Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Proofpoint Insider Threat Management vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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

Proofpoint Insider Threat M...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (3rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (10th), Insider Risk Management (4th)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Proofpoint Insider Threat Management and Symantec Privileged Access Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Proofpoint Insider Threat Management is designed for Insider Risk Management and holds a mindshare of 12.2%, up 9.8% compared to last year.
Symantec Privileged Access Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 1.7% mindshare, up 1.4% since last year.
Insider Risk Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Insider Threat Management12.2%
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management11.2%
Varonis Platform10.6%
Other66.0%
Insider Risk Management
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.7%
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager11.6%
WALLIX Bastion5.1%
Other81.6%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1271289 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Leader at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Good value, easy to use, and easy to deploy
In terms of what can be improved, that is a question I think the end users can tell you better. I'm not the end-user for this system. However, I can say that it needs to be more scalable. I think they already have a good value proposition in terms of being a hybrid model, and the reporting is okay, as well. It could have better integration with other SIEMs, but this integration has to come from the SIEM side, not ObserveIT.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ObserveIT is small, easy to use, easy to deploy, and is not complicated, so it's more generally suited for only SMBs. It's a good value with a cheaper price."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"You can do A2A integration. You can have your own script, which can then run outside of PA to retrieve the password and perform other tasks."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
 

Cons

"ObserveIT is not scalable and it's not for the medium to large corporations. It's for the smaller environments. For the larger corporations, we have other scalable solutions."
"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."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
"It's difficult to locate the reports, there are limits on what reports can be run from the GUI, and the report formats are lacking."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"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."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Insider Risk Management solutions are best for your needs.
879,477 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Media Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Looking for recommendations and a pros/cons template for software to detect insider threats
In addition to responsesfrom Xavier Suriol and reviewer1324719, also consider ObserveIT from Proofpoint.
Looking for recommendations and a pros/cons template for software to detect insider threats
Hello All,I hope you had a merry Christmas.In this case it is as simple as it is.Just take Proofpoint ObserveIT - many companies in the public and financial sector have been using it for years.By ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I would rate it as an eight and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handl...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
With the customers that I have so far, I help them broker RDP sessions to sensitive servers, particularly those that manage aspects like physical access. I have also done it for backend databases, ...
 

Also Known As

ObserveIT
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca Cola, Allianz, Premiere League, Xerox, AIG, Cigna, Starbucks, Revlon, Toshiba, Nissan and more.
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Varonis, Microsoft, Dtex Systems and others in Insider Risk Management. Updated: December 2025.
879,477 professionals have used our research since 2012.