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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
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (14th), Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Access Management category, the mindshare of ForgeRock is 4.0%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Access Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ForgeRock4.0%
Symantec Siteminder3.5%
Other92.5%
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 product is easy to set up."
"ForgeRock has CIAM, which other products didn't have, and they have DevOps ready."
"ForgeRock enabled us to deliver a more secure and compliant onboarding experience while also improving efficiency."
"Flexibility in the customisation. Out-of-the-box support for almost all authentication mechanisms/products."
"The most valuable features of ForgeRock are social login and data protection."
"For our client, which we are deploying for, the solution seems to be offering them really great value."
"Their access management solution, OpenAM, is most valuable because it meets the needs of a lot of users."
"We never experienced any user ID, user password, or personal information being leaked because it was a very secure system that we implemented properly."
"SiteMinder is an industry leading solution as everyone is using it."
"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 is pretty easy to learn."
"Using this product makes it easier for enterprises to integrate a majority or even all their apps into one single solution for access."
"Segregation duties is another great benefit. It has allowed us to automate the process of creating user accounts really well."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of this product to integrate with any third-party components and platforms."
"Once we have our authentication and authorization policies set, they are easy to duplicate across all our applications instead of trying to develop them into each application individually."
"Its flexibility and ease-of-use are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"It should have a better user interface. Its flexibility should also be improved."
"The solution requires more simplified customization."
"ForgeRock can be a complex product that requires a lot of time to learn and understand its real value."
"Lacks simplified documentation within the tool that requires use of a separate portal."
"I find that it's quite expensive for just an open-source system. Support is quite expensive."
"Implementation, integration capabilities and support model are still evolving and posing a risk of poor quality."
"The product's support services in the French language are not free."
"The solution's deployment should be made easier."
"The setup was not straightforward. I would give it a 7/10 rating - 1 being simple and 10 being complex."
"Upgrade planning is extensive and costly and involves a lot of applications, so we’d like to see that improved."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
"It’s really difficult to initially configure, but once you know where the traps are, it’s not a big deal."
"The problem is we need the support, but they don't know anything about the product."
"The GUIs are not very clear, especially when integrating with other products from CA."
"I've seen a lot of analytics capability being built in for a number of products. Obviously, I want to be able to use analytics on CA SSO as well."
"They need to make configurations easier, and not have the engineer having to guess what will happen when he changes a particular setting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"ForgeRock is an expensive solution."
"Its price is comparable to other products in the market."
"It's a bit pricey and could be more competitive."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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 solution's pricing is competitive."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"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 licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

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.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.