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Okta Platform vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2025

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)
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (4th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
12th
Ranking in Access Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Okta Platform is 8.1%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Okta Workforce Identity8.1%
Symantec Siteminder2.7%
Other89.2%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

SumitMundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Admin Systems at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Authentication process improves security with quick and intuitive user interface
The best feature is the speed and execution of Okta Workforce Identity. The moment you click on single sign-on, you immediately get the notification on your mobile phone, then you do the authentication and within a second you get authenticated. The entire customer experience is very good. The user interface is pretty simple, straightforward, and really good. Multi-factor authentication in Okta Workforce Identity is very useful so people who do not have access or are trying to access using just a user ID and password will be completely blocked because of this two-factor authentication. You will get the code, and as your device is authorized in the system, only that device can be used for the authentication purpose. A third person trying to access or hack your data will not be able to do that anymore. Additionally, you don't have to remember your passwords going forward. Previously, every 60 days or 90 days, passwords kept changing. With the two-factor authentication or single sign-on option in Okta Workforce Identity, you don't have to remember it anymore or write down passwords in plain text. If something goes wrong, we have the IAM team which can unlock your account immediately if you have issues.
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

"My total rating for Okta is ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of this solution for most customers is access management."
"The tool provides a single place of contact for managing users. We only need to manage users in Okta Workforce Identity, eliminating the need to duplicate efforts across different systems. For example, if a user needs to be decommissioned, we don't have to go through all the systems and cloud services; we delete the user in one place. This process is automated with our HR system for both organizations, simplifying user lifecycle management."
"The most valuable functions are Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)."
"The product is easy to use."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are MFA, and SSO, which have high security."
"Adaptive authentication in Okta Customer Identity is a flexible feature that is very secure and user-friendly."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."
"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"It is reliable."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"The solution has features that allow you to easily distinguish between protected and unprotected resources."
 

Cons

"On the admin side, we can create our own passwords instead of generating one, which is usually difficult to explain to a user."
"Areas for improvement with Okta Workforce Identity would be in the governance place; for me, it is light."
"Whenever I write Cypress test cases, we encounter problems with logging in through Okta."
"Okta Workforce Identity can improve by having more features in governance."
"The initial setup could be easier to do."
"In some setup cases, there are issues with attributes not going in properly."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"It's not compatible with on-premises installations, unless you host it as a SaaS. We were not able to do that. For example, imagine a scenario where the cloud is not available. Then, Okta will not work for you. That use case will readily fail because it doesn't have an on-premises installation that you can use to authenticate or provide identity and access management. If you have a purely on-premises solution that is not connected to the internet, then this will not work. This is one area that can be improved."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"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."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"If the reporting feature can be integrated into SSO itself that will be an icing on the cake."
"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."
"The initial setup of Symantec SiteMinder was a bit tricky. I would rate it a seven on a scale of one to ten, where ten indicates an easy setup."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"The licensing is per user per month and includes full technical support."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are ...
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 do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
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 ...
 

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: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.