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ForgeRock vs Symantec Siteminder comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

ForgeRock
Ranking in Access Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (10th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (4th)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Access Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (13th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 4.2%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.5%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock4.2%
Symantec Siteminder3.5%
Other92.3%
Access Management
 

Featured Reviews

SR
Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Centralized access control has improved secure onboarding and supports strict compliance
I wish we had used ForgeRock's adaptive risk-based authentication, which allows dynamic adjustment of authentication requirements based on user behavior. This could have helped us further strengthen our security. Another hidden gem is the built-in support for custom authentication modules and scripting, which gives a great deal of flexibility to tailor authentication flows. The self-service capabilities for password resets and account recovery have been very helpful in reducing support overhead and improving user experience. Discovering and utilizing these features would have definitely made our integration even smoother and would have provided additional value for both our users and our security team. One area of improvement would be the user interface for policy and workflow configuration, which can become complex and sometimes unintuitive, especially for new administrators. A more streamlined and user-friendly UI would help reduce the learning curve. Enhanced out-of-the-box analytics and reporting would also be valuable, as our current options often require custom development or integration with external tools. While extensibility is a strength, documentation for advanced customizations and integrations could be more comprehensive and easier to follow. Improved support for seamless upgrades and backward compatibility would also help minimize downtime. In terms of performance, optimizing the platform for high concurrency environments would be beneficial, especially for organizations with large user bases or peak usage periods. Enhanced scalability features such as more granular or horizontal scaling options would provide better support for distributed deployments. For integrations, having more pre-built connectors and easy integration with modern cloud-native services would accelerate adoption. Improved monitoring and real-time health dashboards would help proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior technical Consultant at CA Africa
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

"The most valuable features of ForgeRock are social login and data protection."
"Even though we have very small business interests with them today, they see that we plan on growing drastically over the next two years. Therefore, we have excellent support and we are now at a point where we are not calling tech support. We pick up a phone and call the Account Manager and they'll get everything resolved for us. We don't have to queue along with everybody else and go through a long process."
"Better Access Management."
"The solution is very scalable, and we have a lot of users that have been increasing over the years that we have been using it, with approximately 20,000 users."
"One of the interesting projects was to use ForgeRock as software as a service for the biggest telecommunication company in Switzerland, where they used it as a service for their customers."
"ForgeRock has CIAM with leading and innovative solutions and is DevOps and cloud ready."
"We found this solution and we found someone who could create a proof of concept and we decided to change from Solaris IDM to this, as it has the same functionality."
"The product is easy to set up."
"It is very scalable; we have a very large customer base: 75 million customers, and about 40 million log in a day, so the scalability is very good."
"The solution is easy to use for our managers."
"The valuable features are security in general and ease of use, more specifically ease of use for the developers, and security where the developer doesn't have to know about authentication or security."
"It has improved our user experience quite a bit because they can log in once and go to any application they want, as long as it is integrated with SiteMinder, which was not the case before."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"SSO is a very robust application."
"Security to protect digital assets is most valuable to us."
"Technical support has gotten a lot better."
 

Cons

"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"A point for improvement would be to bring more of these errors to the UI for administrators to help them understand what happened and how to fix it."
"I wish the JavaScript part could be improved, as not everyone is proficient in JavaScript, so automating that or reducing the reliance on it could be beneficial."
"Improve the software quality (bugs in new versions)."
"In an upcoming release, the solution could improve by limiting the need to do customizations."
"It should be a little bit easier to implement. It is user-friendly, but there is always scope for improvement."
"As with any complex software platform, there is a learning curve to using ForgeRock, and it may require specialized expertise to implement and manage effectively."
"It should have a better user interface. Its flexibility should also be improved."
"I would give the technical support a rating of 2-3/10."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"They get us answers, but often they’re too slow."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"Unfortunately, SSO doesn't really allow us to do that. We have to basically do it through brute force."
"Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features."
"We have challenges, performance issues for which we’re unable to find the root cause as we scale."
"We installed one version and there is a bug in it; from a customer perspective I would want that particular issue to be fixed rather than getting an answer that the bug will be fixed in the next version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"The license is purchased annually per user. However, you can negotiate if you are signing for a longer period of time. When comparing this solution to others on the market it is priced fair, it is not at the top of the price range or at the bottom end."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis, but it also depends on the contract that you have with the vendor. They have multiple types of contracts. There are additional costs to the standard licensing fees. If you need some of the features, you have to pay more."
"We have multiple clients we are looking at right now. We are at a very small number, however, the idea and the goal is to grow. We are looking at about $100,000 and $50,000 a minimum a month cost. That'd be minimum maybe in a couple of years."
"The pricing of the solution is fair but I do not have the full details."
"ForgeRock's pricing is more competitive than other products."
"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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ForgeRock?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate that it is very straightforward and helpful.
What needs improvement with ForgeRock?
There are some areas I want ForgeRock to improve. These areas include policy configuration, documentation clarity, UI complexity, and debugging token flow. I want ForgeRock to improve in documentat...
What is your primary use case for ForgeRock?
I am using ForgeRock for standard support, policy configurations, and documentation clarity. The pricing, setup cost, and licensing are very straightforward, which is a good success. I appreciate t...
What needs improvement with Symantec Siteminder?
Symantec Siteminder needs to have adaptive authentication and multi-factor authentication as integrated features. Currently, multi-factor authentication is available as a separate solution, and it ...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Siteminder?
I deploy and support Symantec Siteminder ( /products/symantec-siteminder-reviews ). I have been a partner and reseller.
 

Also Known As

ForgeRock Identity Platform, ForgeRock OpenIDM
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Geico, Thomson Reuters, Salesforce, McKesson, Trinet, SKY, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Capgemini, North Western University
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about ForgeRock vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.