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ARCON Privileged Access Management vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 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

ARCON Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of ARCON Privileged Access Management is 4.0%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

PRAVINKHISMATRAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced compliance and security through detailed action recordings
We have used ARCON Privileged Access Management for recording videos of user actions taken after logging into systems. Around thirty people, including network engineers, server engineers, and application engineers, use it in the company There hasn't been a notable financial benefit for our…
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"100% compliant and you don't have to maintain ID management for each and every user."
"The user interface, overall, is really good. If I have some 20 servers in my ID, I can easily see for which servers I have read-only access, for which servers I have prompt-access, and for which servers I have server admin access."
"The video logs help us to identify any misuse of privileged accounts."
"The deployment process for the solution was easy...The solution's technical support team was good."
"One important feature is the administrator access, mainly for Windows machines as well as Linux machines. It is important for us because there is accountability associated with each user ID. And the recordings are also helpful."
"For compliance, each change I do, in each of the servers, is clearly recorded. We recently faced an audit and this was an awesome feature. Even our auditor had praise for it saying, "This is really a good feature.""
"The product's deployment phase was easy."
"One of the main benefits we've experienced is that Arcon helps us manage all our team's tasks and provides recording capabilities."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a "wild card" kind of a feature or something that would enable us to search the video."
"I would like for it to be dependent on Windows as opposed to Linux."
"It would be helpful to have a "Favorites" list. For example, if I have 100 servers but I only go to 10 servers frequently, a Favorites list would allow me to go through those ten servers only."
"For the in-house built applications, they need to provide good, solid access through their portal."
"Anti-bridging should be built into product."
"Currently, we can manage only the SSH or RDP connections, but there are many more devices that are present, apart from our SSH and RDP. We want all this to be part of the ARCON solution. For the password management, they should increase the pool of supported devices, they should have more connectors."
"The product is browser dependent. As of now, it only works on Internet Explorer from the client side. Admins cannot use any other browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.) to access the client manager online."
"The usability should be expanded to other browsers like Chrome and Firefox."
"We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"It's difficult to locate the reports, there are limits on what reports can be run from the GUI, and the report formats are lacking."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no major concerns with licensing because we can handle multiple servers in our kiosk system."
"They do have some licenses, which are required for things like Linux servers. However, in my environment, we do not have Linux servers."
"Product pricing is based on users and connections. We did not have to pay more for additional features."
"ARCON is a will give you all the features in a very cost-effective solution. Pricing and licensing is very good compared to other players in the market."
"The product's pricing is a good value. It's appropriately priced. The product has all the required features. It doesn't work in some of the areas but, right now overall, it's pretty good."
"The product's pricing is good value. Go for user-based licensing, without any limit on the target servers."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Pricing is low and licensing is flexible."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"It is reasonably priced."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARCON Privileged Access Management?
From an end-user point of view, it would be beneficial if the system could provide information about the last login. This would help identify if the server was accessed by me or if someone has pote...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I would rate it as an eight and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handl...
 

Also Known As

ARCON ARCOS, ARCON PAM
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RAK Bank, AXIS Bank, Reliance Capital, Kotak Life Insurance, MTS
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about ARCON Privileged Access Management vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.