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Okta Platform vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

Okta Platform
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (1st), Authentication Systems (3rd), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (2nd), Access Management (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
11th
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 November 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Okta Platform is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 2.0%, 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 (%)
Okta Platform3.3%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager2.0%
Other94.7%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

SN
Identity and Access Management Specialist at a university with 10,001+ employees
Automated lifecycle management has cut onboarding times and now drives secure, clean access
Although I am a fan of Okta Platform overall, there are areas where it could improve security outcomes and reduce admin friction. My top improvement areas include the system log and analytics upgrade, which are great for point troubleshooting, but trending and root cause analysis across large tenants still require exporting to SIEM. Verbose queries and long-range retention costs can add up. Additionally, while certificate rotations are better than most, the process is still manual for busy portfolios, especially concerning multi-SP SAML certificate rotations and app metadata drift. Two more buckets of potential improvements for Okta Platform involve user experience and security. There is the issue of push fatigue and prompt sprawl, where users receive multiple prompts across different apps and sessions. I arrived at the rating of eight because the core controls are strong and reliable, but a few operational UX and UI gaps prevent it from being rated higher. The reasons for not giving it a nine or ten include ongoing issues concerning safety and change safety, the complexity of group rules and mappings, and the lack of robustness in policy management. Additionally, there remains a need for more manual involvement than necessary, especially for large portfolios and dual certificate rotation, along with proactive SP data metadata validation.
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

"Customer service is excellent; we don't have to worry when we have an issue, they are always on top of it."
"It is dependent on the evolution of your user base. It depends on usage per user, so the more sign-ins there are, the more expensive it becomes, so it works best for smaller companies from a financial perspective."
"We can automate the process of adding users to Okta if they are activated in Active Directory, or if they are added to the database of applications or Active Directory in the last couple of days."
"The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are SSO, MFA, and beneficial feature sets."
"Okta Platform has positively impacted our organization by dramatically improving our security posture, enforcing Multi-factor Authentication across all applications, and increasing productivity by allowing employees to access all their tools with one set of credentials."
"Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are two different components that I haven't seen in other products."
"It is flexible and easy to install."
"The security rails and the logs around Okta Platform are very good."
"The key benefits are we improve our governance. We ensure we can build more trust in the way we run and operate our environment, and most of all is the accountability."
"The best features are the comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution like a credential vault, a session recording, an endpoint agent, security analytics."
"Technical support is very good."
"The most important feature is that we do not need to know the passwords any more; just having access to the end point; and that it’s easy to manage users and the account."
"Password Management and Session Recording. The simplicity and ease that it is to be up and running out-of-the-box is very much appreciated."
"It has simplified and unified the access of the users to a single point of access."
"We have received good support from the tech support team."
"The reason we chose CA PAM is it worked in the scenarios that we wanted it to, and it just worked without problems."
 

Cons

"The only area of concern in the solution stems from the fact that my company needs some help regarding the setup phase from a partner."
"It would be pricing, which is a tough one because it goes against Microsoft. A lot of companies say they're a Microsoft partner, and they get all their software for free. Okta is like a luxury product, and it's not the most affordable one. I would say if they could work on pricing, it would help. Other than that, they've done great strides in developing a product that is really good. The companies that do see the value tend to invest in it."
"Okta Platform, especially in Europe where we are based, could improve the level of service; in some situations, I think it's not at the same level of the quality of the platform."
"Another area for improvement is pricing; it becomes complex and expensive when you add features."
"It was complex to implement password synchronization between AD domains."
"I would consider the scalability of Okta Platform to be a six."
"To improve Okta Platform, I suggest simplifying web manuals to be more understandable for non-technical users, making it easier for them to navigate both the API and user interface levels."
"The training is too costly."
"There were some issues with stability. From what I remember, people would complain that every 30 minutes to an hour or so, their connection would drop and they'd have to reconnect, but it wasn't clear whether that was a problem with the network we were working on or whether that was a problem with Privileged Access Manager."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"When there are new patches or upgrades, they need to test the new release well so it will not break the functional parts."
"I believe continued expansion of integration to multiple systems including SSO and SAML technologies will provide a more-expansive, enterprise view of access orchestration, which will in turn strengthen the security of the environment."
"Stability is a problem that we fight every day."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"The product has not improved our organization."
"The integration with AS/400 Endpoint via Transparent Login could be better and useful for some users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this product could be lower."
"Okta's pricing is right where it needs to be and right in the middle of the market."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"The price of the solution is good."
"Pricing might be high, but it comes down when the number of people using the product goes up."
"This solution is costly. Pricing is decent if you have less users, but it significantly goes up the more users you have, with its cost not justified."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"The solution is really expensive."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"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."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"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."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise65
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Okta Workforce Identity?
Pricing for Okta is reasonably not that much, however, I don't have access to the commercial aspect.
What needs improvement with Okta Workforce Identity?
Currently, in Okta Workforce Identity we get the two-digit authentication code. Instead of getting the two-digit authentication code, if we had an option to do fingerprint verification, that would ...
What is your primary use case for Okta Workforce Identity?
I don't have many details about Okta Workforce Identity. I use the tool just to sign in to different applications that we have. We basically set up Okta Workforce Identity in our mobile phone. We d...
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

Okta Customer Identity, Workforce Identity
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FedEx, Zoom, Takeda, Lululemon Athletica, GrunHub, jetBlue, McKensson, Bain & Company, Engie, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard, MGM Resorts, Ally Financial, Priceline, Albertsons, Itercom, Classy, FICO, Kensho, Live Nation, Drata, Rotary, and others.
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Okta Platform vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.