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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."
"The ClearPass solution includes role and role-based user and machine access, and they handle network segmentation using wired and wireless access methods."
"Access Tracker is invaluable for troubleshooting access control incidents and quickly getting to the root cause."
"The technical support from Aruba is good and reliable."
"Aruba has improved my organization because it supported me on my level of access."
"It's a great solution with multi-vendor support. That's always useful."
"The most valuable feature of Aruba ClearPass is its ease of use and the GUI is user-friendly."
"ClearPass prevents hackers from accessing the network. No one can get inside without authentication. It provides a lot of features we are missing. It's incredibly powerful and stable."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
 

Cons

"What needs improvement in Aruba ClearPass is just the endpoint context server, in particular, the indication with the context server because sometimes the daily process isn't as smooth-sailing. Sometimes, the information isn't up-to-date. I'm not sure if that's a vendor limitation, but currently, it's the only tricky part of the current configuration. What I'd like to see in the next release of Aruba ClearPass is a dashboard or a monitoring feature that would allow users to see the integration process with an external server because there's no visibility into that right now."
"The initial setup was quite complex, it is not that easy."
"In my opinion, the price of Aruba ClearPass could be better."
"After HP, their support is the worst."
"The response from technical support can be very late. We have faced delays in the resolution of production issues after raising tickets, which impacts productivity."
"The initial setup phase of the solution was really very difficult, owing to which the setup phase can be considered as an area that can be improved."
"In the next version, I would like to see some enhancement or extension on the tracking side. For example, when any user enters the network, it should be more visible in the graphical form."
"Configuration should be more easy to understand between the link of two topics."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are three types of licenses."
"Run a 90 day free Proof of Concept (POC) for each product by implementing and using it fully in your environment. This way you will be educated on its features, functionality, and manageability.​"
"The solution has a licensing model."
"Aruba is a little more expensive than other products in the market here."
"There is a license to use Aruba ClearPass."
"The pricing is not bad and everything is included."
"The price of Aruba ClearPass is expensive. When you want to build redundant systems it can be seen as necessary, so the enterprise will manage all of those costs."
"Aruba ClearPass has permanent licenses. You purchase it one time and this license is yours. You don't need to refresh it for five years, et cetera. They have a couple of licenses for enabled features with not only one license."
"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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