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Axiad Conductor vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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

Axiad Conductor
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
37th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (23rd), Identity Management (IM) (30th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (27th), Passwordless Authentication (7th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (20th), Insider Risk Management (17th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (7th), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (12th), Credential Management Systems (CMS) (5th)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
15th
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 August 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Axiad Conductor is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.8%
Axiad Conductor1.1%
Other97.1%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2230065 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at a wellness & fitness company with 10,001+ employees
We have seen increased productivity now that users can self-serve their account recovery
We were looking for a way for users to self-serve and increase productivity. Before Axiad Cloud, every time a user was locked out they would have to call the help desk and wait for someone to call back and help them recover their accounts. Now users can do it themselves and cut down on the time they are down with an expired credential. That was the primary driver for why we looked at using this solution. The biggest benefit is that Axiad Cloud has increased the productivity of the business unit where it has been deployed. Before, we had anywhere between 10 and 15 percent of our users that were, at any given time, not able to sign into their systems because of expired credentials. With the introduction of the solution for that business unit, that number went down. That's a measurable advantage. Users also say it is much easier to use but that is not something that we can measure.
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

"It was very impressive in terms of its utility right from the get-go, and has shown its ongoing utility when we have reached these catch points, issues it has been able to resolve."
"Don't think twice about it. It really is a solid platform and well worth the money you spend."
"The life cycle management of credentials is the aspect that we have found to be the most useful... The differentiator that Axiad provided was the ability to provide users a way to self-serve the updating of their credentials on their private keys. That was the feature we were most interested in and Axiad does an excellent job of it."
"Aside from Active Directory, anything that is a multi-factor platform is handled through Axiad Cloud. It is critical for helping to enforce usage of authentication devices across our organization."
"What I have found most valuable is the overall way Axiad listened to our problems and helped us solve them. They provided guidance and expertise, with their experience, that enabled us to be successful in a very challenging space."
"They have honestly been one of the best vendors we've worked with, we've had a great experience with them so far, and they've really exceeded expectations."
"With the solution we have been able to give our users, I see a lot of happy users, and our adoption is such that I don't see users trying to circumvent our processes."
"The solution has also saved us time by having end-users troubleshoot issues through the MyCircle feature, and has definitely reduced the efforts of our administrators. It is saving us five to 10 minutes per incident."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"Used for securing privileged accounts."
"The access control component is solid, adding another layer of security beyond the basic OS security of Linux and Windows while keeping administration costs the same across different operating systems."
"The password vault and access to the systems are the most valuable features."
"I like the fact that passwords are checked-in automatically."
"The CA PAM’s ability to seamlessly integrate and provide a demarcation between users and systems is the most attractive aspect."
"According to the users who have actually used CyberArk and CA PAM, they have said that CA PAM is ten times easier to use and manage."
 

Cons

"I would like a more modern look to the portal."
"There are just some minor tweaks that could be made on the front end. It would be cool to have nicknames for authenticator devices. If you have more than one, it's hard to discern what you have."
"macOS is notoriously ever-evolving and it's difficult to keep pace with it as it pertains to certain kinds of crypto authentication. That's really not even on Axiad. That's a decision by Apple, but it makes it a moving target."
"We would prefer that the solution be hosted in Canada because we're a Canadian entity. That would be nice to have. It's not a feature, as such, but it would really make us a lot happier if it could be located in Canada."
"The only con is that they are a small, but growing, organization."
"I'm looking forward to seeing how they move to FIDO U2F as their primary authentication method across all of their solutions."
"There are just some minor tweaks that could be made on the front end."
"With their licensing model, it becomes hard to scale. For example, we couldn't roll it out enterprise-wide because if you scale it across more than 100,000 users, the cost becomes too exorbitant."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"The demonstration and consideration portion does not work the best. It's not that intuitive."
"The setup was complex."
"Some rollover credentials often do not work or you need a more complex configuration."
"I would like it to support more types of integration."
"Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless."
"A better discovery interface of accounts. It does do discovery of accounts for Windows servers, and you could do UNIX servers as well, but it's kind of clunky how it does it."
"There is already a feature for that. It is not too great to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very competitive for what is offered at the level that we need. They are right there with what the industry standards are. They tend to be a little bit less, in terms of cost, when we are talking about security at government standards. So, I would say that they have a slight advantage on cost compared to the industry average. They are the lower cost solution and the best bargain out on the market today."
"Axiad's pricing was what we were expecting. It was at the right spot. They were competitive."
"It's very cheap on a per-year basis. The cards themselves last about three years and the license is on the order of double-digit dollars per user, and not hundreds of dollars per user, per year."
"Don't just focus on the hardware or software costs of acquiring a solution, but look at it from the perspective that so much of what it takes to run a PKI environment has to do with the people who are running it.... look at the total cost of ownership and not just the cost of acquisition."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"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."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
38%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

Axiad Cloud
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Axiad Conductor vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.