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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] vs Symantec Siteminder vs Symantec VIP Access Manager 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:
 

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.
Berk Onur - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant at Cyberwise
With its mobile application, this tool offers a convenient and user-friendly experience to its users
To improve the tool, I think that the solution should consider integrations with other cybersecurity and IT technologies, such as Privileged Access Management and Site Integration. Additionally, the implementation of second-factor authentication via Symantec VIP Access Manager, CyberArk, and Delinea, among other technologies, could be best for the product. While the existing technology is okay, improving the integration capabilities for Symantec VIP Access Manager would benefit the product. I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company. While many cybersecurity solutions can function independently, they often lack integration with our systems due to missed integration points. Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration effort with the end application is quite straightforward and easy."
"The Verify feature: A push method which customers are going for."
"OAuth 2 is now the de facto standard for API protection and scoped authorized delegation. IBM TAM now supports OAuth 2 and can act as fully compliant OAuth 2 authorization server."
"Single Sign-On functionality is valuable because the core purpose of the product is to allow universal (or bespoke) SSO for application suites."
"SAML 2.0."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"It is pretty easy to learn."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"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?"
"Authentication & Authorization are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes. That has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"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."
"The VPN we are using is good and working quite well."
"It's a good tool. It's pretty straightforward."
"The tool has been very stable, in my experience. Also, I haven't faced any issues or problems with integration or connectivity."
"Cloud-based service and management."
"The product is useful for providing user access from an in-built office server as we follow the work-from-home model."
"Other than it provides us with remote access, so it's fairly easy to install, fairly easy to set up, and provides us the ability to get into our corporate environment."
"It is easy to use."
"The two-factor authentication is most definitely valuable and moves us closer to being able to check off those important boxes for compliance."
 

Cons

"Multi-factor authentication with social integration needs to improve."
"Looking at their roadmap, they have a broad grasp of the security features which the industry needs."
"The self-service portal needs improvement."
"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."
"An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for the newer appliance versions for hosting the virtual appliances on AWS will help."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"It gets out of sync with Active Directory or whatever it might be, whatever the authentication piece is on Active Directory, and they just reset it on the backend. I never have to contact the vendor."
"If they had dashboards or a report for managers or executives, then it would allow them to see the status and have it make sense to them."
"The gateway server is a RADIUS server, but it lacks the functionality of returning RADIUS attributes other than those that are required for the gateway to authenticate the users."
"I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company...Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial."
"It is challenging to use when installing a new version."
"Every time that I have a new phone or computer, it takes a little longer to deploy it."
"The User Store synchronization part needs to improve. Also, the logs, reports, and dashboard can be improved."
"Maybe Symantec could consider providing a step-by-step guide for first-time users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"I can say that the solution is worth the money."
"Licensing and pricing seems very fair."
"There are additional costs for maintenance."
"There is a one-time setup fee plus the licenses are provided as per the number of users. For SMS and voice calls, the costs are separate."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
25%
Insurance Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
 

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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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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. Cur...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Maine Medical Center, Aria S.p.A
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Okta, Cisco and others in Single Sign-On (SSO). Updated: January 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.