No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Okta Platform vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

Okta Platform
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (3rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
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 Okta Platform is 3.3%, up from 2.9% 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 (%)
Okta Platform3.3%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.8%
Other94.9%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

SN
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
Automated lifecycle management has cut onboarding times and now drives secure, clean access
Although I am a fan of Okta Platform overall, there are areas where it could improve security outcomes and reduce admin friction. My top improvement areas include the system log and analytics upgrade, which are great for point troubleshooting, but trending and root cause analysis across large tenants still require exporting to SIEM. Verbose queries and long-range retention costs can add up. Additionally, while certificate rotations are better than most, the process is still manual for busy portfolios, especially concerning multi-SP SAML certificate rotations and app metadata drift. Two more buckets of potential improvements for Okta Platform involve user experience and security. There is the issue of push fatigue and prompt sprawl, where users receive multiple prompts across different apps and sessions. I arrived at the rating of eight because the core controls are strong and reliable, but a few operational UX and UI gaps prevent it from being rated higher. The reasons for not giving it a nine or ten include ongoing issues concerning safety and change safety, the complexity of group rules and mappings, and the lack of robustness in policy management. Additionally, there remains a need for more manual involvement than necessary, especially for large portfolios and dual certificate rotation, along with proactive SP data metadata validation.
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

"We can automate the process of adding users to Okta if they are activated in Active Directory, or if they are added to the database of applications or Active Directory in the last couple of days."
"Time saved is a great example of return on investment, as Okta Workforce Identity has saved approximately 50 to 80 percent of our time."
"The most valuable feature of Okta Customer Identity is its SSO because it's very easy to use and it's user-friendly. Even the admin portal of the solution is very user-friendly, and you can walk through it with ease. Okta Customer Identity is not a complicated solution, and even the workflow automation feature is very, very easy to understand."
"The stability is fantastic and has never been down."
"Enabled MFA to access federated applications as well as increased user satisfaction through improved provisioning times and more reliable processes."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The technical support for Okta is really supportive."
"As far as our security team is concerned, the ease of implementing multifactor authentication is definitely the biggest value for our organization."
"I’m very satisfied with the product."
"The password vault and access to the systems are the most valuable features."
"CA PAM has session recording, which is a very valuable feature."
"Some of the valuable features are safe access to company resources, quick, comprehensible, and intuitive management interface, and good integration capabilities."
"It is the best product for monitoring the recorded session of your IT admins and external consultants."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"Whoever built it from the ground up, they understand how an organization is laid out."
"The access control component is solid, adding another layer of security beyond the basic OS security of Linux and Windows while keeping administration costs the same across different operating systems."
 

Cons

"All of the governance functionality and privileged account management could be improved."
"Okta Platform can be improved by enhancing the mobile application because sometimes it has issues."
"Okta Workforce Identity can improve by having more features in governance."
"The stability could be better."
"I would not say Okta Platform is a cost-effective solution. It is an enterprise-grade solution, so it is comparatively on the higher side in terms of cost."
"Okta Platform does not recognize when I have already verified myself once on my HubSpot login across multiple tabs."
"This user integration with the Okta integration network could be simplified."
"In terms of improvement, Okta Platform can focus more on governance and posture management."
"When there are new patches or upgrades, they need to test the new release well so it will not break the functional parts."
"I don't really know much on the pricing side."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"Yes, at first the cluster desynchronizes often."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"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."
"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 handled well by the system."
"Reporting is very limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is fair for what it offers."
"Price-wise, Okta Workforce Identity is a cheap solution. The overall cost depends on the license since you can negotiate with Okta or any of Okta's partners only if you opt for many licenses."
"This is an expensive solution but the security makes it worthwhile."
"Okta's pricing is right where it needs to be and right in the middle of the market."
"The pricing for Okta Workforce Identity could still be improved or made cheaper. It costs from 50 to 100 euros a year per user. Okta Workforce Identity has different packages you can choose from, and my previous company had all of them, particularly the full Okta suite."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."
"This solution is costly. Pricing is decent if you have less users, but it significantly goes up the more users you have, with its cost not justified."
"The product's price is high. For each feature, a certain payment is required."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"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."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
909,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Currently, in Okta Workforce Identity we get the two-digit authentication code. Instead of getting the two-digit authentication code, if we had an option to do fingerprint verification, that would ...
What is your primary use case for Okta Workforce Identity?
I don't have many details about Okta Workforce Identity. I use the tool just to sign in to different applications that we have. We basically set up Okta Workforce Identity in our mobile phone. We d...
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

Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Okta Platform vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.