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Symantec Siteminder vs Thales SafeNet Trusted Access 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 Single Sign-On (SSO)
13th
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
20th
Ranking in Access Management
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (26th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
GauravMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple to use, easy to set up, and performs well
I'm not saying that we want to switch the product, however, since the requirement has increased, we are looking at other options that may be better suited. The scalability may not there. We have a few specific use cases where we have to avoid the cloud. Especially in Europe, we're not allowed to carry their phone in factories. We need some sort of secure access solution. There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure. I am paying to SafeNet and in parallel, I also need to pay Microsoft to use the same service. That makes no sense, to pay double. If they could do something about it, that would be very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Right now, federation that comes out-of-the-box with single sign-on is the most valuable feature that we have, and also scalability."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"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."
"It's quite scalable."
"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?"
"The interface is easy to use."
"The validation and integrity features of the endpoint are great."
"The solution is simple to use."
 

Cons

"While I have some integration with a few major providers, support for more would be advantageous."
"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 GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"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 technical support could be better."
"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 maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"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."
"There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure."
"SafeNet's reporting and monitoring features could be improved."
"Lacks the ability to integrate network monitoring solutions and authenticate the app users."
 

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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Transportation Company
5%
Government
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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
SafeNet Trusted Access, Gemalto SafeNet Trusted Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
IBM, Western Union, Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, Novartis, and AT&T.
Find out what your peers are saying about Symantec Siteminder vs. Thales SafeNet Trusted Access and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.