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Okta Workforce Identity vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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 Workforce Identity
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (3rd), Access Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (11th)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
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 July 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Okta Workforce Identity is 2.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Tor Nordhagen - PeerSpot reviewer
Extremely easy to work with, simple to set up, and reasonably priced
The drawback of this solution is that in our shops, many staff members sometimes have to be borrowed from one shop to another and the solution does not really support having multiple roles. The user experience we would like to have when a person works in shop A which pays their salary is that they should have access to pretty much everything. Maybe you have somebody who is a manager in that shop A, he should be able to order new wear, he should be able to change the pricing, he should be able to empty the cash registry, and ship it to the bank. But when for instance, in COVID, people had to fill in for people in shops where a lot of people were sick, then they had to actually use user accounts of people that work in shop B. If you were employed in shop A, you could not work in shop B without borrowing somebody else's user ID and password. Which is really bad. We haven't been able to work around that and Okta Workforce Identity does not have a solution for it. We are now piloting their identity governance solution. Obviously, it's easy to give somebody access, give them an account, and give them roles, but it's hard to maintain that. For example, if you moved from, say working in a shop to working in a warehouse. But why do you still have all this shop access? The solution has until now not had anything to really support the process of taking away access. But now we are in a better release program of Okta's identity governance solution. Although it's very basic, the solution has started on a journey, but identity governance is something that Okta Workforce Identity really needs to improve. The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface. The admin interface is good enough for us technical people because that's all we need. We work with the product and we're able to see the data but when it comes to presenting the service portal, Okta Workforce Identity does not have any capabilities really for making it look pretty. To add branding and different graphical user interface elements than Okta basic for essentially delegated admin for the business-to-business portal is horrifying because you're essentially using the tech admin. The only option we had and used, was to take the tech admin console and strip it. so that a vendor that has some goods that are sold in the shops, when they want to add a user on their side, say a driver or a packer on their side who should know how much they've packed in a truck to come to our warehouse, then the user interface that this vendor is using, these functional people will then have to use an extremely basic user interface.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"It is a very scalable solution."
"It's reliable and it does what it is advertised to do."
"The most valuable functions are Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)."
"The product’s most valuable feature is multifactor authentication."
"The solution so far has been very stable."
"The feature that is most valuable to me is the automated user provisioning that we set up using Okta as a major part of that process."
"They have good push authentications."
"The solution can scale very well."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"We can enforce complicated password policies and very important frequent password changes."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"The interface is very friendly, colorful, and bold."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
 

Cons

"The solution is very expensive."
"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the support system, they are too slow."
"In my country, there's a lot of stealing of mobile phones, and mobile phones are the authentication device through the Okta application. If someone should steal my mobile phone, which is very common in my country, he or she might have access to my company account. That's my concern."
"The lifecycle management part can be improved. It should also have identity governance and the ability to choose a specific factor authentication at the application level. Its licensing and pricing can also be improved."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve provisioning it can be made simpler."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"SSO and MFA for improved end-user experience, and protection against password spray attacks, account password self-service."
"The setup is complex."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"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."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"The management console could be improved."
"The support for other remote assistance tools would be excellent. Free included tools in Windows (Remote Assist) and Microsoft SCCM Configuration Manager (ConMgr Remote Control) allow companies to reduce the amount of RDP connections and expand the usage of the tools are frequently used by companies to provide technical support for remote assistance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"License is around US$20,000 annually."
"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."
"Though I don't know about the licensing model of the product, I wouldn't be surprised if Okta offers a per user license subscription model."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Workforce Identity is well-priced."
"The cost per user for this solution is really high and could be reduced."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"It is reasonably priced."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"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."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I believe that if we integrate the workflows section into the main Okta Workforce Identity dashboard, it can be very useful.
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
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 Workforce Identity vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.