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ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

ForgeRock
Ranking in Access Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (5th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
13th
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.8%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock5.2%
Symantec Siteminder2.8%
Other92.0%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
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

"Flexibility in the customisation. Out-of-the-box support for almost all authentication mechanisms/products."
"Better Access Management."
"The solution integrates well and it is important for them to keep up with the current trends in the market quickly enough, and they have been doing a good job at it."
"ForgeRock has CIAM, which other products didn't have, and they have DevOps ready."
"ForgeRock has had a very positive impact on my organization, especially in terms of standardization, security posture, and operational efficiency."
"The solution is very scalable. We have a lot of users that have been increasing over the years that we have been using it. We have approximately 20,000 users."
"The most valuable features are that it is easy to manage and it's stable."
"The product is easy to set up."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"You definitely need to consider CA SSO; it is quite solid, it's never really gone down, and it's a well-understood and reliable piece of our enterprise."
"They really made life simple for the user and the user experience has improved."
"CA SSO is helping us a lot in providing the access solution to the customers."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"Whatever you're considering, this is a good solution."
"It will definitely help any company achieve their single sign on goal."
"The features most valuable to us are its usability, the way you can customize it, and its supportability."
 

Cons

"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by limiting the need to do customizations."
"Similar to other products, they do have some improvement scope in the documentation part."
"The product's customization is a bit complicated."
"There are some areas I want ForgeRock to improve; these areas include policy configuration, documentation clarity, UI complexity, and debugging token flow."
"I don't think ForgeRock directly supports integrations with Slack, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"The product's support services in the French language are not free."
"I would give the technical support a rating of 2-3/10."
"The technical support team is not very proactive."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"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."
"We installed one version and there is a bug in it; from a customer perspective I would want that particular issue to be fixed rather than getting an answer that the bug will be fixed in the next version."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"The setup was not straightforward. I would give it a 7/10 rating - 1 being simple and 10 being complex."
"One of the features that needs improvement is the capability of implementing single sign-on in cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"We have multiple clients we are looking at right now. We are at a very small number, however, the idea and the goal is to grow. We are looking at about $100,000 and $50,000 a minimum a month cost. That'd be minimum maybe in a couple of years."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"The license is purchased annually per user. However, you can negotiate if you are signing for a longer period of time. When comparing this solution to others on the market it is priced fair, it is not at the top of the price range or at the bottom end."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis, but it also depends on the contract that you have with the vendor. They have multiple types of contracts. There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. If you need some of the features, you have to pay more."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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 price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Insurance Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate that it is very straightforward and helpful.
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
I wish the JavaScript part could be improved, as not everyone is proficient in JavaScript, so automating that or reducing the reliance on it could be beneficial. Additionally, having only one realm...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
My main use case for ForgeRock is designing user journeys, specifically customer user journeys, and how they interact with the system. A specific example of a user journey I designed using ForgeRoc...
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

ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about ForgeRock vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.