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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)
19th
Ranking in Access Management
27th
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) (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.1%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Thales SafeNet Trusted Access is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Siteminder3.1%
Thales SafeNet Trusted Access2.0%
Other94.9%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

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.
GauravMathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Technology at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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

"CA SSO is helping us a lot in providing the access solution to the customers."
"It’s a secure product; we can make use of two factor authentication with the product and so from a security perspective, it gives us strong authentication."
"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."
"We needed to implement secure access, CA is a leader in this area, so we went naturally with the best, and we also chose CA because of the way they interact with customers, pitch new features to us, ask us for feedback, and provide us with support."
"It has improved our user experience quite a bit because they can log in once and go to any application they want, as long as it is integrated with SiteMinder, which was not the case before."
"It’s definitely an industry leader in the web access realm."
"If they want to have a secure, stable solution for a single sign-on that supports Java, ASP .Net, and most of the web-based applications, I encourage them to go with this product."
"Segregation duties is another great benefit. It has allowed us to automate the process of creating user accounts really well."
"Right now, we only have a small use case for the product, however, it has performed well."
"I recommend this solution because it protects information."
"The solution is simple to use."
"The interface is easy to use."
"The validation and integrity features of the endpoint are great."
 

Cons

"The policy store configuration, and tuning the policy store is a bit complex in ensuring it does not corrupt."
"I think they need to integrate some of the newer types of authentication into the product. I'm not seeing the innovation when it comes to biometrics in the product."
"We had some performance-related issues that caused some outages. Outages actually happened pretty frequently back then."
"Identity Manager and GovernanceMinder should integrate better."
"All of the feedback within our team for CA Support is not good. It really is on a very low level, but then it is very specific for CA SSO."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
"There's a dependency on Microsoft Azure."
"SafeNet's reporting and monitoring features could be improved."
"I'd like to see more networking features, such as the ability to integrate network monitoring solutions and authenticate the app users."
"The scalability may not be there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Construction Company
11%
Performing Arts
10%
Legal Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
No data available
 

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
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: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.