged access management. Everybody was struggling. The advice I would give is to have a good vision for privileged access management. You need dedicated teams, senior management support, and proper company policies and standards before implementing the solution. Start building knowledge slowly and avoid jumping into the deep end without preparation. I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
Krishnan Srinivasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances credential management and relatively inexpensive but needs feature improvements
I work for a service provider company, and we implement Symantec Privileged Access Manager solutions for our clients, which include various banking and mining clients We have implemented both the remote access and credential management features. The agent-based credential management solution…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Session recordings and timestamps are valuable features. They allow me to specifically select the time a particular command was executed, so I do not have to review the entire recording. I can click on events to determine where and when they happened."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Central Password Manager is useful for agentless automated password management through AD integration as well as endpoints for different devices."
"The password vault and session monitoring are useful."
"It improves security in our company. We have more than 10,000 accounts that we manage in CyberArk. We use these accounts for SQLs, Windows Server, and Unix. Therefore, keeping these passwords up-to-date in another solution or software would be impossible. Now, we have some sort of a platform to manage passwords, distribute the inflow, and manage IT teams as well as making regular changes to it according to the internal security policies in our bank."
"The AI capabilities, including advanced threat detection features, are very helpful for us. They reduce human effort and errors, allowing us to quickly identify and respond to threats."
"The most valuable feature is the special management. It records the activity and the actions that we use for auditing."
"PSM (Privilege Session Manager."
"You can do A2A integration. You can have your own script, which can then run outside of PA to retrieve the password and perform other tasks."
"The key benefits are we improve our governance. We ensure we can build more trust in the way we run and operate our environment, and most of all is the accountability."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"Password Management and Session Recording. The simplicity and ease that it is to be up and running out-of-the-box is very much appreciated."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"It is simple to implement and is suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
 

Cons

"We require IAM (identify and access management) capability at the administrator level because we need more identification."
"The initial setup has room for improvement to be more straightforward."
"The web access piece needs improvement. We have version 9.5 or 9.9.5, and now we have to upgrade to version 10."
"The main challenge was integrating with in-house IT and business applications, which are not standard. We needed to create special updates for that kind of integration."
"Some of the additional features that we are looking at are in the Conjur product. I am specifically discussing key management, API Keys, and things for connecting applications in the CI/CD pipelines."
"Having a cloud version would be very helpful. You have to invest a lot of money for the infrastructure hardware so the cloud version would help."
"There is a lot of room for improvement in the report section. I also work on other tools, such as Thycotic, which allows you to create customized reports for your organization's needs. In CyberArk, there are limited reports, whereas in Thycotic or some of the other PAM tools, because the database is different, you can customize the report based on your needs through SQL queries."
"The admin interface of the Password Vault Web Access (PVWA) is moving from an old style (the classic interface) to a new style (the v10 interface) and unfortunately, this process is quite slow."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"I would like this solution to be simpler. It should have a one-click access that works together with AWS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is a very expensive product."
"I'm a technician so I don't handle the licensing for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but I know that the price for the core license is about €140 per year. There's another type of license, the external vendor license, and that's about €600 and you can manage twenty devices. From what I know, the price for one device in a subscription is about €65 per year. You can buy the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager too, or you can buy some other application or application license with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but all other features, such as the Analytics Server is included in the basic CyberArk license. With WALLIX, you need to buy separate licenses for the features."
"The price of this solution is quite reasonable."
"The SaaS version of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is very expensive, but the on-premises version is relative, e.g. depending on the size of the environment, it can be a bit pricey, but it's relatively okay compared to the others."
"They have two types of licensing: purchase and subscription. You have to pay for each admin user, such as Microsoft admin, mail admin, database admin, etc."
"I have heard from my leaders that CyberArk is costlier in terms of licensing. The support and maintenance are also costly. We use their premium support, but for the price we pay, we do not get the value."
"It's expensive, certainly. But CyberArk is the leader in the market with regards to privileged access management. You pay a lot, but you are paying for the value that is being delivered."
"With reducing the privileged account access, there has been a huge improvement. They are now bringing more accounts on a little at a time."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What do you like most about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution are control and analytics.
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Symantec Privileged Access Manager is potentially cheaper than other solutions. I am not involved in the business side, so I do not have specific cost details.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Comparing Symantec Privileged Access Manager with market leaders like CyberArk and Delinea, CyberArk is the market leader. Delinea is better than Symantec Privileged Access Manager in terms of secu...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.