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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) 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

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
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 Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 18.6%, down from 25.3% 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 (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)18.6%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.7%
Other79.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

NF
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
Has improved authentication management and simplified visitor network access
The log capacity in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced because today natively on the ISE can only have a look at the logs from the day before. You cannot search into the oldest logs; you have to use another tool for that. This can be blocking if you don't have any log consolidation solution. To do a search for an issue or something that happened two days ago, you cannot search directly in there. The capacity of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced. Something between one week and one month for the log capacity would be nice.
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

"It is a good product for what it does...So, it is one of the most critical systems that we have."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"Combines authentication, authorization, accounting (AAA), posture, and profiler into one appliance."
"The interconnection with the ecosystem and the ability to force rules all over the network are the most important features."
"It is scalable because we use a network load balancer at the front of the PSN. It can be extended as we want to multiply. It's scalable to our environment. We have around 8,000 users and we are planning to expand it."
"My impression of Cisco ISE for helping to support an organization across a distributed network is that it's invaluable."
"The ROI we have seen is because Cisco gives us what they promised us; they deliver, our requirements are being met, and that results in getting value for what we pay."
"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"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

"I would like the product to include support for OSVS version three."
"Troubleshooting and multi-ISE can be challenging with the solution."
"The integrations with the switches and the wireless controllers are not really straightforward. There is what they call the best practice for them, but it may not be what we have on-premise."
"The interface is a little bit complex."
"The customer server was great but it would have been better for me if they had support in other languages such as Spanish."
"I would definitely improve the deployment and maybe a little bit of the support. Our first exposure to ISE had a lot of issues."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication. They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases."
"It could be less monolithic. It's one huge application, and it does everything under the sun, so it's hard to deal with and upgrade and manage."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the price is okay."
"Previously, Cisco ISE had a perpetual licensing model, but now they have shifted to a subscription-based licensing system."
"Hardware appliances are expensive...Now moving to DNA-styled licensing, we have subscription-based licensing for everything. I hope it will continue to be fair, but we will have to wait and see."
"The price for Cisco ISE itself is very low, however, Cisco professional services are quite expensive. Subscription amount is dependent on number of users."
"The price for Cisco ISE is high."
"We are running Version 2.9 because Version 2.9 of the ISE has a persistent license — it's a one-time payment. The latest version (3.1) is only available if you do a yearly subscription."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"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
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
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 are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
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Also Known As

Cisco ISE
SafeConnect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
Aerohive Solution
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet, Cisco and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.