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Microsoft Entra ID vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

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

Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
14th
Ranking in Access Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 9.0%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID9.0%
Symantec Siteminder3.1%
Other87.9%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.
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

"I like how Entra allows you to upload a CSV file with user details for bulk user creation. This is useful for automation. Entra has made it easy to manage identity and access by integrating with all Microsoft services. Everything is managed in a single place, eliminating the need for another application."
"The most valuable features are the Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA. Another good functionality is registering enterprise applications to provide access to external parties. These four features are precious and are the most used across different use cases for various clients and projects."
"It is perfectly stable."
"The features of Microsoft Entra ID benefit my organization by streamlining everything for the customers that use Entra or the whole Microsoft platform."
"I use this solution on a daily basis and it's a very functional app that adds an extra layer when it comes to securing the data owned by my company."
"I would rate the support as ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Entra ID are the login and the conditional access pieces."
"It has features that have definitely helped to improve our security posture."
"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."
"Once we have our authentication and authorization policies set, they are easy to duplicate across all our applications instead of trying to develop them into each application individually."
"It’s definitely an industry leader in the web access realm."
"SiteMinder is an industry leading solution as everyone is using it."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with the Active Directory."
"The most valuable feature for us is the configuration feature; it permits us to connect our company to the offices of our subsidiaries, so when we buy a company we can connect their IT infrastructure to ours."
"This is the only access management product that I have come across which configures end-to-end and hosts resources."
"It restricts cookie replacement and provides enhanced ones, so the applications are safer, helping keep our data secure in a much better way without affecting user experience."
 

Cons

"Tech support has its up and downs. So, sometimes it will take one week, and other times two weeks to resolve a case."
"I want to be able to identify the audiences effectively and manage them."
"The security policy of Azure Active Directory should be based on a matrix so that we can easily visualize which users have access to what."
"I think there is room for improvement with actually discussing, and advertising Microsoft as a an authenticator. Many people just get confused and use Google, and I think if Microsoft would make more of an effort to penetrate the market, that would be key."
"The Azure AD Application Proxy, which helps you publish applications in a secure way, has room for improvement. We are moving from another solution into the Application Proxy and it's quite detailed. Depending on the role you're signing in as, you can end up at different websites, which wasn't an issue with our old solution."
"I think something can be improved, but it's working."
"I would like to dive into some of the things that we saw today around the workflows at this Microsoft event. I cannot say that they need to make it better because I do not have much experience with it, but something that is always applicable to Microsoft is that they need to be able to integrate with their competitors. If you look at IDP, they do not integrate with Okta."
"I would appreciate seeing provisioning with HR systems improve in Microsoft Entra ID because they have capabilities out of the box for Workday and Bamboo, but we don't use those."
"I think that one drawback to this product is that it's too big."
"It's not user friendly, but it's very customizable."
"There are certain integration points that can be leveraged and made more easy to deploy, like the REST APIs and things like that."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
"I'd like to see the federation piece made a little simpler."
"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."
"Identity Manager and GovernanceMinder should integrate better."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are a non-profit organization, so we get good prices from Microsoft for their products. It is working well, but it could be cheaper. For the type of organization we are, it would be good if they could give a little bit more and be more generous like Google, which has completely free services. Microsoft has free versions or web services called Office 365 E1, which is free for use, but we want to have it with more qualified clients."
"Its price is okay. It is easy to go from P1 to P2 license. It is not exactly a bargain, but I would recommend the P2 license."
"It is in line. Because we are so early, we have not had to come back on a cycle where we are having to negotiate again."
"The basic tier of Azure Active Directory is free, so many users use the service for free. For a small company having the security and compliance that Azure offers is a great benefit. For small companies that are using the basic services, not having to pay for Azure Active Directory is the main asset because they can manage their users and have authentications tools and security."
"We got a good deal. If you get rid of all the products providing features that Azure Suite can provide, then it makes sense cost-wise."
"Azure Active Directory has a very extensive licensing model. Most of the features are available in the free and basic version, and then there are premium P1 and P2 editions. The licensing model is based on how many users you have per month. In Australia, for a P1 license, the cost is 8 dollars. With P1 and P2 licenses, you get a lot of goodies around the security side of things. For example, User Identity Protection is available only in P2. These are extra features that allow you to have a pretty good security posture, but most of the required things are available in the free and basic version."
"The pricing is good; it's not cheap but very reasonable."
"It is costly."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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 licensing is fair for this solution."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business89
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise162
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that going through and being able to use these things is always part of delivering an M365 bundle, so I don't think the experience is great ...
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by open-sourcing it. You already have Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is open-source Linux in Microsoft. One major shift for Microsoft would be using the commo...
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

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.