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Idira Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

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

Idira Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Idira Privileged Access Manager is 8.6%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 2.0%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Idira Privileged Access Manager8.6%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager2.0%
Other89.4%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Singaravelu C - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk Engineer at Tata Consultancy
Provides full visibility into user activity and ensures secure end-to-end access across critical systems
In CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, I see room for improvement as I am working in the on-premises networks, and now we are also having the cloud-based PAM. So there, everything is maintained by the CyberArk Privileged Access Manager team, and we are only maintaining the PSM servers. So it is already upgraded from the on-premises network to the cloud network. If you ask me what we can implement beyond that, I just need a few minutes to think about what new things, because it is already an end-to-end security on-premises itself. Now, when it comes to PCloud, Privileged Cloud, it is more secure than the on-premises networks because most of the things are handled using the cloud itself. So it is an already upgraded version; we do not need to implement something new. But if you think in that way, we can have a chance to implement our things. If anything could be improved in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, I think we could build a small agent AI in my team, we could give access to these logs—the Vault logs, PSM logs, and CPM logs. Whenever the system is going down, the AI will automatically check. If we actually implement agent AI in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, it will check the logs, and if any errors are coming, it automatically triggers alerts and gives the solution. That is the best improvement I can think of because these days, most things are done by agent AI. So if we also implement this agent AI in CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, we can add more features.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager assists in meeting compliance and regulatory requirements such as HIPAA and SOX, ensuring I adhere to necessary standards in my operations."
"The biggest return on investment would be the security itself."
"The biggest feature is the security of the overall solution. It's very secure. The vaulting technology and the number of security layers involved in the vault, where privileged accounts are actually stored, is the heart of the solution."
"Compared to other products, CyberArk is extremely easy to install and configure."
"The module called PTA, Privileged Threat Analytics, is very useful. When you give access to a user, it monitors and detects if the user's behavior is unusual. After giving access, it continually checks if the user is the same user."
"CyberArk has the biggest number of features available when you compare it to other PAN solutions like BeyondTrust, Thycotic, and Delinea."
"It provides the broadest point of view for privileged access management solutions in the market."
"This is a complete solution that can detect cyber attacks well."
"The system is very stable."
"Comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution."
"The reason we chose CA PAM is it worked in the scenarios that we wanted it to, and it just worked without problems."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"The password vault and access to the systems are the most valuable features."
"It has simplified and unified the access of the users to a single point of access."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
"We can enforce complicated password policies and very important frequent password changes."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, they are a hindrance, when you know you have been through the issue again, and they want to gather the same log files, start from the basics, and we already know we are past that."
"It needs better documentation with more examples for the configuration files and API/REST integration"
"CyberArk has brought a feature called Vendor Team Manager, but it does not provide full access. It requires the vendor team leader to be onboarded as a local account instead of using their email address. Improvements could be made to onboard the vendor team leaders using their email, allowing them to manage their own team. That would greatly reduce the overhead in managing vendor team members."
"Over the past seven years, I have seen a lot of ups and downs with the product, but now I am happy with the version that we are using now."
"The lead product has a slow process. There are some reports and requirements from CyberArk which are not readily available as an applicable solution. We have made consistent management requests in the logs."
"We found a lot of errors during the initial setup. They should work to improve the implementation experience and to remove errors from the process."
"Its GUI is very confusing."
"Enhanced PSM support for Java based applications."
"The accessibility and other issues were big blockers for our customer: The local accounts with AD integration multi-tenant deployment Java installation on the local machines; those three elements were the biggest blockers for our project when we used it, and we were always putting out fires to do that."
"Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless."
"The demonstration and consideration portion does not work the best. It's not that intuitive."
"The user interface and dependence on applets and Windows could use some improvement."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features."
"I would like to see better integration with Security Incident Management solutions, a SIM, like a Splunk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With the current model of licensing, for my use cases, sometimes it's hard to convince the management and get budget approvals for it. It's expensive and you're not getting anything new. It's just a control, but in terms of risk, you are covering a big impact on the company. Improvement in the licensing prices is something I would want to have."
"Previously, the pricing was very meager. They started publicizing and advertising the solution, growing CyberArk, as an organization. They also changed their pricing with that growth, e.g., the pricier the product, the more people who will purchase it."
"Quite expensive"
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a six out of ten."
"The solution is available at a high price"
"If you want a Ferrari, it will cost you. The solution is really nice, so it costs the client, but in the long run, it is very good. If you buy a solution that costs a lot to maintain because it is not stable, and you are frequently asking for consultant support, it costs more."
"I hope to learn how the pricing works so that I can understand it better, but I am certain it is not inexpensive."
"Compared to other solutions, it is costly."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise175
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The pricing is reasonable compared to other software options we evaluated, and it is straightforward. However, overall costs depend on deployment size and licensing requirements.
What needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
While the access control capabilities are useful, streamlining some configuration and policy management workflows could enhance the user experience for administrators. A simpler interface for creat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I would rate it as an eight and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handl...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
With the customers that I have so far, I help them broker RDP sessions to sensitive servers, particularly those that manage aspects like physical access. I have also done it for backend databases, ...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.