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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security 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...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Microsoft Enterprise Mobili...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 18.4%, down 24.5% compared to last year.
Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), holds 2.0% mindshare, up 1.1% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)18.4%
Aruba ClearPass17.5%
Fortinet FortiNAC11.9%
Other52.2%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security2.0%
Microsoft Intune20.1%
Workspace ONE UEM9.3%
Other68.6%
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)
 

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.
Robert Veprek - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant for Licensing and Sales at AutoCont CZ a. s.
Have experienced inconsistent support while maintaining strong outcomes in complex projects
My biggest advantage with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security is that I have really deep knowledge about Microsoft licenses, allowing me to offer our customers some non-usual configurations or special offers because I have experience working in Microsoft and many contacts, helping us to provide the best conditions for long-time contracts. The installation of Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security is quite easy. Azure Active Directory Premium helps to manage user access and security; it's the basis of our communication and our project, as it's essential for all security for our customers. Features within Microsoft Intune such as MDM and MAM help to protect data in general. Intune is a general tool for mobility management and device and user management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SGTs are valuable because they make it easy to enforce policies, instead of pushing them across all the other platforms."
"The solution offers automation and real-time visibility, which aids in monitoring and troubleshooting issues with endpoints."
"Regardless of your industry, I would recommend Cisco ISE if you want good identity management."
"We use it enterprise-wide, around the world."
"Using this solution gives us the ability to allow proper access to the network."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"I like the automation of the collection of information."
"The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system."
"The product is a unified solution and you don't require to purchase tools from different vendors. The system analyzes behavior and activity and takes steps for protection."
"You can scale the solution up or down by department."
"The solution is scalable."
"I am very happy with it currently."
"Integration between our departments has been the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is it's a collaboration tool that we can dump all things in at the same time, and we don't have to go to different locations to search for documents that we want to share among 40 people."
"Microsoft Mobility and EMS include Intune for Mobility, which provides mobile device management and mobile application management. With mobile device management, you can control the entire device in an organization."
"The solution offers excellent documentation that is easily available online."
 

Cons

"The UI is not as intuitive as some other products, even products inside of Cisco's wheelhouse."
"The web interface needs improvement. The new web interface that they have is not as easy to manage and we find it to be very slow."
"One of the issues that we used to have was with profiling because we're working with a service provider that uses a lot of bring your own devices."
"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 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 solution configuration is complicated for setting the infrastructure. They have improved over the years but there is still a lot of room to improve. When comparing the simplicity to other vendors, such as Fortinet and Aruba they are behind."
"Automation [is an area for improvement]. It seems like everywhere I look, automation is super important. Automation and integrations. That's the area it could be improved..."
"An area that could be improved is the agent. The challenge now is that agent and most of the computers have changed. They could think about agent-less deployment."
"The auditing and reporting could be updated and upgraded. I would like to see light applications because they consume a lot of the device's memory at present."
"There are certain shortcomings in the licensing model of the product where improvements are required."
"The licensing can be messy at times."
"The MDM part of the engine could be better."
"Microsoft's feature management is based on licenses. Microsoft follows ethical licensing and hence do not restrict the use of it."
"The auditing and reporting could be updated and upgraded."
"The licensing is quite expensive."
"We did the deployment with the help of Microsoft's consultants. But sometimes, we found it difficult to educate the application developers to integrate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay."
"There are other cheaper options available."
"Pricing and licensing are not my expertise. As far as budgeting is concerned, we run an ELA with Cisco. It's a part of our ELA."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been very important to our organization and has been a big factor. We've had issues in the past, but one of the things I like about ISE is its logging features. Security wise or information wise, it really has been a powerful tool."
"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"I get very good pricing from Cisco, so I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem with licensing because we get enterprise or global licensing."
"We have to pay 10 dollars per user. I would rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"I would rate pricing at eight out of ten. It is a bit higher because of the security features that Microsoft provides."
"The increase in the prices of the product might not be the actual problem, but things become complex with some new plans that were introduced by Microsoft recently."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

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 Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security?
The technical support from Microsoft could be better. Because there are many changes in Microsoft, and most support centers or representatives moved to India, I can share that my experience with su...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security?
I have been selling Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security for more than 10 years.
What advice do you have for others considering Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security?
Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security is a basic part of all of our projects because it's a very important basis for any customer wanting to set up Microsoft technology, as they need to manage a...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Enterprise Mobility + Security E3, Enterprise Mobility + Security E5, MS Enterprise Mobility + Security
 

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
Mars, Whole Foods, Land O'Lakes, Dow
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, ThreatLocker and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.