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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
223
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 (11th)
 

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

"CyberArk makes our environment more secure and prevents possible attacks by compromised accounts."
"The session recording and monitoring capabilities are valuable. We have real-time session management ability to record, audit, and monitor any privileged user activities. That is a big deal."
"The PSM is excellent and the ability to write your own connectors and plugins is invaluable as far as flexibility goes."
"AIM has been a great help in automating password retrieval which removes the need for hard-coded credentials."
"We also use CyberArk’s Secrets Manager. Because AWS is the biggest area for us, we have accounts in AWS that are being rotated by CyberArk. We also have a manual process for the most sensitive of our AWS accounts, like root accounts. We've used Secrets Manager on those and that has resulted in a significant risk reduction, as well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it's the best in the market. I haven't seen any other PAM solutions better than CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault."
"The key aspects of privileged access management are being able rotate passwords, make sure someone is accountable, and tie it back to a user (when the system is being used)."
"It is a central repository. Therefore, if someone needs to access a server, then they go through CyberArk PAM. It provides a secure way to do this and CyberArk PAM records everything. For example, if you are connecting to a Linux server, then once you get into the Linux server and if it is integrated with CyberArk, it will automatically start recording everything that is being done. In most banks, seeing the recordings is very useful. If there are any gaps or something has happened which shouldn't have happened, then we can check the logs and videos. So, it gives security, in a robust manner, to the organization."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"The solution is easy to use for our managers."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"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."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
 

Cons

"Performance of PIM could be better and intended for usability as well as security."
"Initial setup is complex. Lots of architecture, lots of planning, and lots of education and training are needed."
"There is a lot of room for improvement in the report section. I also work on other tools, such as Thycotic, which allows you to create customized reports for your organization's needs. In CyberArk, there are limited reports, whereas in Thycotic or some of the other PAM tools, because the database is different, you can customize the report based on your needs through SQL queries."
"Areas of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager that can be improved include offering clearer configuration options."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The interface could be improved it is not user-friendly, but they have improved but it could still improve. In the policies configuration, it would be a benefit to have more details."
"We had an issue with the Copy feature... Apparently, in version 10, that Copy feature does not work. You actually have to click Show and then copy the password from within Show and then paste it. We've had a million tickets and we had to figure out a workaround to it."
"We require IAM (identify and access management) capability at the administrator level because we need more identification."
"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"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."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Before we bought it, they were licensing each function individually, which got complicated and very expensive. When we decided to buy it, it was much more straightforward and still quite expensive, but it brings a lot of value and risk reduction to the organization."
"Pricing and licensing depend on the environment."
"Cost efficiency is the number one thing that can be improved in my mind. This would change lots of companies minds on purchasing the product."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a six out of ten."
"I'm aware that the organization had purchased licensing for almost all of CyberArk's solutions including licensing for PTA, EPM, and the Application Identity Manager. But when it comes to PSM, this is one of the components where there's an additional charge for any extra PSMs that you want to deploy. I believe that there's some rider where the vendor has a bit of leeway to, at times, charge a premium on whatever additional services you may require above the board."
"This product is very expensive."
"CyberArk has been Gartner's number-one pick for the past ten years, so you can infer that their pricing is higher than everyone else. When you are the best, you will charge appropriately for it."
"The product's licensing is yearly. I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing 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.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.