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Microsoft Entra ID 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

Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
1st
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (1st), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
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
74
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 27.5%, up from 26.4% 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

Aaron Liang - PeerSpot reviewer
Has significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment
Microsoft Entra ID has helped by simplifying our management of permissions for APIs. We are not directly exposing credentials, as we use tokens instead. It has made management easier and more secure, especially in a multi-user environment. The implementation of Microsoft Entra ID significantly improved secure access to applications and resources in our environment, primarily through the widespread use of single-sign-on. Managing API permissions became much easier, as application registration often involves calling an API to utilize services without directly exposing credentials, relying instead on token-based authentication. This streamlined approach benefits end-users by simplifying access while remaining transparent to them. Ultimately, my role focuses on ensuring a smooth and user-friendly experience, even if the underlying technology remains unseen by the end-users. Our company strongly emphasizes passwordless authentication, primarily through device-bound passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator. While administrators with high-privileged accounts utilize YubiKeys and passwords for tasks like accessing Microsoft Graph, we are actively transitioning all other users towards passwordless methods such as Windows Hello biometrics. This approach streamlines authentication and enhances security. Though initial deployment in 2022 presented challenges due to hardware limitations and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology has significantly improved and provides a simple and effective user experience.
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

"Privilege identity management is the most valuable feature."
"When logging on to Azure AD it's pretty quick."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to authenticate users using Microsoft Entra ID."
"One of the most important is the Conditional Access. It helps affect a Zero Trust strategy positively."
"It's a very intuitive platform. It's easy to create groups and add people."
"The solution's ease of use is one of its most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Entra ID are the login and the conditional access pieces."
"Federated identity management is a great feature for the zero-trust model."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the Active Directory."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"It is reliable."
"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."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
 

Cons

"I think the solution can improve by making the consumption of that data easier for our customers."
"Better deployment management and visibility functionality would be helpful."
"We'd like to be able to link to non-Mircosft products, like Linux."
"The price has room for improvement."
"Entra ID has limited integration with non-Microsoft solutions like iOS or Ubuntu. If it worked across different software and all kinds of devices could be managed under it, that would be great."
"Having more training would be quite helpful."
"There is a concept of cross-tenant trust relationships, which I believe Microsoft is actively pursuing. That is something which in the coming days and years to come by will be very key to the success of Azure Active Directory, because many organizations are going into mergers and acquisitions or spinning off new companies. They will still have to access the old tenant information because of multiple legal reasons, compliance reasons, and all those things. So, there should be some level of tenant-level trust functionality, where you can bring people from other tenants to access some part of your tenant application. So, that is an area which is growing. I believe Microsoft is actively pursuing this, and it will be an interesting piece."
"The support could be better. Lately, they sort of dropped off a bit in terms of quality."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"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 would like to the OAuth be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"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."
"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."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution costs us 60,000 Rupees annually, just over $700, and there are no additional costs."
"We don't really have a choice. It's the one shop in town. If you want this, you have to pay for it."
"As a nonprofit, we have A5 licenses for nonprofits in education, so we at least have some reduced costs."
"Microsoft has a free version of Azure AD. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced features, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user."
"I'd recommend Azure Active Directory if you are a big company. For small or medium companies, it's probably not the best idea in the world because of the pricing. If you are a small company, you can probably deploy your own solutions because you're not handling a website with tons of traffic. If you are not like Adidas, Nike, or Walmart, you can do it in a way that is more localized than handling everything through a big price solution. However, Azure tends to provide you with solutions that are easier to use. If it was cheaper, I'd definitely recommend going for it."
"Azure AD's pricing is comprehensive and affordable. The prices are easy to understand, and the licenses include a variety of security monitoring and additional features."
"It is good. We have Office 365 E3, and then that is tied in with Azure Active Directory. I believe that we only have to pay for our technician-level access or IT department access for Azure Active Directory Premium, which I am sure they call Entra Premium P2 licensing, so it is not a very large cost. We just adopted that, and that gives us a lot of insights into user security that we would not otherwise have."
"If you're on Azure, it can be free or it's incorporated, at no extra cost, or it can become extremely complicated."
"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."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID is reportedly quite expensive for each user regarding security features. The renewal cost is particularly high according to the teams managing purchases.
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

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.