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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
126
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 September 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of Okta Platform is 3.2%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.9%, 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 Platform3.2%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.9%
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

"Whatever problem you have, there is a solution with Okta Platform, and it has that capability to resolve those issues."
"It's reliable and it does what it is advertised to do."
"One of the best features of Okta Workforce Identity is its integration with different SaaS applications, which makes it a better product than the competitors."
"Okta Workforce Identity has helped our organization by allowing us to work remotely in a secure environment."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The main benefits Okta Customer Identity provides to users include single point of login for all applications and single authentication, which saves time and reduces frustration."
"The onboarding is the solution's most valuable aspect, as it helps us save time in terms of creating a password for each of the SaaS applications versus Okta, where you have this one single pane of glass to see who has what application or who needs which application."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature."
"CA PAM has session recording, which is a very valuable feature."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"Manager user/admin’s password, so it’s more secure and password will be changed on time."
"One of the valuable features is the randomly generated password."
"On the access management side, our system administrators, under privileged management, don't have to use their local tools to log on to the production servers, because they log on to a web interface that makes the access more secure and keeps the sessions strictly between the production servers and the IA PAM."
"So all the different roles (such as database admin, Unix admin, network administrator), are now centralized into one system."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
 

Cons

"There is room for Okta Customer Identity to improve by increasing the reliability for the server end, creating more directories, and focusing on internal users rather than external or contract-based ones."
"In some setup cases, there are issues with attributes not going in properly."
"The only aspect in which it can be improved is that the interface could be cleaner. I found this even when I was trying to do my certification exam because the certification is hands-on. You find yourself fumbling around a little bit to find simple things. This happens even when you start to get familiar with the product."
"The product must be provided for free."
"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."
"Support could be a bit faster."
"It is challenging to obtain a comprehensive backup."
"We experienced some technical glitches that need to be resolved."
"I would like to see better integration with Security Incident Management solutions, a SIM, like a Splunk."
"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."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"There are currently other tools on the market which are much cheaper than PAM. They can do almost all of what PAM does, and even do it better."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"We have encountered stability issues at various software and hardware versions, but we worked with the support team to quickly stabilize our environment."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is fine for general service usage. However, the charges for API features and API tokens can be quite high."
"It is costly for large companies."
"The price of this product could be lower."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The price of Okta Workforce Identity is reasonable."
"The solution's pricing model could be better for SMBs."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"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."
"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."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise64
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.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.