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Okta Platform vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

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
123
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)
15th
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 August 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Okta Platform is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.8%, up from 1.5% 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 Manager1.8%
Other94.9%
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

"A single sign-on really helps me to make things faster."
"Okta Platform is a great IAM solution because it's a very mature and cloud-first IAM platform, making it perfect for companies or startups that are just starting out; they don't need to go through on-premise setups."
"Valuable features include UD, SSO functionality, MFA and Adaptive MFA functionality, ability to link multiple Directory databases with UD."
"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."
"Okta Platform has impacted my organization positively by providing convenience, first of all, because there are no more different passwords for many different apps, security has also improved because we eliminate a very big weak point that passwords represent, and we maintain control to ensure we only give access to the necessary apps to the necessary people."
"Other than Okta being an easy and awesome integration tool, one of the best features it has is the provisioning and deprovisioning, which makes management way easier. You don't need to be too technical to understand how it works."
"Enabled MFA to access federated applications as well as increased user satisfaction through improved provisioning times and more reliable processes."
"Okta controls all the users. It has context-based access from the user and type of device. It identifies the risk and can do a step of authentication when that user is trying to access some sensitive application from an unknown device."
"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."
"Transparent login and cluster synchronization are quite stable compared with other products, and it is easy to manage for the administrator."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"This application is very easy, fast, and trustworthy!"
"The reason we chose CA PAM is it worked in the scenarios that we wanted it to, and it just worked without problems."
 

Cons

"Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning."
"Okta Workforce Identity could improve the way passwords are reset and how it interfaces with Microsoft."
"In some setup cases, there are issues with attributes not going in properly."
"When you are doing basic things, it is straightforward, but if you are going to be doing workflows, other things, or recon and trust, then there is effort involved, and that is where it gets convoluted."
"Application updates are lacking. Customer support needs to be improved."
"In the future, we'd like to see the product implement more security features, like, for example, zero-trust."
"A couple of things need to be improved at Okta Platform level."
"The ability or the options in the solution for changing the look and feel are not good enough because in our partner portal, essentially what they have is an ugly admin interface."
"The basic reporting that comes with it is basic."
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"Be prepared to call tech support a lot because the documentation is almost worthless."
"I would like to see improvements in branding customization and multi-tenancy."
"Now, the reporting feature on CA PAM only shows the basic information in white-black table format."
"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 handled well by the system."
"Bring more technology into the portfolio and being able to collapse those products into a much more integrated way."
"The integration with AS/400 Endpoint via Transparent Login could be better and useful for some users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is really expensive."
"It could be a bit too pricey for small companies. Okta Workforce Identity can add a lot of benefits, but smaller companies may not have a lot of applications that need to be managed by Okta Workforce Identity. In larger organizations, there are more departments, applications, and users to manage. Okta Workforce Identity adds a bit more value to those bigger organizations. In addition to standard licensing fees, there are also additional costs for things"
"Okta Customer Identity is not an expensive solution."
"Though I don't know about the licensing model of the product, I wouldn't be surprised if Okta offers a per user license subscription model."
"License is around US$20,000 annually."
"The price of the solution is fair for what it offers."
"The product has a user-based license model."
"The pricing for Okta Workforce Identity could still be improved or made cheaper. It costs from 50 to 100 euros a year per user. Okta Workforce Identity has different packages you can choose from, and my previous company had all of them, particularly the full Okta suite."
"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."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Construction Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise63
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: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.