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CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Siteminder 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

CyberArk Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (1st), Mainframe Security (2nd), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Siteminder
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (12th), Web Access Management (1st), Access Management (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Lasantha Wijesinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
We have visibility and control through real-time user behavior analytics
It took us some time to realize its benefits because there was a learning curve for us. It took us about a year to get our heads around this product and start effectively using it. It is a journey. It takes at least five years for any company to make this product very useful and reach maturity. It is not only the product's fault. The company needs to have a vision, and the company culture needs to go with it. Senior leadership needs to support the vision. You need to have lots of ingredients for success. If everything is in place, you will see success after one year. In the first year, it is a struggle for everybody. My company was bought by a bigger company, and they were very new to privileged access management. Everybody was struggling. The advice I would give is to have a good vision for privileged access management. You need dedicated teams, senior management support, and proper company policies and standards before implementing the solution. Start building knowledge slowly and avoid jumping into the deep end without preparation. I would rate CyberArk Privileged Access Manager a nine out of ten.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager has saved us 60% to 70% of our cost."
"For a while, there were individual IDs having privileged access. We wanted to restrict that. We implemented the solution so that it can be more of internal control. We can have session recordings happening and reduce our attacks."
"The module called PTA, Privileged Threat Analytics, is very useful. When you give access to a user, it monitors and detects if the user's behavior is unusual. After giving access, it continually checks if the user is the same user."
"The password management feature is valuable."
"The privileged support manager is the most valuable feature of CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault."
"The solution helps our developers access internal systems. It also helps us in Privilege Access Management."
"The best feature is vaulting. CyberArk has a separate vault, which is their proprietary vault, which provides multiple encryptions for every password object, as well as tamper-proof recording."
"I like the integrations for external applications."
"As our identity model continues to mature, probably the Federation is most valueable."
"We almost never have outages nor see slowdowns."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"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?"
"Siteminder allows us to manage identity and portability control efficiently."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"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."
 

Cons

"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager could improve the integration docking, it should have more layers. For example, integration with OpenShift."
"Currently, in Secure Connect, an end user is required to enter account information manually, and cannot save any of this information for future use."
"As a customer, I might need a plugin for a specific product, or an application, and CyberArk might have already worked with some other client on it. There has to be some platform where it is available for everybody else to go and grab it, instead of my having to reinvent the wheel."
"The product is complex and requires extensive configuration."
"Password Vault is much pricier than other solutions. A vendor team might struggle to explain why that price is justified. There are good alternatives that cost less."
"We'd like to see the creation of some kind of memo field for each device account, which could be used, in our network at least, to leave a note about the device for either the security or network engineering team members."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"There is a lot of complexity if we are installing the solution on-premises."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"All the problems that we reported actually have never been resolved. We could not capture enough information for CA to be able to debug the problem."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"We are finding some compatibility issues. We're still working with CA on them."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"I would like to see a move towards the newer technologies, which is what we are doing right now. I think that's in the roadmap that's coming, in the 12.8 and 14 releases, but we would like to have it sooner than later."
"Siteminder needs to improve its user experience."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CyberArk DNA is free if you purchase the CyberArk solution. There is no additional charge for CyberArk DNA, which is great."
"The cost is high compared to other products."
"If you are looking at implementing this solution, buy the training and go to it."
"This solution is expensive."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is more expensive than its competitors, such as BeyondTrust, Delinea, and ManageEngine PAM360."
"It costs us around $200 per user."
"CyberArk has been Gartner's number-one pick for the past ten years, so you can infer that their pricing is higher than everyone else. When you are the best, you will charge appropriately for it."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a six out of ten."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"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."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
36%
Insurance Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Siteminder?
When considering pricing, I have usually advised on the Microsoft solution, but compared to that, Symantec SiteMinder’s pricing is moderately priced. I would rate it a four on a scale where one is ...
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
I need to check the latest documentation, however, being able to expand or at least communicate with other identity providers to perform handshakes would be great. While I have some integration wit...
 

Also Known As

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.