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

IBM and Broadcom are both solutions in the Web Access Management category. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.
Symantec Siteminder
Read 75 Symantec Siteminder reviews
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  • 77 Comparison Views
91% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager [EOL] and Symantec Siteminder based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed OpenText Access Manager with Managed Services vs. Symantec Siteminder Report (Updated: September 2025).
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OpenText Access Manager with Managed Services vs. Symantec Siteminder
September 2025
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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 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) (12th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

AN
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.
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Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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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."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"It is reliable."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."
"The solution has features that allow you to easily distinguish between protected and unprotected resources."
"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?"
"Federation is valuable, for sure, because we have a lot of third-party vendors that we need to integrate with, and this is a turnkey solution in some ways."
More Symantec Siteminder pros
 

Cons

"It would be better if the administration and configurations were more straightforward. The architectural level is also quite complex."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"The tech support has not been very good for us so we don't use them anymore. We have had some issues. Nobody is perfect."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"We would like to the OAuth be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"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."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
More Symantec Siteminder cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
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

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What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Siteminder?
My experience with pricing is that it is all good.
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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 ...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

No data available
Ping Identity Platform vs Symantec Siteminder Logo
Ping Identity Platform vs Symantec Siteminder
Compared 35% of the time
ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder Logo
ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder
Compared 25% of the time
Microsoft Entra ID vs Symantec Siteminder Logo
Microsoft Entra ID vs Symantec Siteminder
Compared 18% of the time
Okta Workforce Identity vs Symantec Siteminder Logo
Okta Workforce Identity vs Symantec Siteminder
Compared 17% of the time
Red Hat Single Sign On vs Symantec Siteminder Logo
Red Hat Single Sign On vs Symantec Siteminder
Compared 5% of the time
More Symantec Siteminder Competitors
 

Product Reports

No data available
Buyer's Guide
Symantec Siteminder
October 2025
Symantec Siteminder reportDownload Symantec Siteminder product report
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Federated Identity Manager
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager provides web and federated single sign-on (SSO) to users across multiple applications. It uses federated SSO for security-rich information sharing for private, public and hybrid cloud deployments. With it you can enable security-rich business collaboration in the cloud.

IBM

Symantec® SiteMinder is designed to secure the modern enterprise through a unified access management platform that applies the appropriate authentication mechanism to positively identify users; provides single sign-on and identity federation for seamless access to any application; enforces granular security policies to stop unauthorized access to sensitive resources; and monitors and manages the entire user session to prevent session hijacking. Finally, Symantec SiteMinder is battle-tested and has been deployed in the largest IT environments in the world.

Broadcom
 

Sample Customers

EXA Corporation
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Buyer's Guide
OpenText Access Manager with Managed Services vs. Symantec Siteminder
September 2025
Free Report: OpenText Access Manager with Managed Services vs. Symantec Siteminder
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