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CyberArk Identity vs Okta Workforce Identity 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of CyberArk Identity is 3.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 11.4%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.7%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Montero - PeerSpot reviewer
Access management system provides strong security and effortless user authentication
The solution can be deployed on cloud or on-premises. CyberArk is more on the cloud than on local hardware. The deployment is initially quite difficult. That said, when you are doing the implementation of CyberArk, there are so many tutorials that make the learning process very easy. The only complaint could be the language barrier. It's difficult if you don't have a very good level of English. Otherwise, it is very easy. You can have it set up within three months without much difficulty. It's hard to get started, however, once you get going, it gets easier. A full deployment takes half a year or less. There is some maintenance necessary. A company is constantly hiring and letting go of employees. The access is always changing, so access must always be adjusted. Or, if we need another law of filter, we would need to add those, or even take them away. That's another aspect of maintenance.
Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.
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

"The most valuable feature of CyberArk Identity is the adaptive interface."
"CyberArk Identity's ability to safeguard financial services infrastructure is good."
"The feature that we find most valuable is the ability to integrate multiple IDs for on-premises Active Directory."
"The integration capabilities, ability to integrate CyberArk into the overall IBB strategy of our current clients."
"Being able to integrate CyberArk Identity with Microsoft Defender is valuable."
"The user self-service program and the Office 365 provisioning service feature are the most valuable. It is a very easy and feature-rich solution that gives priority to the users and security."
"CyberArk Identity is a mature product."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It takes me up to an hour and a half."
"The initial setup of Okta Workforce Identity is straightforward. I was able to get an environment ready within half a day."
"The provisioning functionality has been the most valuable. This solution has good performance, fast integration and is very responsive."
"The most valuable feature in Okta Workforce Identity is the single sign-on, universal directory, and lifecycle management."
"My total rating for Okta is ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the identity access authentication."
"I find the provisioning features and the integration with other applications useful."
"Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are two different components that I haven't seen in other products."
"The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are SSO, MFA, and beneficial feature sets."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"It is reliable."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"I liked the debugging part. There are only two files (trace file and log file) that you need to look into while performing debugging, and the logs give you the exact info on where and what needs to be fixed."
"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."
 

Cons

"It does not have global market penetration, and sometimes, there are support issues."
"The OpenID features could improve in CyberArk Identity."
"The product is not cheap, especially if you opt for an on-premise deployment requiring a complex server infrastructure. On the other hand, choosing the software as a service version simplifies infrastructure requirements but necessitates being online all the time."
"More integrations would be better."
"The solution could be easier to use and I found it to be very complex involving many steps."
"I'm not sure what needs improvement. It is a good platform."
"To enhance the product, they can consider improving the user interface of the software and possibly the customer support team. Sometimes, there is a delay in handling my inquiries via email, which could be addressed for better service."
"At the moment CyberArk needs to enrich Conjur and it needs to be made more viable so that its adoption can be made much faster."
"They should focus on improving them to provide top-notch team access management while still offering those typical features."
"We have experienced some challenges in integrating this solution with Scope and Cognito."
"Okta could improve by making their learning materials more user-friendly."
"They also have single sign-on (SSO). When we bought Okta Workforce Identity a year and a half ago, I was also looking at SSO, but not much documentation was available for SSO. The documentation for SSO should be a little more robust for somebody who is implementing it for the first time."
"Application updates are lacking. Customer support needs to be improved."
"This user integration with the Okta integration network could be simplified."
"You can't hide the device when you're checking logs."
"We've not had any problems with Okta."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"I think they need to integrate some of the newer types of authentication into the product. I'm not seeing the innovation when it comes to biometrics in the product."
"We're currently unable to find information about if the solution can do a full implementation with SQL. Some better and more accessible documentation for new users or those curious about the product would be helpful."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of CyberArk Identity is competitive."
"It's not that affordable compared to Delinea or other products. They're less expensive and allow more customization. For the cost, it is expensive."
"I think it is a fairly priced tool. I rate the tool between six and seven on a scale of one to ten where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"There is an initial license and then there is a subscription needed."
"The pricing point is very good. I compared it with other products, and it does not require a heavy investment."
"The solution is cheap and I rate its pricing an eight out of ten."
"Their pricing is obviously a lot higher than many vendors in the marketplace but their service is also unmatched."
"We find that the pricing and licensing of this solution is adequate, as compared to the other competitors in the market."
"The price of the solution is good."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"Though I don't know about the licensing model of the product, I wouldn't be surprised if Okta offers a per user license subscription model."
"The pricing for Okta Workforce Identity could still be improved or made cheaper. It costs from 50 to 100 euros a year per user. Okta Workforce Identity has different packages you can choose from, and my previous company had all of them, particularly the full Okta suite."
"Price-wise, Okta Workforce Identity is a cheap solution. The overall cost depends on the license since you can negotiate with Okta or any of Okta's partners only if you opt for many licenses."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"It could be a bit too pricey for small companies. Okta Workforce Identity can add a lot of benefits, but smaller companies may not have a lot of applications that need to be managed by Okta Workforce Identity. In larger organizations, there are more departments, applications, and users to manage. Okta Workforce Identity adds a bit more value to those bigger organizations. In addition to standard licensing fees, there are also additional costs for things"
"The licensing model is fine for general service usage. However, the charges for API features and API tokens can be quite high."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CyberArk Identity?
The integration capabilities, ability to integrate CyberArk into the overall IBB strategy of our current clients.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Identity?
The pricing point is very good. I compared it with other products, and it does not require a heavy investment.
What needs improvement with CyberArk Identity?
It does not have global market penetration, and sometimes, there are support issues. CyberArk Identity can definitely...
What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta should have at least a local presense for countries that align with or comply with GDPR or data sovereignty, so ...
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. Cur...
 

Also Known As

Idaptive
No data available
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MLB, Citi, Pfizer, SulAmerica, GE Capital, Shiseido
FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Ping Identity, Okta and others in Access Management. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.