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IBM Tivoli Access Manager [EOL] 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

IBM Tivoli Access Manager [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Siteminder
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), Access Management (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user711612 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reverse proxy provides central control over authentication and authorization.
It is a single product that caters for all the business needs throughout the organization. It provides a seamless integration that in turn encourages most of the applications to use the SSO features Reverse proxy is the most valuable feature as it provides central control over authentication and…
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

"Tivoli Access Manger lets you separate security from applications and manage at one place."
"IBM directory server offers the best roll-out experience."
"Capabilities of advanced security are enhanced to support strong, flexible authentifications and authentications based on risks as well as critical internet vulnerabilities."
"This product is highly recommended to meet access management and web single sign-on requirements."
"It provided a secure and robust end to end security solution."
"The Verify feature: A push method which customers are going for."
"The integration effort with the end application is quite straightforward and easy."
"Centralized policy management and reverse proxy-based architecture make it very flexible in terms of deployment, adoption, and implementation."
"Technical support has gotten a lot better."
"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."
"All of our applications get a point, click, and you are in, while we increase security at the same time."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
"It’s definitely an industry leader in the web access realm."
"Using this product makes it easier for enterprises to integrate a majority or even all their apps into one single solution for access."
"The authentication and single sign-on features of Symantec Siteminder are valuable."
"We have three single sign-on products in our office and I believe that the CA product offers the best product of the three."
 

Cons

"Initial setup was complicated because TAM was implemented as a part of the IDM solution."
"Web Portal Manager does not implement the full set of functions found in the command line"
"The TAMeB policy server is not scalable."
"I would rate the technical support a 6/10."
"What I don’t particularly like is the flow duration."
"The user interface looks like it was designed for technical personnel only."
"Multi-factor authentication with social integration needs to improve."
"The pricing is always costly."
"Unfortunately, SSO doesn't really allow us to do that. We have to basically do it through brute force."
"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."
"The installation process was complex. There are a lot of different moving pieces, and the main complaint is that it's hard to automate any of it."
"The maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
"One of the features that needs improvement is the capability of implementing single sign-on in cloud."
"An area Siteminder could improve on is that there are a few limitations, in terms of new protocols for OpenID. If I want to have different scopes, the features are limited. They also do not have APIs exposed, which is a major drawback. API is a feature I would like to see included in the next release."
"Some of the new protocols, like OAuth 2.0, could be improved."
"Sometimes technical support is slow to respond, and that’s typical."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The IBM prices are, as ever, extortionate, even with a business partnership, and high levels of discounts."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"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 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."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Insurance Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Tivoli Access Manager, IBM Security Access Manager
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Okta, Cisco and others in Single Sign-On (SSO). Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.