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Okta Platform vs Symantec Siteminder 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 Single Sign-On (SSO)
1st
Ranking in Access Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (3rd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
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 Okta Platform is 10.3%, down from 11.1% 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 (%)
Okta Platform10.3%
Symantec Siteminder3.1%
Other86.6%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

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
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

"The initial setup is easy."
"Overall, I have had a good experience."
"The most valuable features are ease of operation and visibility."
"The onboarding is the solution's most valuable aspect, as it helps us save time in terms of creating a password for each of the SaaS applications versus Okta, where you have this one single pane of glass to see who has what application or who needs which application."
"The most valuable feature of this solution for most customers is access management."
"Overall, I would rate Okta Customer Identity a ten."
"In my opinion, Okta Platform's best features include federation, which is very important, especially when you work with different systems."
"The key feature of the solution is the multifactor authentication itself."
"We're able to have one single centralized way of logging in when you have shared sessions across all applications."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"Authentication Authorization for our websites are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes and that has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"It has performed very well, it does what we need it to do, it's reliable, and it doesn't impose any overhead on the user or on the platform."
"It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate."
"SSO affords us the opportunity to have a federated connection between our members, groups, and companies, giving providers the ability to transpose across the different Delta Dentals without having to authenticate more than once with one identity for all sites."
 

Cons

"There is room for Okta Customer Identity to improve by increasing the reliability for the server end, creating more directories, and focusing on internal users rather than external or contract-based ones."
"They should focus on improving them to provide top-notch team access management while still offering those typical features."
"Okta Platform's pricing model can be expensive for smaller organizations, affecting user feature accessibility."
"There is no proper documentation on integrating test cases with Okta, and this issue is troubling whenever I try to implement it."
"The one thing which can be improved in Okta Platform would be the certifications which they provide."
"Users sometimes have difficulty getting verification codes."
"One feature I can mention is that there should be an optional registration option for multiple MFA factors."
"The product is expensive compared to other tools."
"The technical support team is not very proactive."
"I will say the user interface for login is kind of plain. They could make it a little prettier."
"The documentation is not good enough, particularly the installation documentation could be improved."
"I've seen a lot of analytics capability being built in for a number of products. Obviously, I want to be able to use analytics on CA SSO as well."
"We're currently unable to find information about if the solution can do a full implementation with SQL. Some better and more accessible documentation for new users or those curious about the product would be helpful."
"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."
"We use technical support. It's not the best feature of CA. Lots of enterprise product companies have variable support offerings. CA are not the worst, but they're not the best. They're okay."
"It's a hit and miss thing, like all support organizations. For the most part, for simple problems they can get to a resolution fairly quickly, but if the problem is a little more complicated, they really struggle with getting us a solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe it competes well. The pricing is pretty competitive. I know that Microsoft also provides something similar with its MFA and identity services."
"The licensing is per user per month and includes full technical support."
"Okta has fairly competitive pricing."
"Okta Customer Identity is not an expensive solution."
"Okta's pricing is right where it needs to be and right in the middle of the market."
"The price of the solution is fair for what it offers."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
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 Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise63
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

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 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

Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

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.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Okta Platform vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.