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Aruba ClearPass vs Impulse Point SafeConnect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Aruba ClearPass
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 21.6%, down from 24.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Aruba ClearPass21.6%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.1%
Other77.3%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Darko Skurla - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Customer Solutions Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Role-based policies have simplified secure access control for all users and smart devices
I do not know about the functionality of Aruba ClearPass integration with a third party. If you ask me if there is support for Zebra and for different IoT devices, they have it. However, I do not know how to describe integration with other products. Aruba ClearPass can act as a RADIUS server and it can connect to the domain RADIUS server, for example. The biggest problem is when a customer does not know what they want with Aruba ClearPass. I can recommend Aruba ClearPass to other users because it is very stable. My review rating for this product is ten out of ten.
CD
Director of Computer Information Services at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to scale, enforces policies well, and has responsive technical support
A lot of campuses use SafeConnect. It gives us good visibility and enforces policies. It helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access. Technical support is responsive. The stability is pretty good. It is very easy to scale the product.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Aruba prefers the cloud deployment, yet you could also have it on your private cloud environment."
"I would rate the stability a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the authentication mechanisms and the integration with Active Directory(AD)."
"The product's policy management capabilities enable precise control over user access and device compliance."
"Aruba ClearPass has improved the security control in our network environment."
"What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is its access tracker that serves as its monitoring feature. The access tracker is really helpful when you want to troubleshoot authentication failures."
"Aruba ClearPass allows for guest access, BYOD control, IoT device control, access control, device visibility, policy management, interoperability with third-party solutions, self-service, and device profiling."
"Support is decent."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
 

Cons

"Aruba ClearPass needs significant improvement in being user-friendly. The configuration and overall use are not easily understandable."
"The monitoring of Aruba ClearPass needs improvement. For example, they have monitoring for TECHx and you can find out what the administrator did. However, if Aruba ClearPass is managing GUI devices, you do not know what the administrator is doing."
"The user interface should be improved. The logs and how the logging mechanism works can also use an upgrade."
"In my opinion, the price of Aruba ClearPass could be better."
"The scalability could improve."
"We cannot onboard IoT devices such as printers, cameras, and some smaller devices."
"I would like to see better integration with the firewall for zeroing out blacklisted users."
"Instructions on adding layouts are not as clear as they could be.​"
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is not bad and everything is included."
"The product is very costly."
"I can say that the package or licensing model offered for the solution is a permanent one."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is too expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The solution is costly."
"We pay an annual licensing fee for Aruba and there are no additional costs."
"Compared to the functionality, the pricing is very favorable. It's affordable and provides good value for the money."
"​Cost is important. I switched because Aruba's costs were well below Cisco's."
"For our tier group, for one year, the cost is probably around $10,000 for the license. If you do multi-year, you could get two years, and you could get it for about $8,000 per year. If you do three years, you get it around $7,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise33
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What is the biggest difference between Aruba ClearPass and FortiNAC?
I've done quite a lot of work with ClearPass, and not a lot with FortiNAC/Bradford. ClearPass incorporates a number of different functions including ClearPass Guest for creating complex wireless g...
What do you like most about Aruba ClearPass?
If you are looking at the base installation, then it was a very straightforward process, which I would rate an eight or nine out of ten.
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Also Known As

Avenda eTIPS
SafeConnect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consulate Health Care, Los Angeles Unified School District, Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), San Diego State University, KFC, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities
Aerohive Solution
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