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Amazon Cognito 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

Amazon Cognito
Ranking in Access Management
8th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
11th
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 June 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.8%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Wojciech Doganowski - PeerSpot reviewer
International setup localization challenges drive custom development while outsourcing credential management enhances security
We are using it in an international setup where we have multiple services running in multiple countries. Cognito localizes only regarding language, but the service is localized in each country. Cognito has the possibility to render the login screen and all the customer flows related to managing the account. Still, it's useless in an international setup. They are unable to localize these screens, so we had to write our own screens and just use the Cognito API. I hope they will fix this soon because it's useful to rely on already prepared flows for all the account management. As it doesn't work with different languages, rewriting it is quite complicated. Additionally, maybe they could find another step in the price so there is not such a significant jump from the basic to extended functionality. Some flexibility would be helpful.
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

"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"I rate Amazon Cognito nine out of ten."
"The multi-factor authentication setup has room for improvement."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"Cognito speeds up our development and saves us time."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"The solution has features that allow you to easily distinguish between protected and unprotected resources."
"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"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 solution is easy to use for our managers."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
"It's quite scalable."
 

Cons

"Amazon Cognito’s UI needs improvement while onboarding new users."
"The setup and configuration can be complex, especially for advanced use cases."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"You need to evaluate the export users. The multifactor authentication, much less this room for improving the configuration setup of that."
"Cognito has the possibility to render the login screen and all the customer flows related to managing the account. Still, it's useless in an international setup. They are unable to localize these screens, so we had to write our own screens and just use the Cognito API."
"I believe this product could improve by enriching user profiles."
"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT."
"I would rate its scalability as five out of ten. Moving users between different pools or accounts creates new identities, which means IDs stored in our database must also be changed."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"The technical support could be better."
"The support could be faster."
"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."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution depends on the number of users using it."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is expensive. We are on an annual subscription."
"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The pricing of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Cognito?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Cognito?
The basic functionality is reasonably priced, but the extended functionalities, especially the extended security, are quite expensive. There is a significant jump from the basic to the extended fun...
What needs improvement with Amazon Cognito?
We are using it in an international setup where we have multiple services running in multiple countries. Cognito localizes only regarding language, but the service is localized in each country. Cog...
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

No data available
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Cognito vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.