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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)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (7th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of AWS IAM Identity Center is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS IAM Identity Center2.3%
Symantec Siteminder2.3%
Other95.4%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Khaled Saidi - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage cloud security with granular access control and enhanced authentication
Managing IAM in complex environments can be challenging, and there are several areas for improvement. First, incorporating automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts would simplify administration, especially for large organizations. Additionally, policy debugging and validation could be more streamlined, as troubleshooting misconfigurations can be time-consuming and prone to errors. A more robust error messaging system or a dedicated debugging tool would be beneficial. Another area for improvement is temporary access credentials. AWS documentation should offer more detailed guidance on edge cases and exceptions, along with clearer examples of how to handle various scenarios. Lastly, enhanced session-level policies that are more context-sensitive and based on specific conditions (such as IP address, device, or time) would greatly increase flexibility and allow for more granular control over user sessions.
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

"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 solution enhances security through features like multifactor authentication."
"The solution helps us manage access in a time-efficient manner and offers reliable integration for our services, avoiding security breaches and maintaining operational efficiency."
"AWS IAM Identity Center has helped our organization by providing a unified dashboard to manage permissions and access controls."
"IAM Identity Center provides micro-level control over resources, services, and users, allowing organizations to grant specific access and privileges safely."
"The most valuable feature is the security configuration ease, which is great for me, especially as a beginner."
"AWS IAM Identity Center offers a secure and centralized way to manage access and permissions."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"It is reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"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."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more flexibility in the features as sometimes it doesn't meet my expectations."
"IAM is challenging to manage in complex environments. Enhancements could include automation tools or a centralized dashboard for managing roles and policies across multiple accounts, simplifying the process."
"Integrating AWS IAM Identity Center with other applications sometimes presents challenges."
"The configuration with other tools can be hard."
"IAM is challenging to manage in complex environments."
"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."
"Focusing on further allowing customization and flexibility in developing solutions as a solution architect or developer would enhance user experience."
"For AWS services in general, I had trouble creating an S3 bucket due to a repetitive error message regarding existing names."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"I would prefer to see their SAML integration be a more streamlined and easier interface."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"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."
"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."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheap since it is available on the cloud."
"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."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Transportation Company
6%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS IAM Identity Center?
The product is easy for beginners to learn and use.
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?
The tech support for AWS is time-consuming, as we have experienced this issue. However, I am not aware of many other cases.
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

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: September 2025.
871,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.