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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs MetaAccess comparison

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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)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
MetaAccess
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
22nd
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 18.4%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MetaAccess is 0.9%, up from 0.2% 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%
MetaAccess0.9%
Other80.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

NF
IT Network Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
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.
JD
Delivery Lead at altisec
Positive support experience and affordability boost overall satisfaction
The OESIS framework platform has been developed by OPSWAT itself. They license it to other OEMs for posture assessment, and they are pioneers in this particular field. The rest of the features are the same when compared head-to-head because all NAC works seamlessly. The advantage is this supports a virtualized environment, so you don't need to depend on hardware, allowing you to go live at any point in time. When discussing policy enforcement, it has predefined templates and objects that help draft a policy easily, reducing the need to define variables and create a policy from scratch. For instance, if I want to allow a certain network range, I just need to put out the network range, and they have that policy enforcer to help define the policy precisely. OPSWAT has an integrated solution for threat detection and response capability. If you are opting for threat detection, it will scan your endpoint, which is something no one else is doing. It does take some time for the scanning, but if you want your endpoint to get scanned for threats first, OPSWAT can do that. Regarding reporting tools and real-time monitoring capability, you get a detailed report of compliance as well as non-compliance systems, which is comprehensive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco ISE's integration with other external identity servers like Duende is very simple and easy."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco ISE is its seamless integration with the switches and the entire suite, enabling wireless access and smooth client information retrieval."
"The RADIUS Server holds the most value."
"Authentication is the most valuable feature because it puts our company at another level of security."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"We found that the most valuable features associated with this tool are posture assessment, policy management, VLAN assignments, guest assignment, and BYOD services. In addition to these services, the Cisco IOS software switch configuration feature is another very valuable aspect of the policy and compliance solution."
"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great, and using it as a source of authentication during the process of logging into Cisco AnyConnect has been very useful for us."
"The .1x authentication schema is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"OPSWAT has an integrated solution for threat detection and response capability; if you are opting for threat detection, it will scan your endpoint, which is something no one else is doing."
 

Cons

"The area where things could be improved is education. It's complicated to deploy initially because you have to know what you're getting into."
"The upgrades could be better. Every time we try to do an upgrade, we have problems. It's a pain."
"Cisco ISE can become quite complex, especially with policy sets, the entire authentication process, and everything involved."
"We do tend to run into a lot of issues with ISE when it comes to bugs."
"There can be more integration between the wireless controller management and ISE. Consolidation or integration of the controller and ISE dashboards would be great."
"ISE is a little clunky. The front-end feels like it is from the 1980s."
"The policies could be adjusted to make them more easily implementable."
"The knocks I have against the product are the number of bugs that we encounter, constantly, and the amount of upgrading that we have to do."
"The only limitation is that customization is pretty limited."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."
"This solution requires an annual license and it is a bit expensive than competitors."
"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."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"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."
"I believe I have paid around $1,000 in licensing fees. The license is annual."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
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...
What needs improvement with MetaAccess?
The only limitation is that customization is pretty limited. We have predefined templates available, but the granular customization is restricted. I am speaking with respect to the Indian customer ...
What is your primary use case for MetaAccess?
The MetaAccess product is primarily for providing secure network access, functioning as a Network Access Control (NAC). It first performs a posture assessment to check whether your endpoint is comp...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
OPSWAT MetaAccess
 

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
Juniper Networks, Expert Global Solutions (EGS), PCWizrd,
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, ThreatLocker and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.