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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
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.8%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec VIP Access Manager is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Siteminder2.8%
Symantec VIP Access Manager1.4%
Other95.8%
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

"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"IWA is an out-of-the-box feature. The SAML-based federation is standard for all tools. However, CA Single Sign-On has made the federation configuration way too simple and handy to set up and use."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
"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."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"It has considerably reduced the amount of time that new users would take to join into the organization. Previously, it was a lengthy, manual process because it's a very secure environment, where they need to verify the user before they can actually grant him a user-ID and password. Integrating with the built-in custom application, and exposing CA Single Sign On to the internet, we were able to get the employees onboard. The time that we gained was: previously it would generally take from four to eight weeks for each employee, we brought it to one to two days."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"The solution has features that allow you to easily distinguish between protected and unprotected resources."
"It offers more platform support, like Apple, Android, and Microsoft."
"In this version 9.1, lots of changes are done for the dashboard, User Store etc."
"It's a good tool. It's pretty straightforward."
"The VPN we are using is good and working quite well."
"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."
"The two-factor authentication is most definitely valuable and moves us closer to being able to check off those important boxes for compliance."
"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."
 

Cons

"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"I would prefer to see their SAML integration be a more streamlined and easier interface."
"We would like to the OAuth be more stable, more issues being fixed rather than not."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
"We're currently unable to find information about if the solution can do a full implementation with SQL. Some better and more accessible documentation for new users or those curious about the product would be helpful."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
"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."
"I would like to see the solution meet the integration needs at our company...Improving the solution's integration feature would be beneficial."
"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."
"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."
"Maybe Symantec could consider providing a step-by-step guide for first-time users."
"In the next release, I would like the ability to work offline with remote access."
"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."
"Every time that I have a new phone or computer, it takes a little longer to deploy it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Insurance Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
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 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: February 2026.
882,260 professionals have used our research since 2012.