No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Idira Privileged Access Manager vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 2, 2026

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

Idira Privileged Access Man...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (1st), Enterprise Password Managers (2nd), Mainframe Security (1st), Operational Technology (OT) Security (3rd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
16th
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 July 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Idira Privileged Access Manager is 9.9%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Idira Privileged Access Manager9.9%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.8%
Other88.3%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Atul-Gujar - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberArk manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Secures critical infrastructures with essential user session audit records
A potential area for improvement is enhancing support for cluster environments and distributed Vaults. Clients in multiple countries that need central access have different challenges that require better solutions from CyberArk. For financial services, CyberArk can improve incident response by ensuring fast support for critical priority tickets to meet compliance requirements. Providing more documentation on CyberArk is recommended for new team members to enhance their troubleshooting capabilities. I understand it's up to the client, but 99% fail to change the demo key, so it's crucial for CyberArk to emphasize changing the key and documenting it as part of the installation process.
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

"You can easily manage more than 4000 accounts with one PSM."
"We are able to centrally manage credentials, touch applications, and rotate passwords."
"CyberArk Privileged Access Manager is very powerful and customizable."
"Right off the bat, the most valuable feature is the DNA scan. It gives us the ability to scan our environment and find the accounts that we're going to need to take under control."
"I have an affinity towards CyberArk; I find that it works out-of-the-box as a product."
"Accounts are managed, passwords change frequently, and we have better audit logs!"
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The automatic password management is the most important feature. The second most important feature is the ability to enforce dual control on the release of those passwords. The combination of these two features is the most important thing for us because we can show that we're in control of who uses any non-personal account, and when they do so."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"Transparent login and cluster synchronization are quite stable compared with other products, and it is easy to manage for the administrator."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
"I’m very satisfied with the product."
"The most valuable element is the keystroke tracking feature."
"We can enforce complicated password policies and very important frequent password changes."
"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."
 

Cons

"The performance of this product needs to be improved. When the number of privileged accounts increases, i.e., exceeds 2000, then the performance of the system reduces."
"They need to provide better training for the System Integrator."
"The license is expensive."
"I would like to see an easier way to define delegated roles within the administration of the core product."
"With regards to potential improvements for the CyberArk product, I find the product quite expensive and I would like to see the cost reduced."
"Sometimes they didn't always offer, for the less critical issues perhaps, a quick, easy, how-to-implement-it solution."
"Some of the additional features that we are looking at are in the Conjur product. I am specifically discussing key management, API Keys, and things for connecting applications in the CI/CD pipelines."
"I'm not a fan of technical support with CyberArk. It's like jumping through red tape and hoops. Quite frankly, it's almost like when you call CyberArk you get the Help Desk or the level-one. I'm a level-one. I got the CCD, I know how to do the initial troubleshooting. When I call CyberArk it's because I can't figure the problem out. So I need a level-two, three, four. I don't need you to tell me, "Hey, open a ticket and then give me logs.""
"The cons are that you are rarely (if ever) able to talk to a technician when calling support."
"We had some issues with the load balancing feature when configured for clustering."
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"Updates get difficult for the client. It needs to improve."
"Yes, at first the cluster desynchronizes often."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"I wouldn't recommend this solution because the support isn't good, and the response time isn't good."
"I think the management console could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They have two types of licensing: purchase and subscription. You have to pay for each admin user, such as Microsoft admin, mail admin, database admin, etc."
"Overall, its pricing is really good. The main difference from all the other vendors is that they have one package that covers all the functionality and modules of the basic PAM, except the add-on modules like adware and server protection. It also doesn't include the licenses for domain controller protection or maybe an API call-related feature. For the basic privileged access management, the bundle pricing is really good, but when it comes to an agent-based solution for advanced cyber protection or application identity managers, it is expensive. Services are also very expensive if you hire the services team from CyberArk, but these guys are really good. For a couple of large banking projects, we had an experience with them. The banks wanted to have things quickly and efficiently, so we had to hire them. If we take four weeks, these guys can do everything on a weekend. They charge quite a big sum of money, but they know the system well."
"The solution is costly but we get what we pay for."
"It is not a cheap solution. It is expensive as compared with other solutions. However, it is one of the best solutions in their domain."
"There are no additional costs other than the standard licensing fees."
"Before we bought it, they were licensing each function individually, which got complicated and very expensive. When we decided to buy it, it was much more straightforward and still quite expensive, but it brings a lot of value and risk reduction to the organization."
"It costs us around $200 per user."
"The cost is high compared to other products."
"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."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"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."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
906,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise175
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
My thoughts on the pricing of CyberArk Privileged Access Manager depend entirely on the vendors' requirements. If they want their things to be secure, they have to spend accordingly. We have four t...
What needs improvement with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager?
I believe account discovery and rolling support need to be improved. Account discovery is important when integrating with other systems, as other PAM solutions can perform account discovery and onb...
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

CyberArk Privileged Access Security, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rockwell Automation
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Idira Privileged Access Manager vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.