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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager 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

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (3rd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
15th
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 May 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is 10.4%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager10.4%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.7%
Other87.9%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Atul-Gujar - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Secures critical infrastructures with essential user session audit records
A potential area for improvement is enhancing support for cluster environments and distributed Vaults. Clients in multiple countries that need central access have different challenges that require better solutions from CyberArk. For financial services, CyberArk can improve incident response by ensuring fast support for critical priority tickets to meet compliance requirements. Providing more documentation on CyberArk is recommended for new team members to enhance their troubleshooting capabilities. I understand it's up to the client, but 99% fail to change the demo key, so it's crucial for CyberArk to emphasize changing the key and documenting it as part of the installation process.
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

"The best feature of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is its core function: automatically managing and securing credentials."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager's main benefit is it provides secure access to our servers. There are features to capture the user activity, it provides video recording processing. If the users are logged in to the server, we can see what activities they are performing. It's a very nice tool for Privileged Access Management. They have plenty of useful services and the solution has fulfilled our needs."
"The benefit is knowing where your accesses are, who has access to what, and it provides improved security around having your credentials locked down and rotated regularly."
"They just released Marketplace, and they are constantly releasing updates to the components and adding new components, like Conjur. This is something that we ran into with Secret Server and DevOps, so it is already scalable, but becoming more so in the future."
"This is a stable, reasonably priced product, and it has good security features as well."
"On the customer accounts side, our account managers are responsive. If you ask them, they will get you whomever you need."
"It's been a fantastic product and it's been easy to use."
"I appreciate the ease of use for support analysts."
"The tool helps us manage local, domain, and service accounts, and it helps us meet compliance standards."
"Now, all the privileged access is tunneled through PAM."
"If I remember correctly, it was the two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors."
"One of the valuable features is the randomly generated password."
"According to the users who have actually used CyberArk and CA PAM, they have said that CA PAM is ten times easier to use and manage."
"CA PAM is the least expensive option than most and is easy to deploy."
"One of the most valuable items is the load balancing feature."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
 

Cons

"It is easily customized, and that customization makes it very easy to start trying to shoehorn the solution into roles it was never intended to fill."
"I think that this product can be improved in all the areas."
"There was a situation when one of our presidents had an issue, but I can't recall the specifics."
"The usual workload on the system is sometimes delayed by CyberArk, so any major work is getting delayed and may take twice the amount of time that it usually does."
"Having a centralized place to manage the solution has been something that I have always wanted, and they are starting to understand that and bring things back together."
"It's not a cheap application. It's very expensive."
"There is some stuff that we still have not fully integrated, which is our AIM solution. We are having all types of issues with it."
"I'm not a fan of technical support with CyberArk. It's like jumping through red tape and hoops."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"We had some issues with the load balancing feature when configured for clustering."
"The cons are that you are rarely (if ever) able to talk to a technician when calling support."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
"The rule management portion and reporting is very weak on its own."
"The user interface and dependence on applets and Windows could use some improvement."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I focus more on the technical side, but I hear customers say that if CyberArk was more affordable, they might have acquired more licenses. Some clients consider alternative solutions due to pricing concerns."
"Pricing is a problem. CyberArk is expensive compared to other products I know. It is similar to buying a German car. It comes with all the bells and whistles, but some companies may find it too expensive."
"Generally, I don't get involved in the licensing or the purchasing side of it, but I do know that the licenses are expensive."
"It's an affordable platform."
"CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault is a very expensive product."
"Its price can be reduced."
"Although CyberArk Privileged Access Management is expensive, its protection capabilities outweigh the cost."
"The solution is cost-effective for the features."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"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."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise174
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

How does Sailpoint IdentityIQ compare with CyberArk PAM?
We evaluated Sailpoint IdentityIQ before ultimately choosing CyberArk. Sailpoint Identity Platform is a solution to manage risks in cloud enterprise environments. It automates and streamlines the m...
What do you like most about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
The most valuable features of the solution are control and analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
My thoughts on the pricing of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager depend entirely on the vendors' requirements. If they want their things to be secure, they have to spend accordingly. We have four t...
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

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.