IBM Security Verify Access vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

IBM and Broadcom are both solutions in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0, while Broadcom is ranked #12 with an average rating of 6.8. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in SSO, compared to Broadcom’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

IBM Security Verify Access

Read 7 IBM Security Verify Access reviews

821 Views
550 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Symantec Siteminder

Read 75 Symantec Siteminder reviews

1,192 Views
884 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM Security Verify Access

Symantec Siteminder

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

Symantec Siteminder and IBM Security Verify Access are two leading identity and access management solutions. Based on user reviews, IBM Security Verify Access offers superior features, ease of deployment, and customer service, making it a preferred choice despite potentially higher costs.

Features: Symantec Siteminder has robust authentication mechanisms, customization capabilities, and reliable access management. IBM Security Verify Access offers comprehensive security features, extensive platform compatibility, and advanced integration options.

Room for Improvement: Symantec Siteminder needs a more intuitive configuration process, better documentation, and improved user experience. IBM Security Verify Access requires performance enhancements, a streamlined administration interface, and increased scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Symantec Siteminder has mixed reviews on deployment with some initial setup challenges but satisfactory ongoing support. IBM Security Verify Access generally has a smoother deployment process and commendable responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Symantec Siteminder has more affordable initial setup costs but mixed feedback on long-term ROI. IBM Security Verify Access, potentially more expensive initially, delivers better ROI through extensive features and reliability.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder

April 2025

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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

IBM Security Verify Access

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

14th

Ranking in Access Management

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity Management (IM) (25th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (19th)

Symantec Siteminder

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

12th

Ranking in Access Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Access Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Verify Access is 2.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.9%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Featured Reviews

AsifIqbal

Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Has good scalability and is stable with no glitches; has a multi-factor authentication feature

What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain.

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Muzi Lubisi

Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth. For legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users. From the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."

"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."

"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."

"It's a good solution for identification and access management."

"Its stability and UI are most valuable."

"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."

"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."

"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."

"I liked the debugging part. There are only two files (trace file and log file) that you need to look into while performing debugging, and the logs give you the exact info on where and what needs to be fixed."

"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."

"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."

"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."

"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."

"It has considerably reduced the amount of time that new users would take to join into the organization. Previously, it was a lengthy, manual process because it's a very secure environment, where they need to verify the user before they can actually grant him a user-ID and password. Integrating with the built-in custom application, and exposing CA Single Sign On to the internet, we were able to get the employees onboard. The time that we gained was: previously it would generally take from four to eight weeks for each employee, we brought it to one to two days."

"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."

More Symantec Siteminder pros

Cons

"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."

"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."

"Configuration could be simplified for the end-user."

"There are a lot of areas that can be improved, but the main area is the lack of customization. You cannot easily customize anything in the product. It is not easy to tweak the functionality. It is challenging to change the out-of-the-box functionality."

"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."

"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area. OIDC is a third-party integration that we do with the cloud platforms, and OAuth is an authorization mechanism for allowing a user having an account with Google or any other provider to access an application. Organizations these days are looking for just-in-time provisioning use cases, but IBM Security Access Manager is not very mature for such use cases. There are only a few applications that can be integrated, and this is where this product is lagging. However, in terms of configuration and single sign-on mechanisms, it is a great product."

"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."

"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."

"All the problems that we reported actually have never been resolved. We could not capture enough information for CA to be able to debug the problem."

"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."

"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."

"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."

"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."

"The tech support has not been very good for us so we don't use them anymore. We have had some issues. Nobody is perfect."

"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."

More Symantec Siteminder cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."

"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."

"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."

"The solution's pricing is competitive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."

"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 licensing is fair for this solution."

"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."

"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."

"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Insurance Company

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

36%

Insurance Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Security Access Manager?

The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via ema...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?

The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Security Access Manager?

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?

It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Oracle Access Manager vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 23% of the time

Ping Identity Platform vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 10% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 9% of the time

ForgeRock vs IBM Security Verify Access

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Security Verify Access Competitors

Ping Identity Platform vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 45% of the time

ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 30% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 14% of the time

Okta Workforce Identity vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 8% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Siteminder

Compared 4% of the time

More Symantec Siteminder Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS)

April 2025

Download IBM Security Verify Access product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Siteminder

March 2025

Download Symantec Siteminder product report

Also Known As

IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM

SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder

Overview

IBM Security Verify Access is a complete authorization and network security policy management solution. It provides end-to-end protection of resources over geographically dispersed intranets and extranets.Provides a wide range of built-in authenticators and supports external authenticators.Provides permit and deny decisions for protected resources requests in the secure domain through the authorization API.Manages secure access to private internal network-based resources by using the public Internet's broad connectivity and ease of use with a corporate firewall system.

IBM

Symantec® SiteMinder is designed to secure the modern enterprise through a unified access management platform that applies the appropriate authentication mechanism to positively identify users; provides single sign-on and identity federation for seamless access to any application; enforces granular security policies to stop unauthorized access to sensitive resources; and monitors and manages the entire user session to prevent session hijacking. Finally, Symantec SiteMinder is battle-tested and has been deployed in the largest IT environments in the world.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

POST Luxembourg

British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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