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Delinea Secret Server vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

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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

Delinea Secret Server
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (10th), Secrets Management Tools (6th)
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 September 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Delinea Secret Server is 3.6%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Delinea Secret Server3.6%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.9%
Other94.5%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

SP
Adjunct Assistant Professor at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Robust credential management has improved security and simplifies privileged access control
I would characterize common frustrations related to Delinea Secret Server rather than using the term dislike. One area is the complexity for the administrative part. While it is straightforward in core values, configuring advanced policies, custom templates, and other areas including discovery scans and detailed reporting have a steep learning curve and may require extra training. The user interface and terminology present another challenge. Some users feel that the user interface can feel dated or overly complex, with terminology around secrets and folder structures taking time to master. Pricing perception is another point where some costs are mixed, while many others find Delinea Secret Server more affordable and flexible than tier one competitors. However, smaller teams still view enterprise licensing as a significant investment. I have observed poor technical support, particularly in multiple reviews. The support can be slow, limited, and sometimes unhelpful when troubleshooting complex configurations or stability issues. Aggressive or untransparent sales practices also present a concern. Some customers on G2 have cited frustrations with hidden costs, such as unexpected EC2 instance fees and core features being unbundled or oversold during contract negotiation. Complex implementation and setup is another significant challenge. The initial configuration, deployment, and managing advanced policies or connectors requires specialized expertise that most organizations do not have, and the steep learning curve compounds this issue. Users transitioning to the cloud-hosted version frequently complain that the updated interface and permissions structure feel slow and problematic compared to the legacy on-premise setup. Integration and API challenges represent the final area of concern. The platform points out challenges with API tokenization and external system integration, and the lack of documentation is one of the key points I would highlight. This limitation affects the ability to integrate with external systems effectively.
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

"I have found the password management and the secret management features to be the most valuable. Our customers find its ease of integration and the use of power shells really attractive."
"The ability to give some groups access to different kind of databases with the storage of a password is the most valuable feature."
"Customer support for Delinea Secret Server has been terrific, and every time we've had an issue, we were able to reach out and get our issue resolved."
"The ease of granting access to a secret without having to share the actual password and the password rotation were the main features I found effective for password management."
"I like the one-way hash, as well as the ability to store it in the cloud and access it from anywhere."
"This is a product that I would recommend."
"It is a stable solution."
"I would rate Thycotic Secret Server a 10 out of 10 because I am not familiar with any products that are capable of going on-prem and have a superior function set."
"The possibility to control the remote activity and establish different policies, because it depends on the position of workers, how much access they needed, and in what platforms they connect, and the possibility to separate this in an easy way is very useful."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"Password Management and Session Recording. The simplicity and ease that it is to be up and running out-of-the-box is very much appreciated."
"On the access management side, our system administrators, under privileged management, don't have to use their local tools to log on to the production servers, because they log on to a web interface that makes the access more secure and keeps the sessions strictly between the production servers and the IA PAM."
"It is the best product for monitoring the recorded session of your IT admins and external consultants."
"If looking for a solution with privileged session management, great recording features with an integrated password vault and Single Sign-On that is pretty straightforward to implement out-of-the-box and does not overwhelm you with unnecessary features, it the best way to go."
 

Cons

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Delinea Secret Server an eight. Everything seems to be working really well, and I don't believe it would be the perfect solution, but I don't believe there is a perfect solution either."
"Attempting to do that is almost impossible because of the low quality of the API."
"It would be better if they had a Linux version of the secret server."
"The setup for this solution is complex. I'm not going to lie, you need a specialized system security engineer to deploy it."
"We faced some upgrade issues, especially during the management and administration parts. I found it less straightforward than on many other platforms, even outside password managers."
"Delinea Secret Server can improve by extending the monitoring policies and making the performance better."
"There could be tweaks here and there. For example, instead of going to one main function to do this and another main function to do that, the solution could remap the user interface so that a person only has to go through one function. The way that function branches off should make a bit more sense."
"One of the things that we want is to be able to do some of the management of it using APIs."
"I wouldn't recommend this solution because the support isn't good, and the response time isn't good."
"So far, with the functionality of what we had, there has not been much improvement at this point of time."
"The user interface and dependence on applets and Windows could use some improvement."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"Stability is a problem that we fight every day."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"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 handled well by the system."
"The live session recording is still not in the features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most customers opt for a yearly license."
"Compared to other solutions, Delinea Secret Server is competitively priced but on the higher side."
"It would be beneficial if it were reduced."
"It isn't terribly expensive."
"We have an enterprise license as well as a user license and a support license."
"There is an annual license needed to use Delinea Secret Server."
"It is very expensive, and its price should be lower."
"Its price is okay. We don't compete on pricing. We seldom use price to win over our competitors. We prefer it this way because if we can sustain the price, we make more margin as well. We don't want the price to go down to the bottom where despite the win, there's no margin at all."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
21%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

Looking for recommendations and a pros/cons template for software to detect insider threats
This is an inside-out --- outside-in --- inside-in question, as an insider can be an outsider as well. There is no short answer other than a blend of a PAM tool with Behavioral Analytics and Endpo...
Which PAM tool do you prefer: CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, One Identity Safeguard, Delinea Secret Server, or BeyondTrust Privileged Remote A
For a banking or financial services use case you should check out SplitSecure. Very easy to deploy and use and splits secrets across devices rather than on cloud servers so you get full cryptograph...
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

Thycotic Secret Server, Delinea Password Reset Server
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Secure-24, University of San Diego, International Rescue Committee, San Francisco Ballet, Perkins Coie, University of San Diego, D.S.S. Limited, Turbo's Hoet, Eclipse Computing, Cathay Bank, Stellarise, J&R Consulting
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Delinea Secret Server vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.