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AWS IAM Identity Center vs Symantec Siteminder 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

AWS IAM Identity Center
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (8th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 1.9%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS IAM Identity Center1.9%
Symantec Siteminder3.1%
Other95.0%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

MO
Web developer at King of CMS Consulting
Centralized access control has improved team collaboration but still needs a simpler onboarding
One of the best features AWS IAM Identity Center offers is the permission set, which is one of the best. Then there are the temporary credentials via SSO, the multi-account governance, and the centralized identity management. Those are good features that I believe assist developers, and another feature I can say is one of the best is the improved security with temporary credentials. The feature I find myself relying on the most day-to-day would be the centralized identity management and multi-account governance. It allows me to check what other developers are doing and since I am the admin, I can also revoke the access they have to the AWS accounts.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
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

"I highly recommend AWS IAM Identity Center to new users, especially for storage and deployment services like EC2, which are cost-efficient and scalable."
"Its valuable features include granular access control, allowing precise control over who can access specific AWS resources and under what conditions using JSON-based policies."
"The two most valuable features of IAM Identity Center are the security policy generation and automation in creating credentials."
"The organizational value of AWS IAM Identity Center is definitely significant, as it helps ensure that the least required permissions are given to users, thus preventing unnecessary access and reducing the risk of accidental deletions or changes."
"AWS IAM Identity Center offers a secure and centralized way to manage access and permissions."
"Overall, IAM Identity Center is a great service, currently rated at nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of AWS IAM Identity Center is the ability to provide a structured approach to access management through a single dashboard."
"IAM Identity Center provides micro-level control over resources, services, and users, allowing organizations to grant specific access and privileges safely."
"Single Sign-On is the number one feature of SiteMinder that we're using."
"SiteMinder is an industry leading solution as everyone is using it."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"It helps protect our applications and provides identity management."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
"Once it works, it works really well."
"It provides single sign on for our company’s intranet, so when you log in, you don't need to enter your name and a password, providing simple, secure access to company intranet sites."
 

Cons

"There is a desire to see integration or adoption of time-based user creation features within AWS IAM Identity Center."
"In the product, two groups cannot have the same name...In general, the tool does not allow for the duplication of names."
"I have opened support tickets and received responses, although not always resolving my queries fully. I would appreciate a live chat option with technical support for quicker resolutions."
"Greater visualization for security policies would be beneficial."
"The initial setup isn't very easy, around four on a scale of one to ten. It permits setting up policies that might not be entirely secure if improperly configured, which can lead to issues later."
"IAM is challenging to manage in complex environments."
"I think AWS IAM Identity Center can be improved by making it beginner-friendly. It was very hard for me to navigate initially because the UI was very complicated."
"For AWS services in general, I had trouble creating an S3 bucket due to a repetitive error message regarding existing names."
"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"I will say the user interface for login is kind of plain. They could make it a little prettier."
"Not great. The first level of support is not up to the mark or able to understand the actual problem."
"We have challenges, performance issues for which we’re unable to find the root cause as we scale."
"The technical support could be better."
"I've seen a lot of analytics capability being built in for a number of products. Obviously, I want to be able to use analytics on CA SSO as well."
"All of the feedback within our team for CA Support is not good. It really is on a very low level, but then it is very specific for CA SSO."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheap since it is available on the cloud."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS IAM Identity Center?
AWS provides the lowest pricing among other service providers like Azure, Google, Oracle. It is cost-effective, and they use a pay-as-you-go model.
What needs improvement with AWS IAM Identity Center?
I think AWS IAM Identity Center can be improved by making it beginner-friendly. It was very hard for me to navigate initially because the UI was very complicated. I had to do a lot of research and ...
What is your primary use case for AWS IAM Identity Center?
My main use case for AWS IAM Identity Center is hosting and redirecting web services that I want to use as localhost, but then I have to reroute it. What I did was create a permission set and use i...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Siteminder?
I deploy and support Symantec Siteminder ( /products/symantec-siteminder-reviews ). I have been a partner and reseller.
 

Also Known As

AWS Single Sign On, AWS SSO
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 AWS IAM Identity Center vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.