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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 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

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
221
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
21st
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 May 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 18.3%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Lasantha Wijesinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
We have visibility and control through real-time user behavior analytics
It took us some time to realize its benefits because there was a learning curve for us. It took us about a year to get our heads around this product and start effectively using it. It is a journey. It takes at least five years for any company to make this product very useful and reach maturity. It is not only the product's fault. The company needs to have a vision, and the company culture needs to go with it. Senior leadership needs to support the vision. You need to have lots of ingredients for success. If everything is in place, you will see success after one year. In the first year, it is a struggle for everybody. My company was bought by a bigger company, and they were very new to privileged access management. Everybody was struggling. The advice I would give is to have a good vision for privileged access management. You need dedicated teams, senior management support, and proper company policies and standards before implementing the solution. Start building knowledge slowly and avoid jumping into the deep end without preparation. I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
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 simple to use."
"I'm no longer the product owner for PAM, but I can say that the most useful feature is the vault functionality, which keeps all your passwords secure in a digital vault."
"The solution helps our developers access internal systems. It also helps us in Privilege Access Management."
"I haven't really thought about anything that I want to use it for, that I couldn't use it for."
"I appreciate CyberArk's real-time capabilities. I can secure critical sessions, such as SSH or database sessions. As a security professional, I have real-time visibility into ongoing sessions. If anything suspicious occurs, I can terminate or freeze the session, which is part of user behavior analytics."
"It's a good solution, it works, and the bank is happy with it."
"Overall, I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"On the EBB user side, we were able to secure all the server root passwords and admin for Windows. This was a big win for us."
"Comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"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."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"It is great for identity governance."
"CA PAM is working well for us."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
"It will provide us with more security."
 

Cons

"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault's deployment is complex for resources with little experience. Tech support needs to be improved as well based on quality and knowledge."
"The support services could act faster when people reach out to resolve issues."
"The solution should be able to mitigate internal threats"
"If there is an area that has room for improvement, it's probably working with their support and getting people on the phone. That is hard to do with most products in general, but that seems to be the difficult area. The product is fantastic, but sometimes we want somebody on the phone."
"I think they can improve account onboarding. For instance, you have to use the Password Vault utility, whereas in Thycotic I think there is a feature in the user interface that allows you to upload your account with an Excel file. So I'd like to have a similar thing in CyberArk."
"It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just a control, but in terms of risk, you are covering a big impact on the company."
"They are sometimes not flexible with things. For instance, from one day to another, there might be something that had been done years ago by CyberArk, then they say, "We do not support that." You then have to initiate a complaint and start working with them. Things might become complicated and months pass while you are working with them. Usually, they are good and fast, but sometimes they seem to be blocked with problems, e.g., you will suddenly be working with another team instead of the team that you were working with the day before."
"The major pain point that we have is the capacity of CyberArk due to the sheer volume of NPAs that we are managing. We are a large organization and we have hundreds of thousands of non-personal accounts to manage. We have already found out that there are certain capacity limitations within CyberArk that might introduce performance issues. From my perspective, something that would be valuable would be if the vault could hold more passwords and be more scalable."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"The support for other remote assistance tools would be excellent. Free included tools in Windows (Remote Assist) and Microsoft SCCM Configuration Manager (ConMgr Remote Control) allow companies to reduce the amount of RDP connections and expand the usage of the tools are frequently used by companies to provide technical support for remote assistance."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The SaaS version of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is very expensive, but the on-premises version is relative, e.g. depending on the size of the environment, it can be a bit pricey, but it's relatively okay compared to the others."
"The license CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is on an annual basis."
"The solution is very expensive and requires a license. We pay for an enterprise license."
"I'm a technician so I don't handle the licensing for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but I know that the price for the core license is about €140 per year. There's another type of license, the external vendor license, and that's about €600 and you can manage twenty devices. From what I know, the price for one device in a subscription is about €65 per year. You can buy the CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager too, or you can buy some other application or application license with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, but all other features, such as the Analytics Server is included in the basic CyberArk license. With WALLIX, you need to buy separate licenses for the features."
"It's an affordable platform."
"The product’s pricing is feasible for enterprise customers. The pricing is expensive for smaller businesses. You need to pay additional costs for service implementation and local support."
"This product is very expensive."
"CyberArk is one of the best PAM solutions and one of the most expensive, but it works better than the others, so the pricing is fair."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"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."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What do you like most about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution are control and analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
With the current model of licensing, for my use cases, sometimes it's hard to convince the management and get budget approvals for it. It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just ...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
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...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.