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

Microsoft Entra ID 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

Microsoft Entra ID
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
277
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (1st), Identity Management (IM) (2nd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (2nd)
Symantec Siteminder
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
14th
Ranking in Access Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 9.0%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Entra ID9.0%
Symantec Siteminder3.1%
Other87.9%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Stafin Jacob - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Practice Lead at Invoke
Identity has become our central gatekeeper and has provided secure single sign-on for all users
Microsoft Entra ID can improve by focusing more on new passwordless methods and becoming a primary adopter. One feature we would like to see is the ability to have security questions for password resets. I know the current capability is phasing out, so we do not have an alternative method yet. Customers who already use security questions require a smoother transition for that capability to be available. My experience with the deployment has had some challenges, particularly around the Microsoft MFA campaigns. The hardest part is moving users from a different MFA provider to the Microsoft MFA provider, as it ultimately depends on user activity. In large enterprises with numerous users across various geographies, this transition takes time. If there are ways to exert more control around that process, it would improve the situation.
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

"Whether you are a small business or large business, you can always enjoy a very secure cloud platform."
"Single sign-on provides flexibility and helps because users don't want to remember so many passwords when logging in. It's a major feature. Once you log in, you have access to all the applications. It also enables us to provide backend access controls to our users, especially when it comes to groups, as we are trying to normalize things."
"We have about 80 users in the Azure Active Directory right now, however, we know that if it was necessary to scale it for hundreds or thousands of users, it wouldn't be a problem."
"The portal version of the Azure active directory is pretty robust."
"It is a really nice tool and we have a license for the more complex model."
"Microsoft Entra ID's integration capabilities have been the foundation for our Zero Trust model because my team only sets up integration and Azure App Registrations based on a request and we review them."
"It offers features that improve our security posture such as multifactor authentication, which is the second layer of protection that is used when we log into the cloud."
"It helps with privacy control of identity data. It makes security very easy."
"Symantec Siteminder Is both scalable and stable."
"This solution is meeting our requirements for all of our applications."
"Extraordinary product; extraordinary flexibility to explore and meet the requirements of the customer."
"You can quickly deploy the entire product with a basic config within couple of hours."
"It has the ability to authenticate and authorize users. It is the main feature for our security."
"The Directory is secure. It's our user store, and it's important to keep our members safe. The product does well with that."
"Security to protect digital assets is most valuable to us."
"SSO affords us the opportunity to have a federated connection between our members, groups, and companies, giving providers the ability to transpose across the different Delta Dentals without having to authenticate more than once with one identity for all sites."
 

Cons

"Everything should be in one package. There are so many different packages."
"Microsoft is working with Microsoft Identity Manager for Active Directory on-premise. It will be very important to have these identity management solutions directly in Azure Active Directory. It's very important to have some kind of Azure identity manager as a technology for identity and access management for working both in the cloud and inside the Azure suite."
"I would like to see Microsoft communicate how they intend to manage legacy applications. Right now, you still have to deploy a hosted domain server (which comes at an extra cost) if you have a legacy application that cannot sync properly with the enterprise applications and the modern applications."
"Azure AD could be more robust and adopt a saturated model, where they can offer unlimited support for a multi-cloud environment."
"The product takes at least ten minutes to activate privilege identity management roles."
"My only pain point in this solution is creating group membership for devices."
"When it comes to Azure, creating certain things or getting different resources isn't very clear. You need a certain level of knowledge of the system. It could be a little bit more friendly so that some of the things can be done easily, but after everything is created, it's easy to use."
"Technical support could be faster."
"The Federation part of CA Single Sign On, it's a bit complex to implement because it involves the SSL certificates, exchange of certificates, and lot of technical details. The documentation misses some important parts of this, so that's the reason it took some time for us to go live."
"The OpenID Connect piece, we would like to see the new technologies baked into the product, as opposed to going out and using a different product to accomplish the same thing."
"The setup was not straightforward. I would give it a 7/10 rating - 1 being simple and 10 being complex."
"For us, getting to that person or to the second level of support is time consuming."
"We use technical support. It's not the best feature of CA. Lots of enterprise product companies have variable support offerings. CA are not the worst, but they're not the best. They're okay."
"The main thing is we do not have the traceability and good monitoring that CA can provide us to capture problems when they occur."
"The performance could be better. The support could be faster."
"Once CA has finalized the cases that we have brought to them, it will be a better product to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft has a free version of Azure AD. So, if you don't do a lot of advanced features, then you can use the free version, which is no cost at all because it is underpinning Office 365. Because Microsoft gives it to you as a SaaS, so there are no infrastructure costs whatsoever that you need to incur. If you use the free version, then it is free. If you use the advanced features (that we use), it is a license fee per user."
"It is worth the money."
"Its price is per user. It is also based on the type of user that you're synchronizing up there."
"Azure AD comes with Office 365, so we are just paying for the Office 365 license."
"I work for an academic medical center, where there is a watch kept over every dollar spent. I do have concerns about the micro charges for different levels or features of the product."
"It is not too expensive."
"The price is fair. It's not very expensive given what they offer."
"The price of the solution's license is good."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"Symantec Siteminder is expensive; they could definitely do better on the price."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
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 Business89
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise162
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Duo for 30 days, and we could not be happier. Duo Security is easy to configure a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that going through and being able to use these things is always part of delivering an M365 bundle, so I don't think the experience is great ...
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory?
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved by open-sourcing it. You already have Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is open-source Linux in Microsoft. One major shift for Microsoft would be using the commo...
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

Azure AD, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Authenticator
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Entre ID is trusted by companies of all sizes and industries including Walmart, Zscaler, Uniper, Amtrak, monday.com, and more.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Entra ID vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.