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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
7th
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) (12th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Cognito is 6.5%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.7%, down from 4.6% 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

"The most valuable features of Amazon Cognito are OTP validation and email validation."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its swift authentication."
"I appreciate Amazon Cognito's ability to scale with demand and its seamless user verification features."
"What is quite valuable is that we can outsource storage of the credentials to AWS, and they manage it quite securely."
"What I find most valuable about Amazon Cognito is the single sign-on feature that provides a token for accessing protected APIs."
"This is a scalable solution. If our app or general usage increases, this solution can support it."
"They offer a permission tool to help us manage multi-factor authentication."
"The federation is one of the most efficient features as the pricing is competitive."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"A valuable feature of Siteminder is the way it handles bulk traffic. The features it has, in terms of routing the traffic and load balancing, are good."
"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature"
 

Cons

"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 secure authentication of Amazon Cognito has benefited our company. We were previously using legacy signup systems."
"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."
"The MFA related to the solution's side is nonexistent."
"Amazon Cognito could be improved by making it easier for us to add more data to the token, allowing customization of JWT."
"The ease and simplicity of integration could be improved when using this solution. When using Okta, scope is a single endpoint with a parameter as a scope. In the Cognito for each scope, there is a separate endpoint."
"Amazon Cognito could improve by simplifying the configuration."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"The support could be faster."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is bad so I rate it a two out of ten."
"The product is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools."
"The price of Amazon Cognito is low. The pricing model is based on the users."
"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."
"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 of this solution is good compared to other solutions on the market."
"We pay $600 monthly per user for licences and there are no other additional costs."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"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."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
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: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.