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IBM Tivoli Federated Identity 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 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) (13th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (12th)
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"It's really increased the security of our applications, and in some cases, has provided much more security."
"If you need the ability for just logging without buying an application and want good security, it’s an awesome solution."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"Whatever you're considering, this is a good solution."
"The product greatly facilitates a centralized identity and access management system."
 

Cons

"It would be better if the administration and configurations were more straightforward. The architectural level is also quite complex."
"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."
"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"Unfortunately, SSO doesn't really allow us to do that. We have to basically do it through brute force."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
"We have challenges, performance issues for which we’re unable to find the root cause as we scale."
"The admin UI needs to be more stable."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers pay for the license every year or every three years. It's not available on a monthly basis."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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 solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
20%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

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

Ask a question
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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: June 2026.
903,147 professionals have used our research since 2012.