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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Ivanti NAC comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Ivanti NAC
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 25.1%, down from 30.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ivanti NAC is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
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. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Le Ban - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable product with an easy initial setup process
Ivanti NAC's most valuable feature is reasonable pricing The product's performance needs improvement. We are doing the PoC of Ivanti NAC. I rate the platform's stability an eight out of ten. I rate Ivanti NAC's scalability an eight out of ten. We have 150 users for it. I contacted the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have recently made a lot of improvements. My clients don't have much to complain about."
"The policy sets give us more granular groups for end-user access."
"The RADIUS Server holds the most value."
"The profiling model included is the most valuable feature."
"I like the automation of the collection of information."
"The TACACS and RADIUS have been the most valuable features so far."
"Cisco ISE integrates with everything else."
"We have multiple metal devices from different places that use management, so we need to know who would be accessing all those devices and what changes are being done to those metal devices. With Cisco ISE we have visibility of all the changes happening on those devices."
"The profiler option allows me to see every detail in a systematic manner from a switch. I can choose the switch and I can see the port NAC address and time."
"Ivanti NAC's most valuable feature is reasonable pricing."
"Integration with other vendors is possible."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in its ability to allow end users to self-enroll their devices. Instead, you should be able to assign that permission by AD group, which is currently not available."
"The tracking mechanism in Cisco ISE is relatively costly, especially its vendor-specific protocol."
"The licensing documentation needs to be better."
"When I work with customers to do my knowledge transfer, they're really overwhelmed with the navigation of the product and the number of things you can do with it. From a user interface standpoint, Cisco could focus on making certain tasks a bit more guided and easier for customers to walk through. That is, a user-friendly interface and streamlined workflows would be great."
"The initial setup process is complex since there are so many big components."
"Whenever we see the authentication logs, we can't see what device we're logging into... We can see who logged in, but we can't see the IP address of the device... I'm sure that's available. We just haven't figured out how to properly deploy it."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment."
"Support and integration for the active devices needs to be worked on. Their features mainly work well with Mac devices. If we use an HP the Mac functionalities may no longer be able to deliver."
"The documentation needs to be improved. There are a lot of details that are missed which makes it confusing."
"The product's performance needs improvement."
"At some point, the server got cached and we faced several issues that impacted our customers. We would like to have this resolved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not that cheap."
"ISE has always been expensive compared to other products in terms of what it does on a user level."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"Over the years, licensing has been confusing and complicated because there are so many different licenses for each different product and each different iteration of the product."
"Licensing is a disaster. It's a mess and I hope they fix it soon."
"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"It costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"The product is cost-effective."
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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Retailer
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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...
What do you like most about Pulse Policy Secure?
Ivanti NAC's most valuable feature is reasonable pricing.
What needs improvement with Pulse Policy Secure?
The product's performance needs improvement.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Pulse Policy Secure
 

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
Entegrus
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Ivanti NAC and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.