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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 20, 2026

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)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS)
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
14th
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 August 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 18.4%, down from 24.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS) is 3.2%, up from 1.4% 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)18.4%
Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS)3.2%
Other78.4%
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.
Le Ban - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Manager & Chief IT Engineer at JVPC
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

"I would recommend this solution as it is very easy to set up and has a very easy user interface."
"The most valuable features are authentication, we have more granular control on the access policies for the administrators. The solution is easy to use, has a center point administration, and has a good GUI."
"Cisco has implemented a special ATC partner program to help partners and customers to have a smooth deployment."
"The flexibility to grant anyone access to the network easily and in a secure way is its most valuable feature."
"ISE helps us protect our industrial control systems and SCADA systems by segmenting them off from the rest of the network, eliminating trust, and making our government and law-enforcement-related audits go a lot faster and a lot smoother than they used to."
"Use ISE if you want to build more resilience within your organization."
"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."
"The product is useful for device administration."
"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."
"Integration with other vendors is possible."
"Ivanti NAC's most valuable feature is reasonable pricing."
 

Cons

"The installation is not straightforward, it took us approximately one month."
"It is a good product, but in order to use all of the functions of the product, you must have a good understanding of the product. You must know how to use and manage it. It is a little bit complicated to configure and manage. It must be simplified to make it easy to manage for end users. In the initial stage, we found ISE complicated for end users. It was not easy to manage it or to write authentication and authorization protocol. They must improve its management and make it easy for end users. The monitoring and reporting capabilities can be improved because end users want to quickly see what is happening in their network. There were some restrictions in working with other vendors. It should also have a better and easy integration with other vendors."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex. It's not that simple because it requires a lot of prerequisites for the solution to get a hold on."
"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."
"A main issue is that the upgrade process, over time, is extraordinarily fragile. Repeatedly, over the past several years, when we've tried to upgrade our Cisco ISE implementation, the upgrade has broken it. Ultimately, we have then had to rebuild it because we need it."
"The upgrades could be better. Every time we try to do an upgrade, we have problems. It's a pain."
"It is too complex. It should be easy to use."
"This product doesn't work in isolation."
"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."
"The documentation needs to be improved. There are a lot of details that are missed which makes it confusing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"It is fair."
"Cisco ISE is not inexpensive, but the solution is well-built and worth the expense."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"It costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"In general, licensing can be quite complex with Cisco products. It would be nice if it was a bit more intuitive and had fewer "gotchas" in there."
"I have complaints. I don't enjoy the licensing model. Once we moved from 2.7 to 3.1, switching from Base, Plus, and Apex to Essential and Advantage in Premier, we went from a perpetual, with our base licenses, to now a subscription-base. So, we will have to renew those licenses every year, and I'm not a fan of that for our base licenses. Apex/Premier, we already expected, which is fine, but for basic connectivity, I am not a fan of that."
"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"The product is cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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
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 Policy Secure (IPS) and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.