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Opal vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Opal
Ranking in Access Management
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (11th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (20th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Opal is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Siteminder3.6%
Opal0.7%
Other95.7%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

Pranay Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
Focused workdays have replaced doomscrolling and now reduce my daily screen time significantly
Opal can be improved in some ways. In the paid version, there are multiple features, but in the freemium version, there are fewer features. The blockage of the application can be more rigorous. Right now, if we play two to three games, then a math game or anything, we are able to remove that lock. It should be more rigorous in some manner, and for some applications, it should be more rigorous. Application-wise rigorousness should be introduced. The different modes are good, but they should be more customizable according to the person. The end goal should meet whatever the objective is, so if the person has used more than six hours, then it should remind the person frequently that this application has used this time and this is an application you should not use. It should give us a timer or some kind of notification that the person will not use it anymore.
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

"Previously, my phone usage was around nine hours and fifteen minutes or more, but it has significantly reduced to around six hours and thirty minutes to seven hours, meaning two and a half to three hours has been reduced after using Opal as my primary screen time blocker."
"Opal has positively impacted my organization by reducing stress and increasing effectiveness for all our employees; it works better so all our employees have more time to sleep and they can investigate more."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"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."
"SSO is a very robust application."
"The most valuable feature for us is the configuration feature; it permits us to connect our company to the offices of our subsidiaries, so when we buy a company we can connect their IT infrastructure to ours."
"It really improved the speed to market from account creation through provisioning and onboarding, and as users move from system to system, their account access follows them so you don't need to create new credentials every time."
"CA Single Sign-on has helped us a lot; the user only needs to use credentials once and then they can single sign-on into other websites which are already integrated into the CA Single Sign-on product."
"It’s definitely an industry leader in the web access realm."
"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

"Opal can be improved in some ways."
"One of the features that needs improvement is the capability of implementing single sign-on in cloud."
"The OpenID Connect piece, we would like to see the new technologies baked into the product, as opposed to going out and using a different product to accomplish the same thing."
"I think they need to integrate some of the newer types of authentication into the product. I'm not seeing the innovation when it comes to biometrics in the product."
"We had some performance-related issues that caused some outages. Outages actually happened pretty frequently back then."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"Some of the features need to be improved. For example, the Federation feature."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Opal?
Opal can be improved in some ways. In the paid version, there are multiple features, but in the freemium version, there are fewer features. The blockage of the application can be more rigorous. Rig...
What is your primary use case for Opal?
The main use case of Opal for me is to reduce my screen time during my work hours, during my wake-up time, and during my sleeping time to improve my focus and feasibility towards my work and my act...
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

No data available
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Opal vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.