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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
193
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (3rd), 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 November 2024, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 21.2%, down from 24.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.7%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

SatishIyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 21, 2022
Lets you ensure relevant, compliant access in good time and with an audit trail, yet lacks clarity on MITRE ATT&CK
When I was a component owner for PAM's Privileged Threat Analytics (PTA) component, what I wanted was a clear mapping to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, a framework which has a comprehensive list of use cases. We reached out to the vendor and asked them how much coverage they have of the uses cases found on MITRE, which would have given us a better view of things while I was the product owner. Unfortunately they did not have the capability of mapping onto MITRE's framework at that time. PTA is essentially the monitoring interface of the broker (e.g. Privileged Access Management, the Vault, CPM, PSM, etc.), and it's where you can capture your broker bypass and perform related actions. For this reason, we thought that this kind of mapping would be required, but CyberArk informed us that they did not have the capability we had in mind with regard to MITRE ATT&CK. I am not sure what the situation is now, but it would definitely help to have that kind of alignment with one of the more well-known frameworks like MITRE. For CyberArk as a vendor, it would also help them to clearly spell out in which areas they have full functionality and in which ares they have partial or none. Of course, it also greatly benefits the customers when they're evaluating the product.
Krishnan Srinivasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 12, 2024
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

"The users have the ability to rotate passwords on a daily basis with a Reconcile Account. Or, if they want to do one-time password checkouts, we can manage those, check in, check out. I like the flexibility of the changing of the password, specifically."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it's the best in the market. I haven't seen any other PAM solutions better than CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault."
"Allows secure, logged access to highly sensitive servers and services."
"Their legacy of more than 20 years is very valuable. It brings a lot of stability to the product and a wide variety of integration with the ecosystem. Because of these factors, it has also been very successful in deployment. So, the legacy and integration with other technologies make the PAM platform very stable and strong. In terms of features, most of the other vendors are still focusing just on the privileged access management or session recording, but CyberArk has incorporated artificial intelligence to make PAM a more proactive system. They have implemented threat analytics into this, and there is also a lot of focus on domain controller production, Windows Server protection, and stuff like that. They have also further advanced it with the security on the cloud and DevOps systems. They have a bundle licensing model, which really helps. They don't have a complex licensing model. Even though in our market, people say CyberArk is expensive as compared to some of the other products, but in terms of overall value and as a bundling solution, it is an affordable and highly scalable product."
"The accounts are maintained automatically. Hence, resource and administration costs are less."
"This solution is quite stable."
"CyberArk has resulted in a massive increase in our security footprint."
"Thus far I can say technical support is excellent. We haven't had any issues or difficulties."
"It is great for identity governance."
"It reduces the viral attacks on my website. It also allows certain users access to see what happens daily."
"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."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"The interface is very friendly, colorful, and bold."
 

Cons

"Make it easier to deploy."
"Tech support staff can be more proactive."
"CyberArk PAM is a very broad product as everyone's requirements for implementation are different. In our particular case, the initial implementation was planned and developed by people who didn't know our specific network requirements, so the initial implementation needed to be tweaked over time. While this is normal, at the time all these "major" changes required CyberArk professional services to come in-plant and "assist" with the changes."
"New functionalities and discovered bugs take longer to patch. We would greatly appreciate quicker development of security patches and bug corrections."
"It needs better documentation with more examples for the configuration files and API/REST integration"
"Its pricing is a big challenge here. When it started, the product came in at a very low cost. Now, they are the leaders in the market, so the cost has grown and is quite huge."
"Initial setup is complex. Lots of architecture, lots of planning, and lots of education and training are needed."
"​It's hard to find competent resellers/support."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"I would like this solution to be simpler. It should have a one-click access that works together with AWS."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I do not have any opinions to add about the pricing of the product."
"Overall, its pricing is really good. The main difference from all the other vendors is that they have one package that covers all the functionality and modules of the basic PAM, except the add-on modules like adware and server protection. It also doesn't include the licenses for domain controller protection or maybe an API call-related feature. For the basic privileged access management, the bundle pricing is really good, but when it comes to an agent-based solution for advanced cyber protection or application identity managers, it is expensive. Services are also very expensive if you hire the services team from CyberArk, but these guys are really good. For a couple of large banking projects, we had an experience with them. The banks wanted to have things quickly and efficiently, so we had to hire them. If we take four weeks, these guys can do everything on a weekend. They charge quite a big sum of money, but they know the system well."
"The solution is costly but we get what we pay for."
"With reducing the privileged account access, there has been a huge improvement. They are now bringing more accounts on a little at a time."
"Compared to other solutions, it is costly."
"The price of CyberArk support could be a little bit less. Otherwise, pricing is fine."
"Pricing is quite high and it could be improved."
"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."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"It is reasonably priced."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Government
9%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager comes at a high cost. But the solution is worth its price.
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?
Pricing is reasonable. It's neither as expensive as BeyondTrust nor as cheap as other solutions. One can negotiate corporate discounts through franchises, as Broadcom manages most customers through...
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM. The product has not kept up with market demands or introduced new features to compete w...
 

Also Known As

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

Learn More

 

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: October 2024.
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