No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

ARCON Privileged Access Management vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 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

ARCON Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of ARCON Privileged Access Management is 2.1%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ARCON Privileged Access Management2.1%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager2.0%
Other95.9%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

DS
System and DBA at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enhanced security through session monitoring and activity recording
From an end-user point of view, it would be beneficial if the system could provide information about the last login. This would help identify if the server was accessed by me or if someone has potentially stolen my credentials. It would provide a clearer picture of whether ARCON Privileged Access Management is accessed by an authentic user.
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

"One important feature is the administrator access, mainly for Windows machines as well as Linux machines. It is important for us because there is accountability associated with each user ID. And the recordings are also helpful."
"It has improved our government compliance score in terms of audits."
"The solution was suited for the purpose when we evaluated it, and it has also evolved to meet the different needs, additional needs."
"It's a go-ahead for any organization that is looking to meet their compliance and audit requirements."
"Overall, I would rate ARCON Privileged Access Management nine out of ten."
"The initial setup was very simple. There was only one server we had to setup. We needed to store all the passwords, and a secure database is used."
"By manually keeping the user logs, we can understand and manage all the operationalized tasks."
"With this log available, we can drill down to the activities performed by the people within our kiosk. There is a great feature where in the case of Unix servers, we have our own text-based logs. In the case of Window's server, we cannot create a text-based log, so our kiosk takes the screenshot or picture of the screen when I am working. It does this every three seconds."
"The most valuable element is the keystroke tracking feature."
"Transparent login and cluster synchronization are quite stable compared with other products, and it is easy to manage for the administrator."
"The product is very scalable in terms of concurrent sessions that it can handle at a time, number of device it can support, accounts that it can manage, or number of nodes that you can deploy in a cluster."
"Comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution."
"On the access management side, our system administrators, under privileged management, don't have to use their local tools to log on to the production servers, because they log on to a web interface that makes the access more secure and keeps the sessions strictly between the production servers and the IA PAM."
"The key benefits are we improve our governance. We ensure we can build more trust in the way we run and operate our environment, and most of all is the accountability."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
 

Cons

"There are no APIs readily available... I'm working on automation for ARCON so that whatever the ARCON administrator is doing will be automated, rather than having to do it manually. For that, I had to spend months to get the API developed myself. Having that handy out of the box, that would really help..."
"We would like to see support for privileged accounts used in web-based systems like Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway, VMware ESXI management tools, etc."
"The solution lacks to offer a governance mechanism for operational technology assets."
"This product is lacking in terms of dashboarding analytics and should have user behavior analytics. It should also have better dashboarding for executive management and security managers, which this product is missing."
"There are some features lacking but they typically are added when the upgrades are released."
"The product is good but a lot of things can be changed, the way the system has been designed."
"If you take Microsoft hypervisor - which comes with its own interface, its own web layer, etc. - something like that also requires privileged IDs. As per our institution policy now, everything has to come through ARCON. We have demanded that these kind of advanced features also should be there."
"The only thing is, while the product is good, they could do something on the support side."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
"We had some issues with the load balancing feature when configured for clustering."
"The accessibility and other issues were big blockers for our customer: The local accounts with AD integration multi-tenant deployment Java installation on the local machines; those three elements were the biggest blockers for our project when we used it, and we were always putting out fires to do that."
"I would like it to support more types of integration."
"Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"The basic reporting that comes with it is basic."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is a good value. It's appropriately priced. The product has all the required features. It doesn't work in some of the areas but, right now overall, it's pretty good."
"The cost of this product is very cheap, comparatively in the global market."
"Their licensing model is very simple, as it is based on the number of endpoints which you want to manage along with the number of users and administrators which you want to use."
"ARCON Privileged Access Management's pricing is reasonable."
"I definitely feel the product's pricing is a good value. It is one of the best products we have. The licensing is server-based."
"The pricing and licensing model is very economical."
"The product's pricing is good value. Go for user-based licensing, without any limit on the target servers."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARCON Privileged Access Management?
From an end-user point of view, it would be beneficial if the system could provide information about the last login. This would help identify if the server was accessed by me or if someone has pote...
What is your primary use case for ARCON Privileged Access Management?
Currently, I access our server through the R-Course application, which serves as a part of RDP, Remote ( /products/remote-reviews ) Desktop. However, I connect to my RDP server through the ARCON Pr...
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

ARCON ARCOS, ARCON PAM
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RAK Bank, AXIS Bank, Reliance Capital, Kotak Life Insurance, MTS
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about ARCON Privileged Access Management vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.