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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
229
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (3rd), 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

Atul-Gujar - PeerSpot reviewer
Secures critical infrastructures with essential user session audit records
A potential area for improvement is enhancing support for cluster environments and distributed Vaults. Clients in multiple countries that need central access have different challenges that require better solutions from CyberArk. For financial services, CyberArk can improve incident response by ensuring fast support for critical priority tickets to meet compliance requirements. Providing more documentation on CyberArk is recommended for new team members to enhance their troubleshooting capabilities. I understand it's up to the client, but 99% fail to change the demo key, so it's crucial for CyberArk to emphasize changing the key and documenting it as part of the installation process.
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

"I like the integrations for external applications."
"The feature that I like the most is the Privileged Session Manager. It offers session recordings, logging, and tracking of user workstreams."
"By implementing CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we wanted to secure the password data and password accounts. We could see the benefits of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager immediately after we deployed it and started using it."
"The automatic password management is the most important feature. The second most important feature is the ability to enforce dual control on the release of those passwords. The combination of these two features is the most important thing for us because we can show that we're in control of who uses any non-personal account, and when they do so."
"The PSM is excellent and the ability to write your own connectors and plugins is invaluable as far as flexibility goes."
"The AI capabilities, including advanced threat detection features, are very helpful for us. They reduce human effort and errors, allowing us to quickly identify and respond to threats."
"Its' quite stable."
"The features that are most effective, like every PAM solution, include monitoring and password rotations."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"Federation is valuable, for sure, because we have a lot of third-party vendors that we need to integrate with, and this is a turnkey solution in some ways."
"It has considerably reduced the amount of time that new users would take to join into the organization. Previously, it was a lengthy, manual process because it's a very secure environment, where they need to verify the user before they can actually grant him a user-ID and password. Integrating with the built-in custom application, and exposing CA Single Sign On to the internet, we were able to get the employees onboard. The time that we gained was: previously it would generally take from four to eight weeks for each employee, we brought it to one to two days."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
 

Cons

"The technical support is very poor."
"They could improve CyberArk Privileged Access Manager by providing more reports. If I need to know the 10 most-used accounts for this week, that functionality can be made available in the reports."
"The Vault's disaster recovery features need improvement."
"The license is expensive."
"I would love them to improve their UI customizing features."
"The solution could improve by adding more connectors."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager could improve the integration with other solutions and ease of use. Additionally, there should be a feature to have remote connections without a VPN."
"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."
"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."
"The support could be faster."
"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."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"The technical support could be better."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is perceived to be somewhat overpriced compared to similar market products. It is a little bit overvalued. It could come down a little bit for my liking. However, the industry-leading reputation and the quality of service justify the high price point to some extent."
"Its price can be reduced."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Its price is high. I have also worked with Delinea. CyberArk is comparatively expensive compared to other PAM solutions, such as Delinea, especially during renewal."
"Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive."
"From a client perspective, CyberArk's pricing is fair but there is a significant increase each year. They should limit the price increase because this could potentially drive customers to other partners. Price changes should be at defined intervals. There should not be sudden jumps."
"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."
"In comparison to other products on the market, CyberArk is a more costly product."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business60
Midsize Enterprise41
Large Enterprise171
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

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?
There has been no reduced cost associated with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, as when it is required, you must pay for their licensing and prepare the full environment. While there are costs f...
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: July 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.