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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
224
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Siteminder
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdul Durrani - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables granular and secure access with just-in-time access and Zero Trust model
CyberArk provides a good amount of control over access types. However, as a future enhancement, having additional features for cross-platform integration would be beneficial. It would be good to have integrations with other tools and firewalls, such as Zscaler and CrowdStrike. Although I am not fully aware of recent updates, more cross-platform integration would be valuable. A SOC analyst would like to have centralized access in terms of information flowing in even for privileged access management. They would like to have control over everything instead of opening four to five tabs for different sorts of information. Cross-platform integration would help with that. Customers also want CyberArk's pricing to be better so that they can implement it further and have more licenses. Implementing a privileged access management solution can be challenging. It would be great if CyberArk could provide recommendations based on the compliance standards of an organization. It would help system admins ensure that all the required ports are closed and the systems are being managed properly. If any system is not being used anymore, any ports opened for that system need to be closed. Having such recommendations would be helpful.
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 ability to develop and deploy applications with no stored secrets is very valuable."
"Thus far I can say technical support is excellent. We haven't had any issues or difficulties."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's main benefit is it provides secure access to our servers. There are features to capture the user activity, it provides video recording processing. If the users are logged in to the server, we can see what activities they are performing. It's a very nice tool for Privileged Access Management. They have plenty of useful services and the solution has fulfilled our needs."
"I appreciate the ease of use for support analysts."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager’s ability to safeguard credentials is very important."
"The product is an important security measure against credential theft. It ensures session isolation and password rotation including pushing passwords to the endpoints."
"The product has allowed us to improve both the management and access to privileged credentials, while also creating a full audit trail of all activities happening within isolated sessions of all tasks and activities taking place within the solution."
"CyberArk is a good and adaptive solution. It is easy to adopt and install. It is easy for every use case."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
"The solution is easy to use for our managers."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"It is reliable."
 

Cons

"Transitioning from a traditional on-premises deployment to the privileged cloud has resulted in losing access to many logs and administrative tools typically available on the back end."
"There are upwards of six components you need to set it up. And you might need anywhere from two to five servers. It takes some work to set that up, especially in a larger environment."
"I find it hard to mention a point of improvement because I'm happy with the platform. The only thing I would say is that they can improve their price."
"I would prefer that this is a fully-managed service, rather than have to manage the software ourselves and keep it up to date."
"We'd like to see the creation of some kind of memo field for each device account, which could be used, in our network at least, to leave a note about the device for either the security or network engineering team members."
"The solution's architecture could be improved. It requires installation on four to five different servers. Each server has a purpose, but when you need to troubleshoot, it can be difficult because you need to access each of them. Reducing the number of servers would be helpful."
"Response time is not ideal, and reaching someone knowledgeable can take time."
"As a customer, I might need a plugin for a specific product, or an application, and CyberArk might have already worked with some other client on it. There has to be some platform where it is available for everybody else to go and grab it, instead of my having to reinvent the wheel."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"All the problems that we reported actually have never been resolved. We could not capture enough information for CA to be able to debug the problem."
"We would like to the OAuth be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager seven out of ten with ten being the most expensive."
"If you are looking at implementing this solution, buy the training and go to it."
"Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive."
"Pricing and licensing depend on the environment."
"The solution is costly but we get what we pay for."
"The price of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager could be less expensive."
"Previously, the pricing was very meager. They started publicizing and advertising the solution, growing CyberArk, as an organization. They also changed their pricing with that growth, e.g., the pricier the product, the more people who will purchase it."
"It is in line with its competitors, but all such solutions cost too much money."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"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 price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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 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. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.