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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
90
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 June 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 18.0%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Aruba ClearPass18.0%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.7%
Other80.3%
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

"The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the authentication mechanisms and the integration with Active Directory(AD)."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The most valuable thing about Aruba ClearPass is its ease of use. It has always been a very reliable and very stable policy management platform."
"Aruba ClearPass is very flexible and you can implement any complex solution, so I can say that this is the best solution on the market."
"Access Tracker is invaluable for troubleshooting access control incidents and quickly getting to the root cause."
"The most valuable feature for us is the policy compliance."
"It supports AAA and offers a range of features, including guest authentication for visitors and 802.1X authentication for employees. ClearPass provides options for customized authentication methods, such as SMS and social media authentication, which customers are effectively utilizing."
"I'd advise anybody thinking of implementing ClearPass to go for it, it's a good solution."
"It gives us good visibility and enforces policies, 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."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
 

Cons

"Lacks the ability to handle more than one certificate for both the management process and the Captive Portal."
"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."
"Aruba ClearPass needs significant improvement in being user-friendly. The configuration and overall use are not easily understandable."
"Licensing cost is extremely high."
"The platform's API integration could be better. Additionally, its pricing could be affordable."
"Instructions on adding layouts are not as clear as they could be.​"
"Aruba ClearPass could improve the complexity of the initial usage. It takes some time to be good at it. It's not simple to build and connect the rules to the network you want to deploy them on."
"No Huawei device can be onboarded via Aruba ClearPass easily."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"Licensing and pricing are extremely straightforward."
"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."
"I can't give the exact cost of Aruba ClearPass because that's handled by the purchasing team, but it's on the cheaper side, and on a scale of one to five, I'm rating the cost a four. Initially, the pricing for the solution is expensive in terms of deployment, but in the long term, for example, after more than five to ten years, the operational cost incurred by the company is quite affordable because you don't have to renew the license. It's a one-time purchase. My company only uses the standard license for Aruba ClearPass."
"The licensing cost for Aruba ClearPass is a bit expensive. Its pricing could be better. The license costs around $125,000 for the perpetual license and support for one year. Aruba can give you a license with five thousand endpoint access and one thousand five hundred onboard licenses on one hundred endpoints and two controllers."
"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."
"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
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise34
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba ClearPass?
Compared to Cisco and others, the pricing is reasonable. Licensing costs are case-specific and have been manageable.
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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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