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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
11th
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
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.0%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec VIP Access Manager is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Siteminder3.0%
Symantec VIP Access Manager1.3%
Other95.7%
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

"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"That seamless integration significantly improves user experience and efficiency."
"Authentication & Authorization are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes. That has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"A valuable feature of Siteminder is the way it handles bulk traffic. The features it has, in terms of routing the traffic and load balancing, are good."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"In this version 9.1, lots of changes are done for the dashboard, User Store etc."
"The VPN we are using is good and working quite well."
"The tool has been very stable, in my experience. Also, I haven't faced any issues or problems with integration or connectivity."
"The product is useful for providing user access from an in-built office server as we follow the work-from-home model."
"Cloud-based service and management."
"It is easy to use."
"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 two-factor authentication is most definitely valuable and moves us closer to being able to check off those important boxes for compliance."
 

Cons

"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"The support could be faster."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"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."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"The initial setup of Symantec SiteMinder was a bit tricky. I would rate it a seven on a scale of one to ten, where ten indicates an easy setup."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"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."
"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."
"The User Store synchronization part needs to improve. Also, the logs, reports, and dashboard can be improved."
"Every time that I have a new phone or computer, it takes a little longer to deploy it."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like the ability to work offline with remote access."
"Geofencing needs improvement."
"I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company...Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"Licensing and pricing seems very fair."
"I can say that the solution is worth the money."
"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."
"There are additional costs for maintenance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
5%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 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 ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.