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IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager [EOL] vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

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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 Federated Identi...
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
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) (14th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (16th)
 

Featured Reviews

AN
Presales Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A stable and scalable web security and identity management solution.
The solution is good, but it's pretty complex. So, I wouldn't recommend this solution to anyone without extensive security knowledge. The administration and configuration aren't straightforward. If the implementation takes up to six months, it will be costly. On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager an eight.
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

"IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager is a good solution. It's both stable and scalable."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"CA Single Sign-on has helped us a lot; the user only needs to use credentials once and then they can single sign-on into other websites which are already integrated into the CA Single Sign-on product."
"It's definitely a good product and you won't go wrong if you choose this product."
"SSO affords us the opportunity to have a federated connection between our members, groups, and companies, giving providers the ability to transpose across the different Delta Dentals without having to authenticate more than once with one identity for all sites."
"It has improved our user experience quite a bit because they can log in once and go to any application they want, as long as it is integrated with SiteMinder, which was not the case before."
"It puts the expertise around authentication and security on our organization where it belongs."
"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

"It would be better if the administration and configurations were more straightforward. The architectural level is also quite complex."
"Once you get past the first level, it’s good support. Typically once you’ve supported the CA product for a couple of years, you probably know more than first-level support, so it’s frustrating to explain to them the issue."
"Identity Manager and GovernanceMinder should integrate better."
"Probably the biggest thing that SiteMinder needs is a refreshed UI for administrators."
"They get us answers, but often they’re too slow."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"We go by agents for authentication; anything relating to agent configuration could be improved, or even agentless security."
"I would give the technical support a rating of 2-3/10."
"There are certain integration points that can be leveraged and made more easy to deploy, like the REST APIs and things like that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers pay for the license every year or every three years. It's not available on a monthly basis."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
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 Federated Identity Manager
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EXA Corporation
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Access Manager with Managed Services vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
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