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CA Privileged Access Manager Server Control [EOL] 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

CA Privileged Access Manage...
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (16th)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user558603 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I like that the access control on the agent. Installation is difficult.
I would like to see some improvements, specifically in terms of some set-up items. We have spoken to CA quite a bit about the ability to have 'always-on', or 'active/active' status options, so if the infrastructure goes down, we don't lose transactions. This is very important for the environment and for the users so we cannot really afford any downtime with the solution. We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment.
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

"This product has improved the security of the corporate network and made compliance with the safety regulations of our country."
"No, the product been stable and robust, and boasts with new additional features."
"We're happy to see it working so well with our IBM solution, saving us time and costs."
"It gives us the ability to track who is using what ID and for what purpose."
"It depends on the client's requirements, but for me the most valuable one is the security access management with distributed architecture and centralized management."
"It efficiently controls the access to the resources from the privileged user thus implementing the security aspects and this provides fine granular access."
"We have been able to exceed our audit requirements for security."
"Access Control enhances the security of business systems through a secured authentication and validation of users credentials before accessing organizations resources."
"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 can enforce complicated password policies and very important frequent password changes."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
"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."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
"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."
"Transparent login and cluster synchronization are quite stable compared with other products, and it is easy to manage for the administrator."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
 

Cons

"User Interface needs to be improved."
"I have faced a few challenges due to the system complexity, as it involves two integrated authentication systems that have to be purchased."
"I found the installation process of Access Control challenging due to the much networking work involved in order to grant access to authorized users."
"The manuals for this product used to be good. We could find in one place answers to pretty much every question or situation we had. However, it's now in piece-meal fashion."
"Sometimes we encounter issues whilst generating the reports."
"Automated deployment did not work as expected, had to go to a manual deployment."
"Yes, I encountered lots of issues."
"We have had problems with deployment, and we are concerned with the possibility for outages and how they can have a negative impact on the environment."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless."
"I think the management console could be improved."
"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 handled well by the system."
"The setup was complex."
"The cons are that you are rarely (if ever) able to talk to a technician when calling support."
"I don't really know much on the pricing side."
"The rule management portion and reporting is very weak on its own."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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

CA Access Control, CA Privileged Identity Manager
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Colruyt Group, Logicalis, TIS Inc.
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira by Palo Alto Networks, One Identity, Okta and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: June 2026.
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