IBM Security Verify Access vs Symantec Identity Governance and Administration comparison

IBM and Broadcom are both solutions in the Identity Management (IM) category. IBM is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.0, while Broadcom is ranked #25. IBM holds a 1.2% mindshare in IAM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

IBM Security Verify Access

Read 8 IBM Security Verify Access reviews

2,133 Views
619 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Symantec Identity Governanc...

Read 66 Symantec Identity Governance and Administration reviews

2,071 Views
1,325 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

IBM Security Verify Access

Symantec Identity Governanc...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Symantec Identity Governance and Administration and IBM Security Verify Access compete in the identity management and security domain. While Symantec excels in governance capabilities, IBM's comprehensive feature set provides an edge, even at a premium.

Features: Symantec Identity Governance and Administration offers strong compliance management, robust governance over user access, and effective audit capabilities. On the other hand, IBM Security Verify Access includes adaptive access management, advanced threat intelligence, and sophisticated risk analysis tools. IBM's feature set is deemed more extensive, providing better security enhancements.

Room for Improvement: Symantec could improve in areas like more intuitive user interfaces, expanding integration capabilities, and better reporting tools. IBM could enhance ease of customization, reduce complexity in deployment, and improve its pricing structure to offer better cost efficiency for smaller organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Symantec Identity Governance and Administration is known for a straightforward deployment model and reliable technical support, ensuring smooth integration. IBM Security Verify Access, while complex due to advanced features, provides comprehensive customer service that aids navigation and implementation, enhancing the deployment experience despite complexities.

Pricing and ROI: Symantec Identity Governance and Administration offers a cost-effective setup with attractive ROI for governance-focused organizations. IBM Security Verify Access commands a higher initial cost but promises longer-term ROI through extensive capabilities and security enhancements, making it a significant investment with valuable security benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Identity Governance and Administration Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Identity Governance and Administration

February 2026

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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 Identity Management (IM)

20th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Single Sign-On (SSO) (14th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (16th), Access Management (14th)

Symantec Identity Governanc...

Ranking in Identity Management (IM)

25th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

User Provisioning Software (10th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Identity Management (IM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Verify Access is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Identity Governance and Administration is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Security Verify Access	1.2%
Symantec Identity Governance and Administration	1.8%
Other	97.0%

Identity Management (IM)

Featured Reviews

Ateeq Rehman

Unit Head System Implementor at Allied Bank Limited

Has improved secure user access while managing development through multiple technologies

I have already explained this in my previous call; I don't handle financial terms and commercials. Pricing is generally managed by functional teams and management looking after licensing matters. In Pakistan, vendors such as Oracle and IBM manage account relationships with clients and have tailored pricing models, so I do not have sufficient insights into that aspect.IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based. The complexity and scalability of the architecture necessitate in-depth technical knowledge and understanding of the system. Thus, installation is not as simple as clicking through; it requires extensive configuration of the underlying application servers, such as IBM WebSphere, where these products are deployed and configured.

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reviewer2183661

Managing Director at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Has an easy initial setup process, but its technical support services need improvement

The product's technical support could be better. The integration project requires a lot of technical details, so we need to find it quickly and easily. There was a large community of knowledge in the past. We kept it together and got the results. The community that works around the particular technical issue is shrinking. It used to be a specialized community that would help with the process. These particular areas need improvement. Broadcom is still using a hybrid cloud model, with some workloads on-premises and some in the cloud. They must start with the cloud adoption and move as many workloads to the cloud as possible. The on-premises environment is becoming stable. They need to rebuild that cost and the software. The product's pre-sales, technical support, and installation could also improve.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution has powerful authentification and authorization. It offers a good way to increase security."

"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."

"IBM Security Verify Access is providing a secure way of handling the user login journey, and secure user authentication is fully managed by ISAM or ISVA."

"Its stability and UI are most valuable."

"I have found this solution to be really practical and when a user wants to log in, it is effortless and runs smooth."

"It's a good solution for identification and access management."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Security Verify Access pros

"Using the implementation guide, I was able to implement the solution with ease."

"What I found most valuable in Symantec Identity Governance and Administration is its simple GUI. It's also easy to deploy compared to other products. With other products, you have to install the Windows version inside the Windows machine on all units, but with Symantec Identity Governance and Administration, it can work offline, so the solution is a little bit easier than other systems."

"Self-registration and self-service password management are valuable features. The role modeling feature is also very useful. It allows you to model your enterprise role."

"Provisioning engine (on the back-end, separate from front-end components, that's part of layered architecture)."

"It is easy to use, and does not requires an extensive programming or development background."

"The most valuable aspects of Symantec Identity Governance and Administration are all the features, it is the most complete solution on the market. It has features, such as scanners and portals, it has everything."

"The most valuable features are role-based access and identity provisioning, which allow a single point of user access to multiple places."

"Connector Xpress and Policy Xpress and the new interface."

More Symantec Identity Governance and Administration pros

Cons

"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 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."

"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."

"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."

"IBM Security Verify Access installation process is not straightforward; it requires underlying specialized knowledge upon which the IBM products are based."

"The user interface needs to be simplified, it's complex and not user-friendly."

"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."

More IBM Security Verify Access cons

"I find the API boring. I also faced issues while integrating with CA SSO."

"There are times that it takes too long to generate reports and to run the assessment tools to collect the information."

"The product's technical support could be better."

"Identity Manager has a lack of entitlement support, unlike other products that I have worked with."

"Integration capabilities with other solutions and formats, including JSON, could be improved."

"Symantec should develop a SaaS solution for cloud environments to make the solution available in various marketplaces for easy deployment."

"A better information display for the approvals within the workflow would give them more information and the ability to comment back on a request as to why they're rejecting it. We've been telling them we'd like this improvement, and we hope to see it."

"The Identity tool needs to do more kinds of reporting for audit purposes. It doesn't really track any of the metrics that are useful to us, at this point."

More Symantec Identity Governance and Administration cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not expensive. It depends on the number of users."

"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 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."

"Pricing and licensing models are adequate and reasonable."

"The connector is free, and bundled with the product."

"The price is based on the number of users."

"The price is flexible for our existing customers."

"I do not recall the approximate prices or licensing models, although I do so that it was priced per user number."

"The product has a good price in competition with another product with the same solution."

"Symantec keeps increasing the price. I rate its pricing a seven on a scale of ten."

"Compared to other options, CA products are not that expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Insurance Company

12%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	45

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...

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What needs improvement with IBM Security Access Manager?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Security Access Manager?

We are still using the IBM BPM platform to automate the processes for our organization.I generally use Microsoft Project for project planning and schedule management, especially in relation to Orac...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?

The pricing has been very reasonable, but licensing costs vary based on the customer. It follows a user-based licensing model.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?

Symantec should develop a SaaS solution for cloud environments to make the solution available in various marketplaces for easy deployment. It should also offer bundle installation instead of one by...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?

I am a consultant and we consult for identity and network management. We work with Symantec, which is owned by Broadcom, and also with Microsoft and Oracle. Additionally, we work with open-source s...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access

January 2026

Download IBM Security Verify Access product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Identity Governance and Administration

January 2026

Symantec Identity Governance and Administration report

Download Symantec Identity Governance and Administration product report

Also Known As

IBM Security Verify Access (SVA), IBM Security Access Manager, ISAM

CA Identity Suite, Symantec IGA, Layer7 Identity Suite, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Minder, CA IAM, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Governance

Overview

IBM Security Verify Access is a complete authorization and network security policy management solution. It provides end-to-end protection of resources over geographically dispersed intranets and extranets.Provides a wide range of built-in authenticators and supports external authenticators.Provides permit and deny decisions for protected resources requests in the secure domain through the authorization API.Manages secure access to private internal network-based resources by using the public Internet's broad connectivity and ease of use with a corporate firewall system.

IBM

The Symantec Identity Governance and Administration (formerly CA Identity Suite) provides comprehensive identity management and governance capabilities with a simple, intuitive user experience. This user experience can dramatically simplify processes such as user access requests and access certifications, resulting in improved productivity and user satisfaction. In addition, the Symantec Identity Governance and Administration performs risk analysis and certification and enables remediation actions in real-time during the access provisioning steps, thereby improving audit performance and risk posture with preventive policy enforcement.

While providing these business and governance-centric capabilities for business users, the Symantec Identity Governance and Administration also delivers core enterprise-grade identity management and governance capabilities, including broad provisioning support for on-premise and cloud apps, extensibility and flexibility to integrate with other IT systems and consumer-grade scale. This means organizations are not forced to choose between usability and performance. With the Symantec Identity Governance and Administration, they can have both.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

POST Luxembourg

Acciona, Core Blox, DBS

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Identity Governance and Administration

February 2026

Free Report: IBM Security Verify Access vs. Symantec Identity Governance and Administration

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