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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)
17th
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 February 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of ARCON Privileged Access Management is 2.6%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ARCON Privileged Access Management2.6%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.7%
Other95.7%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

DS
System and DBA at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enhanced security through session monitoring and activity recording
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 potentially stolen my credentials. It would provide a clearer picture of whether ARCON Privileged Access Management is accessed by an authentic user.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
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

"Video and audio logs are there for any activities that the privileged admin carries out."
"It gives us a lot of comfort in terms of security level. Our infrastructure devices and servers are secured and nobody can have unauthorized access to them."
"After storing the administrator password in this password vault of the solution, the solution can automatically go and change the password based on the defined frequency with the defined complexity."
"It is recording video records for Windows and command-line reports for others, Linux and AIX, of whatever activities being carries by that particular administrator."
"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."
"The deployment process for the solution was easy...The solution's technical support team was good."
"Technical support is good. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten."
"We use ARCON Privileged Access Management to monitor and record our admin users' activity."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution lacks to offer a governance mechanism for operational technology assets."
"One thing which needs improvement is where it is keeping video logs of Windows Servers, whatever activities are being carried out by the administrator. Because Windows logs are a video, they are unsearchable, so if you need to search for a specific administrator and what he has done on a server, right now you need to go through different video logs of that particular timeframe. I think they are coming up with an additional feature where in it can be indexed and can be searchable."
"The auto-password change feature which was recently added. It is supposed to change the password. However, in some cases, while changing the password, it has caused me to lose to connection due to network-related issues or something similar. What we need to have is a type of log for failure of password change."
"We would like to see support for privileged accounts used in web-based systems like Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway, VMware ESXI management tools, etc."
"For the in-house built applications, they need to provide good, solid access through their portal."
"Sometimes it gets stuck between servers and I would like to see this improved in the future."
"I would like to see a "wild card" kind of a feature or something that would enable us to search the video."
"The usability should be expanded to other browsers like Chrome and Firefox."
"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."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Product pricing is based on users and connections. We did not have to pay more for additional features."
"They do have some licenses, which are required for things like Linux servers. However, in my environment, we do not have Linux servers."
"Their licensing model is very simple, as it is based on the number of endpoints which you want to manage along with the number of users and administrators which you want to use."
"There are no major concerns with licensing because we can handle multiple servers in our kiosk system."
"ARCON Privileged Access Management's pricing is reasonable."
"It is good value for our business. According to me, their competitors are more costly. Therefore, it is quite affordable. I find the ARCON to be much cheaper than the other products in the market."
"I am not in a position to give any financials, but whatever we have paid, it is value for money. Their licensing model is good. They have been flexible for us."
"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."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"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."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

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 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...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
With the customers that I have so far, I help them broker RDP sessions to sensitive servers, particularly those that manage aspects like physical access. I have also done it for backend databases, ...
 

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: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.