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One Identity Safeguard vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 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

One Identity Safeguard
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (2nd), Non-Human Identity Management (NHIM) (2nd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Ranking in Privileged Access Management (PAM)
16th
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 June 2026, in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) category, the mindshare of One Identity Safeguard is 4.3%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Privileged Access Manager is 1.7%, 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 (%)
One Identity Safeguard4.3%
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.7%
Other94.0%
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Mahesh Malve - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Development Associate at DigitalTrack Solutions ind pvt ltd
Centralized control has strengthened privileged security and simplified audit investigations
While One Identity Safeguard is a strong and reliable PAM solution, there are a few areas where it can be further improved to enhance user experience and scalability. Regarding the user interface and experience, the UI, while functional, can be a bit complex for new users. A more intuitive and modern dashboard with simplified navigation would improve adoption, especially for non-technical stakeholders. Regarding integration flexibility, although it supports major integrations, expanding out-of-the-box connectors for more cloud-native apps, DevOps tools, and SaaS platforms would be beneficial. Faster and simpler API-based integrations could reduce deployment efforts. Regarding scalability and performance in large enterprise environments, performance tuning and scaling can require additional efforts. Enhancing seamless scalability and high availability configuration would improve enterprise readiness.
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

"The customer service and technical support are very good."
"We went from our teams complaining about the old product every day to not hearing one complaint at all and, as a matter of fact, I hear compliments about how much they love Safeguard."
"Once set up correctly, it provides strong security, better control over privileged access, and improves auditing and compliance significantly."
"The initial setup of One Identity Safeguard was simple."
"We don't need to use VPN for remote access."
"We are very pleased with the Safeguard platform feature."
"Safeguard has the ability to record and retrieve in the full-video format."
"It is generally easy-to-use and install."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"Used for securing privileged accounts."
"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."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"It reduces the viral attacks on my website. It also allows certain users access to see what happens daily."
"The password vault and access to the systems are the most valuable features."
"It is simple to implement and is suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises."
 

Cons

"One Identity Safeguard can be improved in areas such as UI modernization."
"The main point regarding the user experience is that Safeguard has two separate management consoles."
"We have not had any issues with the core product itself, but there is an add-on called SCALUS, which is quite critical to the user experience, and that does not work. They have been having issues with that for quite a long time, like months. That is not great at all."
"We currently have a problem with the Active Directory integrations on Windows. Some of our users need to be logged with Active Directory, but we are having communication issues between One Identity and Active Directory. It seems that Active Directory is not well-integrated."
"There is a lack of documentation and many problems with the plugins."
"The interface is better now, but it still could be improved a lot. It needs more organization, menus, automatic refresh of information, and Web 2.0."
"Now, I think the best way to improve it will be to optimize the software, because the software begins to consume more resources (physical)."
"When we compare One Identity Safeguard with Cyberark, we know CyberArk has other tools or other features that are more complex and more useful for the customers. For example, I have one customer that wants to elevate the permission that is available in CyberArk."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"The OOTB reporting functionality is lacking."
"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."
"The product has not improved our organization."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"I wouldn't recommend this solution because the support isn't good, and the response time isn't good."
"The integration with AS/400 Endpoint via Transparent Login could be better and useful for some users."
"The demonstration and consideration portion does not work the best. It's not that intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its subscription cost is too much, and sometimes, it is very difficult to pitch the solution to the management for cost approval. If the cost is reduced a little bit, it would be easier. If its cost was less, many other organizations that currently cannot afford it would be able to use this technology. I'm sure many organizations around the globe are having issues with identity management, and it is a very difficult task for IT to manage privileged accounts."
"We have a yearly license. The cost depends on how much a company wants to invest in technology. In our organization, we believe in modern digitization and automation processes so we found it affordable. One Identity was not that much less than other solutions and it is not a cheap solution. There were number of cheaper solutions. However, it's the most effective, according to our evaluation."
"It is more expensive than Secret Server but way less expensive than CyberArk. As a customer, I would like the pricing to be lower, but it has a good price point."
"They have comparable pricing. All identity products are essentially priced in a similar way. It's a per-user base."
"We bought their other products, so it was not that expensive. It is one of those where the more you buy, the cheaper it is."
"One Identity Safeguard is expensive and the cost goes up as we scale."
"The pricing is about $80,000 per 100 servers. There are few elective costs."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"It is reasonably priced."
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"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."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
9%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business84
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise35
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Safeguard?
Pricing, setup cost, and licensing are managed by the management team.
What needs improvement with One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity Safeguard is a very strong privileged access management solution, and the only thing that needs to be enhanced is its dashboard customization; apart from this, everything is perfect.
What is your primary use case for One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity Safeguard is used primarily to secure privileged credentials, enforce control over administrative access, and provide visibility into privileged activities. Whenever a network or serve...
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

No data available
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cavium
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about One Identity Safeguard vs. Symantec Privileged Access Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.