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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
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) (14th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 4.0%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock4.0%
Symantec Siteminder3.5%
Other92.5%
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 products are customizable, and the out-of-the-box features are solid, too. I primarily use the OIDC compliance features. It's just a configuration. it's easy to set up and customize trees. We can add our own features if necessary. Banks and corporations have different standards and specific validations."
"Easy to navigate, handle and manage the applications."
"Flexibility in the customisation. Out-of-the-box support for almost all authentication mechanisms/products."
"I like the intelligent authentication feature."
"Almost all the notes which are required for these journeys are out of the box, and if you want to enable biometrics, you can get these notes from ForgeRock marketplace, so most technologies are out of the box or require a minimum configuration."
"Installation and configuration are pretty easy for ForgeRock OpenIDM."
"The support is good and prompt."
"Since ForgeRock is an authentication tool, it gives more use cases and more revenue for companies."
"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."
"We needed to implement secure access, CA is a leader in this area, so we went naturally with the best, and we also chose CA because of the way they interact with customers, pitch new features to us, ask us for feedback, and provide us with support."
"The valuable features are security in general and ease of use, more specifically ease of use for the developers, and security where the developer doesn't have to know about authentication or security."
"The most valuable feature for us is the configuration feature; it permits us to connect our company to the offices of our subsidiaries, so when we buy a company we can connect their IT infrastructure to ours."
"Security to protect digital assets is most valuable to us."
"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"Once we have our authentication and authorization policies set, they are easy to duplicate across all our applications instead of trying to develop them into each application individually."
"They really made life simple for the user and the user experience has improved."
 

Cons

"Implementation, integration capabilities and support model are still evolving and posing a risk of poor quality."
"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."
"The product's customization is a bit complicated."
"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"The solution could improve by adding more advertising and marketing."
"Automatic Deployment needs improvement. it could be made easier."
"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."
"ForgeRock can improve by offering a unified development IDE for workflows, as we currently maintain BPMN, XML, JSON, and JavaScript separately."
"The installation process was complex. There are a lot of different moving pieces, and the main complaint is that it's hard to automate any of it."
"It seems that when there's a new version, patch, or service pack, we find bugs."
"The performance could be better. The support could be faster."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"They get us answers, but often they’re too slow."
"Once CA has finalized the cases that we have brought to them, it will be a better product to use."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"The policy store configuration, and tuning the policy store is a bit complex in ensuring it does not corrupt."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
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: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.