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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 February 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 21.2%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.1%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Aruba ClearPass21.2%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.1%
Other77.7%
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 ClearPass has improved the security control in our network environment."
"The most valuable feature of Aruba ClearPass is the ease of deployment and integration with other equipment in the network."
"ClearPass is effortless to use and configure. It's not hard to learn the tool, and it has lots of features."
"The setup is simple."
"What I like best about Aruba ClearPass is its 802.1X certificate-based authentication feature."
"The customized modules for guests, the self-registration and login, one license for all, no license for guest users, and the self-integration of sandbox integration are the most valuable features."
"Its clustering model saved us staff time and reduced errors by eliminating the need to manage individual RADIUS servers."
"It's very easy to access support and the documentation is self-explanatory."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
 

Cons

"Aruba ClearPass has a complex pricing scheme, so that's an area for improvement. The process for setting up Aruba ClearPass also needs improvement. It could be easier."
"Configuration should be more easy to understand between the link of two topics."
"I found the internal authentication policy and user authentication problematic. I was facing issues with user authentication, but we eventually resolved these problems."
"Aruba ClearPass needs significant improvement in being user-friendly. The configuration and overall use are not easily understandable."
"They should include SMP functionalities."
"The policies are quite complex to set up."
"ClearPass isn't hard to set up, but it takes a long time."
"The user interface is a little old school compared to other solutions."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"In terms of your fixed cost, it is much less than a lot of other solutions in the market. The initial cost is very high."
"The licensing model is very straightforward. There are two types of licensing for Aruba ClearPass, a perpetual license, and a subscription. Both of them are straightforward. We don't need to read an ordering guide, it's very clear."
"Compared to the functionality, the pricing is very favorable. It's affordable and provides good value for the money."
"The pricing is not bad and everything is included."
"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 product is quite expensive. I rate its pricing a seven out of ten."
"The starting price of Aruba ClearPass is 200k Hong Kong dollars. The licensing is based on the endpoints. For example, 100 - 500 end points."
"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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