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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Siteminder
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (12th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (11th)
 

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.
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 automatic rotation of credentials is probably the most useful feature."
"CyberArk is a pioneer for PAM; they've always been the leader in terms of research and development and bringing new capabilities to the PAM."
"The feature that I like the most is the Privileged Session Manager. It offers session recordings, logging, and tracking of user workstreams."
"The product is an important security measure against credential theft. It ensures session isolation and password rotation including pushing passwords to the endpoints."
"The ability to develop and deploy applications with no stored secrets is very valuable."
"The access control feature and privilege and role-based assignment are outstanding."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is cool."
"CPM helps keep the password policy up to date."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"IWA is an out-of-the-box feature. The SAML-based federation is standard for all tools. However, CA Single Sign-On has made the federation configuration way too simple and handy to set up and use."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by adding more connectors."
"It's a big program. To scale excessively, locally, on an on-prem application, takes a lot of servers."
"The solution should be able to mitigate internal threats"
"PAM could be more user-friendly and CyberArk could update the documentation to include more real-world examples. You have to learn it yourself through trial and error. In particular, the online documentation should have more information about troubleshooting."
"The product documentation has to be more precise in certain aspects with explanations for functionality limitations along with reference material or screenshots."
"If there is an area that has room for improvement, it's probably working with their support and getting people on the phone. That is hard to do with most products in general, but that seems to be the difficult area. The product is fantastic, but sometimes we want somebody on the phone."
"I would like easier integrations for creating an online dashboard that executives would look at or are able to run reports from the tool."
"The solution's architecture could be improved. It requires installation on four to five different servers. Each server has a purpose, but when you need to troubleshoot, it can be difficult because you need to access each of them. Reducing the number of servers would be helpful."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
"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."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is on an annual basis."
"Network and security licenses are currently being managed by other outsource vendors, so they are facing some type of problems in the digital aspect."
"If you are looking at implementing this solution, buy the training and go to it."
"It's per-company, license-based."
"No, I do not have any advice on the price of the product."
"There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fees."
"This solution is expensive."
"I would rate CyberArk's pricing a nine out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive. It's one of the most expensive solutions in the market, but it's worth it."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that 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%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Siteminder?
When considering pricing, I have usually advised on the Microsoft solution, but compared to that, Symantec SiteMinder’s pricing is moderately priced. I would rate it a four on a scale where one is ...
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
I need to check the latest documentation, however, being able to expand or at least communicate with other identity providers to perform handshakes would be great. While I have some integration wit...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.