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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)
1st
Ranking in Access Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
236
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)
12th
Ranking in Access Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Web Access Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID is 19.1%, down from 25.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Siteminder is 2.3%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Single Sign-On (SSO) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Entra ID19.1%
Symantec Siteminder2.3%
Other78.6%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

Bahram Piri - PeerSpot reviewer
Security focus and seamless implementation increase platform productivity
Microsoft Entra ID can be improved in many ways, and there's a big wish list.If we're focusing on security, something that I definitely expect is improvement in the UI and UX for frontline workers. This is important, especially for non-tech savvy individuals. It is something Microsoft Entra ID could do to improve for a wider audience. It's important to focus on the frontline workers since they are non-tech savvy individuals. They are not like those back-office engineering C-level employees who are constantly dealing with computers, and we need to build a specific user experience and user interface for them to handle this stuff. That's something I expect Microsoft to focus on more for Microsoft Entra ID.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"I would rate the support as ten out of ten."
"The interface is well laid out and it is easy to navigate."
"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Entra ID is its ability to integrate with other cloud applications."
"If a company has hundreds of users that already exist in the cloud, and it now wants to enable those same users to be present in third-party applications that their business uses, like Atlassian or GoToMeeting, the provisioning technology can assist in achieving that."
"The most valuable feature of Azure AD is its ability to connect with services outside of Microsoft, although documentation is necessary to properly implement these connections."
"Privilege identity management is the most valuable feature."
"It has made our work easier in that it’s simplified everything for us."
"With the Microsoft Entra ID platform, our company productivity is much higher, the performance is much higher, and it means that at the end of the day, we do the job with fewer people, saving costs."
"A valuable feature of Siteminder is the way it handles bulk traffic. The features it has, in terms of routing the traffic and load balancing, are good."
"SAML is the best thing we're using right now because there is no need for creating an external account."
"It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate."
"It is very scalable. We have a very large customer base: 75 million customers."
"Ease of use is very good, for administrating it. It's very well known."
"IWA is an out-of-the-box feature. The SAML-based federation is standard for all tools. However, CA Single Sign-On has made the federation configuration way too simple and handy to set up and use."
"It is reliable."
"The most valuable feature is that it meets the requirements of the customer. You have a lot of features in the product. Every product has them, but the question is, are these products going to meet the requirement of the customer?"
 

Cons

"Customers want to know exactly where they are spending their money, allowing them to assess and potentially save money in those specific areas."
"Certain aspects of the user interface can be rather clunky and slow. It can sometimes be circular in terms of clicking a link for a risky user sign-in and seeing what the risky login attempts were. It takes you in a circle back to where you started, so drilling down into details, especially if you are not in it every day and it is one of many tools that you use, can be difficult. It can be difficult to track down the source of an issue."
"The Azure AD Application Proxy, which helps you publish applications in a secure way, has room for improvement. We are moving from another solution into the Application Proxy and it's quite detailed. Depending on the role you're signing in as, you can end up at different websites, which wasn't an issue with our old solution."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The conditional access rules are a little limiting. There's greater scope for the variety of rules and conditions you could put in that rules around a more factual authentication for other users. If you have an Azure AD setup, you can then connect to other people's Azure AD, but you don't have a huge amount of control in terms of what you can do. Greater control over guest users and guest access would be better. It's pretty good as it is but that could be improved."
"Private access and internet access should be available in a less expensive licensing model."
"We would like to have more granularity in the Azure conditional access in order to be able to manage more groups for devices and for applications."
"The frequent changes in branding cause confusion among customers who struggle to keep track of product names and functions."
"The support could be faster."
"In future releases, I would like to see maybe more capabilities with some more modern authentication."
"We're currently unable to find information about if the solution can do a full implementation with SQL. Some better and more accessible documentation for new users or those curious about the product would be helpful."
"I would prefer to see their SAML integration be a more streamlined and easier interface."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"The technical support could be better."
"The tech support has not been very good for us so we don't use them anymore. We have had some issues. Nobody is perfect."
"I think they need to integrate some of the newer types of authentication into the product. I'm not seeing the innovation when it comes to biometrics in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Entra ID's pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing for Azure Active Directory is affordable; I would rate the cost a six out of ten."
"I do not have experience with pricing."
"I give the cost a three out of ten."
"It's pretty good. We're using the native features. It's bundled with our Office 365 licenses. We aren't paying anything extra for Azure Active Directory. It's pretty good for us because it's complementary to Office 365. We're only paying for Office 365."
"Pricing could always be better. You pay the premium for Microsoft. Sometimes, it is worth it, and at other times, you wish to have more licensing options, especially for smaller companies."
"Azure Active Directory is more expensive than Google, but the capabilities they provide are superior."
"The solution costs us 60,000 Rupees annually, just over $700, and there are no additional costs."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
"The price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"CA solutions are generally expensive but for the customer the ROI is big."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Transportation Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise132
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 do you like most about Azure Active Directory?
It is very simple. The Active Directory functions are very easy for us. Its integration with anything is very easy. We can easily do third-party multifactor authentication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory?
Our experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Entra ID involves leveraging Microsoft 365 E5 licensing, so it's included. Being included in Microsoft licensing makes it mu...
What do you like most about Symantec Siteminder?
It's agent-based. It's convenient to deploy and integrate.
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 ...
 

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: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.