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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
235
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
13th
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 19.9%, down from 25.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID19.9%
Symantec Siteminder2.3%
Other77.8%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Bahram Piri - PeerSpot reviewer
Security focus and seamless implementation increase platform productivity
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved in many ways, and there's a big wish list.If we're focusing on security, something that I definitely expect is improvement in the UI and UX for frontline workers. This is important, especially for non-tech savvy individuals. It is something Microsoft Entra ID could do to improve for a wider audience. It's important to focus on the frontline workers since they are non-tech savvy individuals. They are not like those back-office engineering C-level employees who are constantly dealing with computers, and we need to build a specific user experience and user interface for them to handle this stuff. That's something I expect Microsoft to focus on more for Microsoft Entra ID.
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 scalability capabilities are quite high."
"Entra has made it easy to manage identity and access by integrating with all Microsoft services."
"The security and infrastructure management features are the most valuable ones for us."
"The best feature of Microsoft Entra ID is that it provides more granular control over user identities."
"I primarily use this solution for hybrid deployment, security, securing resources and for integration purposes. In terms of security, we have been using the B2B/B2C hybrid integration with the certificate authentication."
"Having access to Azure Active Directory on the cloud gives us speed and use of the latest technology. The application services are very good, such as GitHub."
"The solution offers business to business and client to business support."
"Entra ID's anti-phishing measures have improved our phishing response."
"Federation is valuable, for sure, because we have a lot of third-party vendors that we need to integrate with, and this is a turnkey solution in some ways."
"The solution is easy to use for our managers."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
 

Cons

"The technical support can be confusing - if you're looking for something very specific, it can be hard to get the right answer or a solution."
"Azure AD needs to be more in sync. The synchronization can be time-consuming."
"Customers should be informed that public review features are not intended for production use."
"The Cloud Provisioning Agent cannot provision a lot of the information that AD Connect does. For starters, the lightweight version cannot synchronize device information. If you have computers on-premises, the information about them will not be synchronized by the Cloud Provisioning Agent. In addition, if you have a user on the cloud and he changes his password, that information should be written back to the on-premises instance. But that workflow cannot be done with the lightweight agent. It can only be done with the more robust version."
"Azure Active Directory could be made easier to use. We have large amounts of data and storage. We are looking for video files and media content for applications, we will think about options, such as cloud storage or a CDN."
"The most challenging aspect I found was the creation of organizational units and specific domains. They have a tool called Bastion, which is expensive and a little bit confusing."
"The implementation of other third-party MFA such as Okta or Duo could be improved, even though Duo is integratable. The response from actual support tickets is a bit laggy, and I would like them to be more responsive."
"I would like to see improvements made when it comes to viewing audit logs, sign-in logs, and resource tags."
"I would prefer to see their SAML integration be a more streamlined and easier interface."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."
"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."
"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."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is good, and we have no complaints."
"Expensive solution, but if you look at the technical benefits it provides, the price for it is decent."
"We got a good deal. If you get rid of all the products providing features that Azure Suite can provide, then it makes sense cost-wise."
"The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable."
"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."
"It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."
"For a small business buying individual licenses, it is an affordable solution."
"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."
"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 solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"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
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise132
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

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?
Our experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID involves leveraging Microsoft 365 E5 licensing, so it's included. Being included in Microsoft licensing makes it mu...
What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...
 

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: August 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.