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Okta Platform vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

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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
127
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)
13th
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 November 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Okta Platform is 10.9%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Okta Platform10.9%
Symantec Siteminder3.7%
Other85.4%
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

"Workforce Identity offers a comprehensive access management solution with multi-factor authentication, total control, and features like app access management, identity governance, and administration tools such as certification and access request management. These are typically found in identity management solutions, but Okta integrates them seamlessly into its user interface."
"Okta Workforce Identity has helped our organization by allowing us to work remotely in a secure environment."
"I am able to authenticate my users on cloud and SaaS applications such as Workday through Okta workflows."
"Okta Platform is a great IAM solution because it's a very mature and cloud-first IAM platform, making it perfect for companies or startups that are just starting out; they don't need to go through on-premise setups."
"Okta Platform has positively impacted my organization through measurable risk reduction, faster onboarding, and fewer tickets."
"Okta Platform is the gold standard when it comes to identity providers and the single sign-on experience."
"If your use case is multi-cloud data centers and hybrid cloud architecture, Okta is a solution to go to."
"It's easy to use and straightforward."
"Single Sign-On is the number one feature of SiteMinder that we're using."
"The feature that I mostly valued is the ease of installation on different systems, especially on Windows."
"It provides end users with SSO to our applications – they log in once and they can access all of our applications."
"It's more efficient; we're providing immense security to the applications, to Chase, and we're securing 70 million customers in Chase."
"Segregation duties is another great benefit. It has allowed us to automate the process of creating user accounts really well."
"I really like the robust functionality that this solution offers, such as federation, OAuth, security, and multi-tenancy, just to name a few."
"The product greatly facilitates a centralized identity and access management system."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
 

Cons

"For enterprises which really prefer to have their own identity within their own perimeter, Okta Platform might not be the solution they might look for."
"In the future, we'd like to see the product implement more security features, like, for example, zero-trust."
"It's not compatible with on-premises installations, unless you host it as a SaaS."
"I would appreciate it if Okta Workforce Identity becomes more user-friendly. Its API technology is complicated. Certain applications may pose challenges in terms of integration, especially when they require IDP technologies that aren't easily codable. While I can't provide specific examples, some applications may not integrate with Okta Workforce Identity."
"Okta should have at least a local peering partner for countries that align with or comply with GDPR, so there are no compliance or audit questions."
"The training is too costly."
"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."
"Okta Platform does not recognize when I have already verified myself once on my HubSpot login across multiple tabs."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"It seems that when there's a new version, patch, or service pack, we find bugs."
"It’s really difficult to initially configure, but once you know where the traps are, it’s not a big deal."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"Yes it can be complex, I think that's one area we have already given feedback to the product management, that is a little complex to get the set up and get it going and the upgrade process is very complex."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"It's not user friendly, but it's very customizable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing might be high, but it comes down when the number of people using the product goes up."
"The cost per user for this solution is really high and could be reduced."
"Okta has fairly competitive pricing."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"The solution is really expensive."
"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 solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"License is around US$20,000 annually."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"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 price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise65
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: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.