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IBM Security Verify Access 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

IBM Security Verify Access
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
14th
Ranking in Access Management
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (25th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (18th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
13th
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Verify Access is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.6%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Jared Ochieng - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers multiple authentication methods like tokens and one-time passwords
The authentication process with IBM Security Verify Access is good and is considered one of the best identity and access management solutions. It helps with multi-factor authentication. It offers multiple authentication methods like tokens and one-time passwords, enhancing security. It also includes features like password vaults and single sign-on, streamlining the access process for remote and local users across different solutions. The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options. The policy control feature allows you to set authentication measures and policies for your organization's identity governance. This feature helps create standardized policies and organize them into groups based on departments or specific needs. It simplifies access management for both administrators and users. IBM Security Verify Access can be integrated with almost any solution using APIs. The time required for integration depends on whether the solution is out of the box or custom. Out-of-the-box solutions can be integrated quickly, typically within a few days or hours, while custom solutions may require additional steps and take longer to integrate.
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

"From the integration point of view, it supports SAML, OIDC, and OAuth. For legacy applications that don't have support for SAML and other new protocols, it provides single sign-on access to end-users. From the integration compatibility point of view, it is highly capable."
"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."
"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."
"The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via email or SMS. This ensures secure access to your accounts by providing multiple authentication options."
"Its stability and UI are most valuable."
"It's a good solution for identification and access management."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Security Access Manager, at least for my company, is multi-factor authentication. That's the only feature my company is using. The solution works well and has no glitches. IBM Security Access Manager is a very good solution, so my company is still using it."
"It's quite scalable."
"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"It is reliable."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
 

Cons

"Configuration could be simplified for the end-user."
"They can improve the single sign-on configuration for OIDC and OAuth. That is not very mature in this product, and they can improve it in this particular area. OIDC is a third-party integration that we do with the cloud platforms, and OAuth is an authorization mechanism for allowing a user having an account with Google or any other provider to access an application. Organizations these days are looking for just-in-time provisioning use cases, but IBM Security Access Manager is not very mature for such use cases. There are only a few applications that can be integrated, and this is where this product is lagging. However, in terms of configuration and single sign-on mechanisms, it is a great product."
"The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial."
"What we'd like improved in IBM Security Access Manager is its onboarding process as it's complex, particularly when onboarding new applications. We need to be very, very careful during the onboarding. We have no issues with IBM Security Access Manager because the solution works fine, apart from the onboarding process and IBM's involvement in onboarding issues. If we need support related to the onboarding, we've noticed a pattern where support isn't available, or they don't have much experience, or we're not getting a response from them. We're facing the same issue with IBM Guardium. As we're just focusing on the multi-factor authentication feature of IBM Security Access Manager and we didn't explore any other features, we don't have additional features to suggest for the next release of the solution, but we're in discussion about exploring ID management and access management features, but those are just possibilities because right now, we're focused on exploring our domain."
"There are a lot of areas that can be improved, but the main area is the lack of customization. You cannot easily customize anything in the product. It is not easy to tweak the functionality. It is challenging to change the out-of-the-box functionality."
"The solution could be classified as a hilt system. There are a lot of resources being used and it is suitable for very large enterprises or the public sector."
"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"I think they need to integrate some of the newer types of authentication into the product. I'm not seeing the innovation when it comes to biometrics in the product."
"We're currently unable to find information about if the solution can do a full implementation with SQL. Some better and more accessible documentation for new users or those curious about the product would be helpful."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."
"The license and costs depend on the amount range of users you have. For just approximately 2,000 users, the price is practical and fair. However, when you have 20,000 users, it starts to become really expensive, and the discount per user is not attractive enough to go ahead and purchase."
"It costs about 300K AED for a year. Its pricing is a bit on the higher end, but in comparison to other products in the market, its price is still better. There are lots of other products that are very costly."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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
25%
Insurance Company
15%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Security Access Manager?
The tool provides a password vault, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication. It offers various authentication methods like fingerprint integration, one-time passwords, or tokens sent via ema...
What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?
The user interface for users and administrators could be improved to make it easier. Automating some functions could also be beneficial.
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

IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

POST Luxembourg
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.