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Akamai Enterprise Application Access 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

Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in Access Management
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), ZTNA as a Service (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (17th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.3%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Bill Lee - PeerSpot reviewer
Very scalable, convenient, and stable protection against attacks
Our company uses the solution as a cloud perimeter and VPN. We don't need to use on-premises devices to open firewalls to inbound or outbound traffic.  The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks.  The solution has two…
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 capability of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is what you're looking for, it's giving you the service that you're looking for. It's simple and doesn't use an agent. It uses LCSD responders, and they have a lot of services around the globe. That's the reason that we were very interested in using it because it has a lot of coverage. This is because it's under the GDS umbrella."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"My favorite part of the Akamai Enterprise Application Access service is its SSO and auto-scaling capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the Active Directory."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature"
"It's quite scalable."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
 

Cons

"The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent."
"The pricing could be lower for Akamai Enterprise Application Access."
"We need another approach to bring the solution to the cloud. In addition to Access Management, we would like to see if we can jump into Directories. I think ADs are going to go away and everything is going to be cloud-based and minimize the use of ADs because of the cost and some other dependencies to the cloud. Every time you buy AD it is more hardware, and everything's changing to software. The network's changing, the applications are changing, and for IT it is hard to keep up with it."
"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"We would like to the OAuth be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"The initial setup of Symantec SiteMinder was a bit tricky. I would rate it a seven on a scale of one to ten, where ten indicates an easy setup."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"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."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on user count."
"The price is great it is all-inclusive, they use an enterprise cost model. That's what we like compared to other users. This is one of the main attractions of Akamai Enterprise Application Access. It's already an enterprise cost model established with us for services."
"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Transportation Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The pricing is a bit expensive for our market. Although it is cheaper compared to alternatives, Akamai Enterprise Application Access offers a more robust solution overall, particularly for authenti...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
We use Akamai Enterprise Application Access ( /products/akamai-enterprise-application-access-reviews ) for centralized authentication for our global customers. It provides a solution for consolidat...
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

Soha
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bugcrowd, InPowered, Spirent Communications
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.