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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
227
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) (12th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (11th)
 

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

"We have the identity provider for all the authentication processes. However, sometimes, we need access to different applications for customers or clients that are not integrated into the identity provider. For these, we need to store a password to gain access. For example, we use the CyberArk Password Vault for third-party services. This vault needs to be shared with many people in our company."
"Creating policies and the password rotation feature have been valuable. We don't have to memorize our password for the ADM account."
"It's a highly flexible solution that can adapt to each customer's needs."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager provides granularity. You can break things down into individual safes. You have specific access to safes by individual or group. The interface is with AD, with LDAP, or with local CyberArk passwords. You also have the ability to establish policies for your individual credentials."
"The logs and reporting features are impressive."
"The whole concept of Zero Trust and implementing it with CyberArk, which somewhat adheres to the 'never trust, always verify' principle, is very valuable. I really appreciate this aspect. Moreover, the just-in-time access is impressive, allowing access for a specific time."
"Security is the solution's most valuable feature. As far as I know, this solution is the most secure system of this class on the market today, even considering another management system like Fudo Security, which we also use. The integration capabilities are very good; it helps strengthen our overall security."
"CyberArk has resulted in a massive increase in our security footprint."
"It is reliable."
"It's quite scalable."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"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

"Report creation could be improved. The policies could be more customized."
"CyberArk PAM could greatly benefit from an under-the-hood update; integrating machine learning algorithms could provide predictive insights."
"The PTA could be improved. Currently, companies often have multiple domains and sometimes it's difficult to implement CyberArk in this kind of infrastructure. For example, you can add CPM (Central Policy Manager) and PSM (Privileged Session Manager and PVWA (Password Vault Web Access) for access, but if you want to add PTA (Privileged Threat Analysis) to scan Vault logs, it is difficult because this component may be adding multiple domain environments."
"Integration with the ticketing system should allow any number of fields to be used for validation before allowing a user to be evaluated and able to access a server."
"Initial setup is complex. Lots of architecture, lots of planning, and lots of education and training are needed."
"My company always complains about the cost of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager because it's too high."
"Its GUI is very confusing."
"Initially, there was a lot of hiccups, because there were a lot of transitions due to manual installations."
"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."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"The tech support has not been very good for us so we don't use them anymore. We have had some issues. Nobody is perfect."
"The support could be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are additional features added to our CyberArk Privileged Access Manager license. For example, features that allow us to integrate into various kinds of platforms."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing depend on the environment."
"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."
"The solution is cost-effective for the features."
"Pricing is a problem. CyberArk is expensive compared to other products I know. It is similar to buying a German car. It comes with all the bells and whistles, but some companies may find it too expensive."
"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."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
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?
Regarding costs, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is not a cheap product; hence, many companies struggle with its high licensing cost. While it's valuable, it comes with a high price tag, making ...
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: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.