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Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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

Microsoft Purview Privilege...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
15th
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 August 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management is 1.6%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.8%, 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 (%)
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.8%
Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management1.6%
Other96.6%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2797275 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 201-500 employees
Access control has improved approvals and tracking and now supports just-in-time administration
Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management definitely has a good amount of value for me because I associate it in a way that if someone wants to try to do something, they have to get approval. This means someone doing something has to put in what ticket information is relevant so I can keep track of why they are doing it. They are not just going in there with access to do whatever they want to do. It has to be done with a purpose and I think that is a big key point of it. The Just-in-Time access feature has not really helped me a lot more with managing privileged access. I think it is just a matter of how things are set up. If I need to build a server, I have to go in and increase my privileges for an amount of time that is allowed to build the server and then it elapses and then I am kicked out and then the next time I have to do it all over again. This is nice because it keeps track of what is going on. However, it would be nicer if I got a better reporting tool that can show what was happening instead of an email every single time it happens. The access review capabilities of Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management definitely benefits me so that I have a better understanding of who has access to what and what they are doing at what time.
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

"Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management is easy to understand, particularly its menu."
"The integration with Azure Identity is a significant advantage, as it allows for seamless automation and power app integration."
"The ability to provide just-in-time privileged access and set specific parameters for access duration is highly beneficial."
"The integration with other Microsoft solutions is a standout feature of Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management."
"Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management definitely has a good amount of value for me because I associate it in a way that if someone wants to try to do something, they have to get approval."
"It has simplified and unified the access of the users to a single point of access."
"Comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution."
"The solution has the capability to address hybrid eco-systems, both on-premises and cloud services, and integration with the AD RBAC model is also a great feature, as we can tie it to the central repository."
"The product is very scalable in terms of concurrent sessions that it can handle at a time, number of device it can support, accounts that it can manage, or number of nodes that you can deploy in a cluster."
"One of the valuable features is the randomly generated password."
"It will provide us with more security."
"Technical support is very good."
"You can do A2A integration. You can have your own script, which can then run outside of PA to retrieve the password and perform other tasks."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, its functions, like XLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel, do not find situations properly, especially without the use of pivot tables."
"Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management could improve integration with multiple cloud environments."
"I do not see any financial benefit after implementing Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management, however, this question would be better answered by my manager."
"The Just-in-Time access feature has not really helped me a lot more with managing privileged access."
"There's room for improvement in Microsoft's documentation, as it often lacks clarity."
"Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management has made progress in providing insights into generative AI tools being used within organizations, but customers need to further track where sensitive information is being used within AI tooling."
"A better discovery interface of accounts. It does do discovery of accounts for Windows servers, and you could do UNIX servers as well, but it's kind of clunky how it does it."
"Updates get difficult for the client. It needs to improve."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"Yes, at first the cluster desynchronizes often."
"We have encountered stability issues at various software and hardware versions, but we worked with the support team to quickly stabilize our environment."
"The first setup was complex. The implementation, to me, was very bad."
"I would like this solution to be simpler. It should have a one-click access that works together with AWS."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"It is reasonably priced."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management?
I would say some of the things that could probably be improved is probably the reporting aspects. Being able to get a general and easier setup of reporting to show what was enabled for each day by ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management?
I utilize Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management for all of our access inside of Azure and 365, associating different rights to different areas. Whether it is creating, assigning licensing ...
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management?
With these two solutions, Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management and Admin By Request, other than the fact that it is for cloud and for on-premises, there are no other main differences. I w...
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

Microsoft Privileged Access Management (PAM)
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.