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Symantec Siteminder vs WSO2 Identity Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
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), Access Management (12th)
WSO2 Identity Server
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Identity and Access Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Symantec Siteminder is designed for Single Sign-On (SSO) and holds a mindshare of 2.6%, down 3.7% compared to last year.
WSO2 Identity Server, on the other hand, focuses on Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), holds 1.9% mindshare, down 3.1% since last year.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)
 

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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Utilizing key management and seamless single sign-on integration for enhanced user profile management
WSO2 Identity Server's key management feature stands out as a particularly impactful feature for enhancing security. Additionally, from a user perspective, the self-user portal and user profile management capabilities are highly valuable. It allows users to manage their profiles, change passwords, and offers a self-care portal type of functionality. The single sign-on capability integrates seamlessly with various platforms, including Google, Facebook, LDAP, and Active Directory, which supports rapid product launches.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Symantec Siteminder has simplified user access for our customers from user login to their web applications."
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"The single sign-on is the solution's most valuable feature"
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"The solution has features that allow you to easily distinguish between protected and unprotected resources."
"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."
"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."
"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?"
"We use the solution for customer identity management, authenticating customers coming in through a web portal."
"It's very easy to implement everything."
"The solution gets the job done, and we don't have to do the main configuration."
"I am completely satisfied with WSO2 Identity Server and would definitely recommend it to other companies."
"The product provides easy integration between API manager and IT server components."
"I would rate the solution's stability eight or nine out of ten."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Some of the valuable features of the solution are the easy integration with processes, such as Single Sign-On. Overall WSO2 is straightforward and does not need customization."
 

Cons

"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"As we are moving in to the mobility space, this is where we really see SiteMinder and their other product really come together to provide a solution base to a different area where the IoT is coming, the different business communications are happening. All of those things require authentication and we really want to see this product grow into that role."
"I'd like to see a rework of the user directory configuration."
"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."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"The tech support has not been very good for us so we don't use them anymore. We have had some issues. Nobody is perfect."
"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 solution could improve its development from a user perspective."
"The solution seems to be pretty outdated."
"The high availability architecture has to be improved."
"The solution's licensing model could be more flexible, and pricing could be improved."
"This solution requires extensive knowledge to be used effectively as certain areas of its use are not user friendly."
"There needs to be a good support model and easy-to-understand documentation."
"I found the initial setup to be very complex."
"Sometimes working with the code is difficult because I search for documentation about the code and how to work with the code, which is where I believe they should improve, by providing some documentation on how to work with the code."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"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 price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"I have found the solutions license is priced competitively compared to others."
"They should bring in some good pricing models to host the marketplace."
"WSO2 Identity Server is not an expensive solution."
"At this time we are working with the open-source version."
"I rate the product price an eight out of ten. There is a need to pay more for the extra features provided by the solution."
"We have to take their support, but that is a minimal charge if I'm comparing it to other identity managers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
What do you like most about WSO2 Identity Server?
The product provides easy integration between API manager and IT server components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Identity Server?
The pricing is currently the same as the API Manager, so it's not surprising. Since we used it primarily for SSO and the self portal, there were no additional pricing concerns.
What needs improvement with WSO2 Identity Server?
Currently, all required features are supported. If new use cases for artificial intelligence arise, it could be beneficial to incorporate those. However, for our current projects, WSO2 Identity Ser...
 

Also Known As

SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Nutanix, ELM, AlmavivA, BDigital, StubHub, M-creations, MedVision360
Find out what your peers are saying about Symantec Siteminder vs. WSO2 Identity Server and other solutions. Updated: March 2020.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.