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Red Hat Single Sign On vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Red Hat Single Sign On
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Red Hat Single Sign On is 1.9%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Siteminder2.6%
Red Hat Single Sign On1.9%
Other95.5%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Baruzzi - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Syntlogo GmbH
A stable and flexible solution with some basic capabilities
I set up Red Hat Single Sign-On in half an hour. I had to install a single sign-on solution for a customer. I reviewed a list of all available products, which were no more than fifty, and analyzed them. I chose it because it was convincing, modern, and based on technology from 2015. I put my trust in this product, and after nine years, I feel confident in my decision. Deploying this solution usually takes half an hour. You need an operating system running, then deploy the packages and prepare the interfaces. I rate the initial setup a ten out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
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

"Red Hat SSO integrates well with our other solutions. Using OIDC protocols and ITL integration, employees can authenticate with Red Hat SSO and access our microservices."
"It is very easy to scale and use as you want."
"Good support for single sign-on protocols."
"Red Hat SSO has a lot of very concise, well laid out documentation, which is available in the free edition as well."
"Red Hat SSO has a lot of very concise, well laid out documentation, which is available in the free edition as well."
"I like that the solution is open source and you can use a commercial edition of it without any charge."
"The solution is flexible and has the same basic capabilities right out of the box. The most important feature of this product is that it is a Red double-sided product. One side is a well-known open-source project; the other is a Red Hat commercial product. The commercial product benefits from all the experience and contributions of the community, making it a very well-developed product."
"The product’s most valuable feature is its ability to assign only one password for the user at a false value."
"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"The valuable features are security in general and ease of use, more specifically ease of use for the developers, and security where the developer doesn't have to know about authentication or security."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"The solution has saved our company from a lot of problems."
"With Single Sign-On, we don't have to do anything in our system, and after they deploy the application, everything works seamlessly."
"CA SSO is helping us a lot in providing the access solution to the customers."
"It's really increased the security of our applications, and in some cases, has provided much more security."
 

Cons

"They could provide more checks and balances to find out if there have been any security lapses, e.g., if somebody is trying to break into the system."
"They could provide more checks and balances to find out if there have been any security lapses, e.g., if somebody is trying to break into the system. Some other products have these detection mechanisms in case someone is trying to hack into the system or find out a user's passwords."
"I think they could provide additional features in terms of users trying to manipulate the system with regard to security."
"Security could be improved."
"The product’s technical support services could be better."
"Red Hat SSO's architecture could be updated."
"Red Hat publishes much more and communicates its actions and plans. They could provide words, maps, and other resources."
"With the other ones, we’ve had problems, and they don’t really match our business needs."
"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."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"For us, getting to that person or to the second level of support is time consuming."
"The documentation is not good enough, particularly the installation documentation could be improved."
"There is a considerable improvement in the product from previous versions, but a few items we feel need a little attention are the web agent installation process and steps – as it behaves differently on the same OS."
"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"I would give the technical support a rating of 2-3/10."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Red Hat Single Sign On is expensive."
"The license is around $8000 USD."
"If you want support, that is when you use the paid version. There are different support categories that you can pay for, which provide different support levels. E.g., there is a quick response if you pay a higher amount, where the response time is within a few hours."
"It is a low cost product. This product can be used by non-profit organizations or universities, when they don't want to invest a lot of money."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Insurance Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Single Sign On?
I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Single Sign On?
Red Hat publishes much more and communicates its actions and plans. They could provide words, maps, and other resources. Scalability could be improved, too. It could provide more documentation.
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Single Sign On?
Earlier, customers used to authenticate the user before they used the application. With the help of Single Sign On, the customer logs in and uses all of the customer's applications without authenti...
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

Red Hat Single Sign-On, Red Hat SSO, RH SSO, RH-SSO
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 Red Hat Single Sign On vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.