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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
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (13th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (6th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
12th
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 August 2025, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 7.6%, up from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.3%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ForgeRock7.6%
Symantec Siteminder3.3%
Other89.1%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmet Murat Ülker - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, but customizations can be complicated to handle
I would suggest others use the product after asking them to consider their use cases. SSO may be a use case for some, and using the product as an IDM tool may be a use case. At the moment, my company is not deploying all the components of ForgeRock itself. My company uses ForgeRock for OAuth 2.0. For example, my company is not deploying the IDM and identity gateway components. You should consider your use case and select the required components for that use case. My company does not use the SSO features of the tool. My company uses SSO to access ForgeRock's AM Console for individual users. My company does not use single sign on features of the product and instead, we use Auth0. I rate the tool a seven or eight out of ten.
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

"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."
"I like the intelligent authentication feature."
"We create and define the permissions and configurations for the users."
"Easy to navigate, handle and manage the applications."
"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."
"We used it to implement multi-factor authentication and to improve our security posture as well as reducing the potential for attacks."
"The product is easy to use in a development environment."
"Their access management solution, OpenAM, is most valuable because it meets the needs of a lot of users."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate."
"IWA is an out-of-the-box feature. The SAML-based federation is standard for all tools. However, CA Single Sign-On has made the federation configuration way too simple and handy to set up and use."
"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature"
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"I liked the debugging part. There are only two files (trace file and log file) that you need to look into while performing debugging, and the logs give you the exact info on where and what needs to be fixed."
 

Cons

"The user interface could be improved as it is cumbersome and outdated. It doesn't have a responsive UI."
"We raised tickets asking for improvements, but sometimes we don't get the proper solution. They are responding, but the ticket is open for weeks and weeks. For some issues, we don't get a satisfactory solution or the solution doesn't work."
"Lacks simplified documentation within the tool that requires use of a separate portal."
"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."
"Automatic Deployment needs improvement. it could be made easier."
"The solution's documentation is not very good, and they do not give more details."
"The solution could improve by adding more advertising and marketing."
"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"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."
"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."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"The initial setup of Symantec SiteMinder was a bit tricky. I would rate it a seven on a scale of one to ten, where ten indicates an easy setup."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"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's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Transportation Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ForgeRock?
The most valuable features of ForgeRock are social login and data protection.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
Our company was considering switching back to Keycloak from ForgeRock, so as to not pay any license fees. ForgeRock also supports M-PIN and biometric features that Keycloak does not provide. My com...
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
In the past, I saw that Splunk was integrated with a testing portal, and then it was integrated with Slack. I don't think ForgeRock directly supports integrations with Slack, making it an area wher...
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: July 2025.
866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.