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Okta Workforce Identity 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

Okta Workforce Identity
Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)
2nd
Ranking in Access Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (7th)
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 Okta Workforce Identity is 7.9%, down from 11.3% 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 (%)
Okta Workforce Identity7.9%
Symantec Siteminder2.3%
Other89.8%
Single Sign-On (SSO)
 

Featured Reviews

SumitMundik - PeerSpot reviewer
Authentication process improves security with quick and intuitive user interface
The best feature is the speed and execution of Okta Workforce Identity. The moment you click on single sign-on, you immediately get the notification on your mobile phone, then you do the authentication and within a second you get authenticated. The entire customer experience is very good. The user interface is pretty simple, straightforward, and really good. Multi-factor authentication in Okta Workforce Identity is very useful so people who do not have access or are trying to access using just a user ID and password will be completely blocked because of this two-factor authentication. You will get the code, and as your device is authorized in the system, only that device can be used for the authentication purpose. A third person trying to access or hack your data will not be able to do that anymore. Additionally, you don't have to remember your passwords going forward. Previously, every 60 days or 90 days, passwords kept changing. With the two-factor authentication or single sign-on option in Okta Workforce Identity, you don't have to remember it anymore or write down passwords in plain text. If something goes wrong, we have the IAM team which can unlock your account immediately if you have issues.
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

"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."
"Valuable features include UD, SSO functionality, MFA and Adaptive MFA functionality, ability to link multiple Directory databases with UD."
"I like the tool's workflows, which is user-friendly. It can integrate with different applications. I particularly like that users are delighted to access their applications without the hassle of entering their username and password each time. It truly enhances user-friendliness."
"Its integration components are most valuable. It integrates with everything in some way. There are some products, such as O365 or AD, with which it completely and 100% integrates. So, you can seamlessly create accounts across the board with some of these products. For some of the products with which it doesn't completely integrate, you can do some kind of interfacing."
"The MFA part is the best. MFA provided most of the security that we were looking at with respect to the second level of authentication. Okta Workforce Identity provides a number of options with respect to multifactor authentication, such as the app, phone call, and text. These options provide different ways of logging in for users, and they were a lot more than what we needed. This is certainly a very good feature of Okta Workforce Identity."
"The most valuable features depend on a customer's needs. Our customers generally find multi-factor authentication very useful."
"The tool helps improve our security and productivity."
"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."
"If you look at our organization, and really all financial institutions, we have a lot of legacy apps. So it really helps to get Single Sign-On."
"The most valuable feature is the Federation part of Single Sign On, which is customizable and is easily integrated with any customer application or any third party application."
"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?"
"It's quite scalable."
"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."
"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."
"Authentication & Authorization are important because all the sites need authentication for security purposes. That has been handled pretty well all these years with SSO."
"It provides the breadth and the width to provide solutions for the different kinds of technologies which we have."
 

Cons

"The stability could be better."
"The lifecycle management part can be improved. It should also have identity governance and the ability to choose a specific factor authentication at the application level. Its licensing and pricing can also be improved."
"Whenever I write Cypress test cases, we encounter problems with logging in through Okta."
"If that phone or device gets stolen, somebody else can log into the system using that code."
"The training is too costly."
"SSO and MFA for improved end-user experience, and protection against password spray attacks, account password self-service."
"It's not compatible with on-premises installations, unless you host it as a SaaS. We were not able to do that. For example, imagine a scenario where the cloud is not available. Then, Okta will not work for you. That use case will readily fail because it doesn't have an on-premises installation that you can use to authenticate or provide identity and access management. If you have a purely on-premises solution that is not connected to the internet, then this will not work. This is one area that can be improved."
"The pricing could be improved."
"The initial setup was complex, painful. But that is to be expected of any new setup. When you're a big bank like us, any kind of migration to a new product is hard. I expect it to be painful, and it was painful. But it's not something that you can avoid."
"The support could be faster."
"To add more value to this solution it needs to be more user-friendly."
"Better documentation. I went through some sessions on single sign-on for version 12.7."
"CA has reporting at the moment. With the reporting, every particular segmented product has a reporting engine. I would like to see centralized reporting for all of them together."
"The support team could work on their response time and overall competence."
"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 maintenance cost has increased significantly, and we are concerned about this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an expensive solution but the security makes it worthwhile."
"It is costly for large companies."
"It has a yearly subscription. As compared to its competitors, it is quite expensive. It also has a complex licensing model."
"I believe it competes well. The pricing is pretty competitive. I know that Microsoft also provides something similar with its MFA and identity services."
"The solution is not the cheapest but not the most expensive. They are in the middle rating."
"License is around US$20,000 annually."
"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 product has a user-based license model."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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 price is quite comparable to the other enterprise-level solutions in that market."
"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."
"I recommend conducting a PoC on every available product before choose one."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The licensing is fair for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
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 Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Okta Workforce Identity?
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 ...
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 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

No data available
SiteMinder, CA SSO, Layer7 SiteMinder
 

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.
British Telecom, CoreBlox, DBS, HMS, Itera ASA and Simeo
Find out what your peers are saying about Okta Workforce Identity vs. Symantec Siteminder and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.