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ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

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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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (10th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
15th
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 September 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 3.6%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.5%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock3.6%
Symantec Siteminder3.5%
Other92.9%
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

"ForgeRock provides a complete solution for authentication and authorization, which is excellent."
"ForgeRock offers a very scalable solution, which is one of its best features, and ForgeRock positively impacts our organization as we manage a large number of users with ease, providing a standard IAM solution that simplifies our processes."
"The support team is better than the other product we were using."
"I like the way it is handling authentication and authorization."
"ForgeRock has CIAM, which other products didn't have, and they have DevOps ready."
"ForgeRock has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to migrate from the older system to the newer ForgeRock component, enabling us to go live with many products across geographies, enhancing security as it is all cloud-based, and with the company taking care of availability, it has reduced costs for the company."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the authentication for the consumers. The integration with other third-party applications is excellent."
"The integration has been smooth and the costs have been significantly reduced."
"I really like the robust functionality that this solution offers, such as federation, OAuth, security, and multi-tenancy, just to name a few."
"If they want to have a secure, stable solution for a single sign-on that supports Java, ASP .Net, and most of the web-based applications, I encourage them to go with this product."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of this product to integrate with any third-party components and platforms."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"It helps protect our applications and provides identity management."
"For the most part, SSO is very stable."
"Obviously, the most valuable feature is the flexibility of the solution, it being able to be integrated with a number of applications and solutions, and also the configurability of the solution."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
 

Cons

"It should have a better user interface. Its flexibility should also be improved. It is not about simplifying; it is more about flexibility. Each company has its own requirements, and ForgeRock can provide more flexibility in terms of the use of existing modules to implement features for the customers."
"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"As with any complex software platform, there is a learning curve to using ForgeRock, and it may require specialized expertise to implement and manage effectively."
"We're worried about the scaling. We're told it will be okay and there won't be issues, however, I'm not 100% convinced."
"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"You have to be careful about customizing the solution, and how to sustain it across your teams."
"The identity management model needs a bit of improvement."
"Improve the software quality (bugs in new versions)."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"CA SSO does have stability issues."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"The problem is we need the support, but they don't know anything about the product."
"Unfortunately, SSO doesn't really allow us to do that. We have to basically do it through brute force."
"With the other ones, we’ve had problems, and they don’t really match our business needs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"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."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"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."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

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?
There are some areas I want ForgeRock to improve. These areas include policy configuration, documentation clarity, UI complexity, and debugging token flow. I want ForgeRock to improve in documentat...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
I am using ForgeRock for standard support, policy configurations, and documentation clarity. The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate t...
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 ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Siteminder?
I deploy and support Symantec Siteminder ( /products/symantec-siteminder-reviews ). I have been a partner and reseller.
 

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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.