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BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

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

BeyondTrust Privileged Remo...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (15th), Secure Remote Access (2nd)
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 BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access is 2.5%, down from 4.5% 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 (%)
BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access2.5%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.8%
Other95.7%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Hahn Rolf - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at MICRODYN AG
Securely manage high-privilege remote access with granular configurations
I recommend that we improve integration with other products like PasswordSafe, aiming for smoother integration. Better alignment between products would enhance manageability from a single point. Additionally, BeyondTrust should focus on automating the update process to reduce unnecessary ticket creation. Improved quality control for non-English language versions is needed to avoid translation and layout errors.
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 is very good and flexible, allowing me to do my job quite well, with a single point of getting anywhere running through its box like another firewall that controls all access to our secure network so nothing else can get through."
"It's a stable product. Based on the demos and interaction with it, it was stable."
"I like all of it. You can access computers that are on a DMZ. You can access computers that are off the network and on the network. You pretty much have access to computers wherever they are. As long as they have the client on them, you can get to them. So, it is convenient, but its main feature is that you can use your smart card to elevate your privileges remotely. That's a great feature."
"I'd rate the solution ten out of ten."
"It has put us at the forefront when it comes to security, auditing, and meeting SOX requirements."
"PRA stands on its own as a full solution. This is important because it reduces the need to maintain a lot of different services. Also, the integration between those services are sometimes not easy to maintain. So, having a solution like BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access reducing our workload gives us enough time to work on our other issues. The system just runs and does what it is supposed to do."
"The security provided by PRA when it comes to access for remote and privileged users has been outstanding. It has met all of our objectives, everything from password rotation to securing and allowing us to clamp down access to the auditing and monitoring features."
"The ROI has been huge."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"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."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"The password manager is a valuable feature."
"If I remember correctly, it was the two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors."
"The CA PAM product can help companies or organizations who are looking for Privilege Access Management, and CA PAM is an industry leader; a powerful, easy to use solution."
"When we started analyzing different products, CA was really good."
"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."
 

Cons

"It has been clunky but that has gotten a lot better."
"Some of the capabilities in the solution were not as available or not as outstanding as CyberArk. We had to manage whatever little was available for us, especially its recording capabilities, logs, and a number of things."
"I would love to have a web console and the ability to use the smart card with the web console to provide remote support. If you are on a computer that doesn't have the Bomgar console, you should be able to use the web console to provide support. That's the only thing right now. A web console is nice when you're jumping into a computer, but if you need to elevate the privileges, you currently can't do it with the smart card. If they could figure that out, that would be money."
"Its access process for third-party vendors needs to be simplified."
"The issue I found with the product revolves around the fact that RDP and SSH sessions take too much time, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We have not seen ROI when it comes to PRA."
"The integration of the solution with many platforms is a difficult area to manage and needs to be made easy."
"The technical support of BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access deserves a mark of three out of ten."
"Session limitation is a very critical feature that cannot be addressed by CA PAM."
"The product has not improved our organization."
"It was a challenge for our newer staff members to install."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"There are currently other tools on the market which are much cheaper than PAM. They can do almost all of what PAM does, and even do it better."
"I would like this solution to be simpler. It should have a one-click access that works together with AWS."
"They need to improve how it scales."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Don't get into a situation where you are licensing per desktop or per person until you fully understand the licensing."
"Its price is pretty good for the features and services that it provides. It is not outrageous. I'm not aware of any additional charges or anything like that."
"Though the solution was a bit expensive, the overall pricing was average."
"My client found the solution a bit expensive but considering their use case and requirements, they didn't have any other choice. As far as I know, implementation and licensing are the only costs."
"PRA's pricing is competitive."
"I wish it was a little bit cheaper, but when a product is as solid as this, I understand what the cost does. It helps them to make sure it stays that way. If you want a reliable, solid product, you're going to pay more."
"The price is pretty expensive, but you get what you pay for and this is a great product."
"I wasn't directly involved in the licensing and pricing, but I can say that PRA is licensed per endpoint added to the Vault. I would advise users to take frequent exports of their license usage package; it's a simple feature that provides a spreadsheet of every machine in the Vault. This helps to cut down on duplicate licenses, which can happen by adding the same endpoint using an IP address and a fully qualified domain name, for instance. The implementation is an additional cost, and they offer several tiers, so the price varies. There are also some optional add-ons, so I would advise people to research the product well and find out precisely what they need regarding features. The Advanced Web Access add-on provides some required functionality when interfacing with websites; that's one to consider."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"It is reasonably priced."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Construction 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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
Improving technical support for BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access is essential. When I communicate with technical support for BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access, the response time is very slow.
What is your primary use case for BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
When we are using BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access with FortiGate or some Cisco third-party products, we collaborate with both vendors, take the requirement, and follow up with the technical te...
What advice do you have for others considering BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
I have not utilized the endpoint least privilege management feature in BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access as I have only been using it for eight or nine months. I am not working with other produc...
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

Bomgar Privileged Access
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Horizon Beverage, Air Liquide, Gateway Bank of Florida
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.