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Symantec Siteminder vs Symantec VIP Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

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)
Symantec VIP Access Manager
Ranking in Access Management
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.4%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec VIP Access Manager is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Siteminder3.4%
Symantec VIP Access Manager1.7%
Other94.9%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Berk Onur - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant at Cyberwise
With its mobile application, this tool offers a convenient and user-friendly experience to its users
To improve the tool, I think that the solution should consider integrations with other cybersecurity and IT technologies, such as Privileged Access Management and Site Integration. Additionally, the implementation of second-factor authentication via Symantec VIP Access Manager, CyberArk, and Delinea, among other technologies, could be best for the product. While the existing technology is okay, improving the integration capabilities for Symantec VIP Access Manager would benefit the product. I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company. While many cybersecurity solutions can function independently, they often lack integration with our systems due to missed integration points. Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"I liked the debugging part. There are only two files (trace file and log file) that you need to look into while performing debugging, and the logs give you the exact info on where and what needs to be fixed."
"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."
"It's definitely a good product and you won't go wrong if you choose this product."
"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Authentication & Authorization are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes. That has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"Federation is valuable, for sure, because we have a lot of third-party vendors that we need to integrate with, and this is a turnkey solution in some ways."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"Mostly from a product expert's point of view, it provides solutions for my clients."
"It offers more platform support, like Apple, Android, and Microsoft."
"The two-factor authentication is most definitely valuable and moves us closer to being able to check off those important boxes for compliance."
"VIP is a strong, cloud-based authentication service that enables organizations to secure access to networks and applications to prevent unauthorized logins to company resources, even when passwords have been compromised or shared."
"Other than it provides us with remote access, so it's fairly easy to install, fairly easy to set up, and provides us the ability to get into our corporate environment."
"The VPN we are using is good and working quite well."
"It is a fast and easy solution for end users, and you are always online."
"If you're looking for a fairly lightweight client that works very well for remote access purposes, I think Symantec is definitely a good product."
 

Cons

"Not great. The first level of support is not up to the mark or able to understand the actual problem."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
"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."
"We would like the OAuth to be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"All the problems that we reported actually have never been resolved. We could not capture enough information for CA to be able to debug the problem."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"Symantec SiteMinder is not easy to set up and maintain at an infrastructure level."
"One of the features that needs improvement is the capability of implementing single sign-on in cloud."
"It gets out of sync with Active Directory or whatever it might be, whatever the authentication piece is on Active Directory, and they just reset it on the backend. I never have to contact the vendor."
"In the next release, I would like the ability to work offline with remote access."
"The User Store synchronization part needs to improve. Also, the logs, reports, and dashboard can be improved."
"The gateway server is a RADIUS server, but it lacks the functionality of returning RADIUS attributes other than those that are required for the gateway to authenticate the users."
"If they had dashboards or a report for managers or executives, then it would allow them to see the status and have it make sense to them."
"Geofencing needs improvement."
"The User Store synchronization part needs to improve. Also, the logs, reports, and dashboard can be improved."
"There are some shortcomings on the reporting side, such as how many connections you can get per month."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"There is a one-time setup fee plus the licenses are provided as per the number of users. For SMS and voice calls, the costs are separate."
"I can say that the solution is worth the money."
"Licensing and pricing seems very fair."
"There are additional costs for maintenance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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Also Known As

SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
Symantec VIP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Maine Medical Center, Aria S.p.A
Find out what your peers are saying about Symantec Siteminder vs. Symantec VIP Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.