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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Tivoli Access Manager [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Siteminder
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), Access Management (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user711612 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reverse proxy provides central control over authentication and authorization.
It is a single product that caters for all the business needs throughout the organization. It provides a seamless integration that in turn encourages most of the applications to use the SSO features Reverse proxy is the most valuable feature as it provides central control over authentication and…
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

"I like the primary function of this product allowing the administration of user/network accounts with a fair amount of ease."
"The combination of TAM with IDM in IBM Tivoli Identity Manager helped us to realize robust and secure authentication infrastructure in accordance with industry regulations and laws."
"The SSO, URL-based access control, OAuth 2 and OIDC are the most valuable features."
"TAM component integration and their SSO capabilities and transparency are the most valuable features I have found."
"It is a good solution for anyone to take to their enterprise and get a buy in."
"Before the solution was implemented it took around 2-3 weeks to get all the necessary account information for a new employee in my organization, and since implementation this now only takes a few minutes."
"Capabilities of advanced security are enhanced to support strong, flexible authentifications and authentications based on risks as well as critical internet vulnerabilities."
"Since its birth it is an unbelievable stable product."
"They really made life simple for the user and the user experience has improved."
"It is very scalable; we have a very large customer base: 75 million customers, and about 40 million log in a day, so the scalability is very good."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"Technical support has gotten a lot better."
"Using this product makes it easier for enterprises to integrate a majority or even all their apps into one single solution for access."
"It has performed very well, it does what we need it to do, it's reliable, and it doesn't impose any overhead on the user or on the platform."
"It provides a secure interface and single sign-on to a variety of different applications."
"SiteMinder is an industry leading solution as everyone is using it."
 

Cons

"We have had stability issues lately with the hardware and SAN that the product runs on."
"The product has not been updated with emerging technologies over the years specifically around AJAX, REST and Mobile app integration."
"I have not tested the stability yet."
"The profiling element is incredibly robust, but also equally as complex, it requires an off-site course to be able to understand the context or the plethora of options available."
"Administration of the product can be improved a lot."
"Sometimes, there are long running support tickets (for 6-8 months) and that is unacceptable from the customer's point of view."
"Installation and configuration. If you don’t know the requirements of the supporting components, it could be complicated to install and this has been improved in the later versions that are renamed to IBM Tivoli Security Access Manager."
"The self-service portal needs improvement."
"Not great. The first level of support is not up to the mark or able to understand the actual problem."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"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."
"They get us answers, but often they’re too slow."
"Probably the biggest thing that SiteMinder needs is a refreshed UI for administrators."
"I'd like to see the federation piece made a little simpler."
"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"It seems that when there's a new version, patch, or service pack, we find bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"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."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Okta, One Identity and others in Single Sign-On (SSO). Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.