No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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...
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)
RSA Identity Governance and...
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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 25.1% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.1% mindshare, down 1.5% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)18.4%
Aruba ClearPass17.7%
Fortinet FortiNAC13.2%
Other50.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle1.1%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud9.1%
Microsoft Entra ID6.1%
Other83.7%
Identity Management (IM)
 

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.
Harshul Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Project Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Streamline identity lifecycle management with intuitive interfaces and robust policy features
The functions of RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, especially the IGA, are quite strong with their custom forms and workflows integrated. The user interface is very friendly and easy to use, making it a good product overall. However, it still has to be on-premise and the cloud version is not easily accessible, as dedicated instances are required and machines cannot be shared as multi-tenant for various customers. The advanced policy features of RSA definitely help in defining certain policies such as segregation of duties. That's particularly useful along with creating different access reviews. Regarding access control in simplifying access management, RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle has strong foundations of groups and roles, which help in defining all policies very easily. This makes it very easy to integrate with other access management tools or privileged access management tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I found most valuable is profiling. We use that to profile certain types of devices, and then depending on the manufacturer, drop them into the appropriate VLAN without us having to go in and manually add the devices."
"We were originally a Cisco shop and Cisco ISE integrated well with our other Cisco switches and networks."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"It gives us a better way to authenticate users."
"The solution enables us to authenticate with AD."
"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."
"Regardless of your industry, I would recommend Cisco ISE if you want good identity management."
"Soft and hard tokens for two factor authentication has been introduced."
"The data collection is excellent and easy to do."
"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."
"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."
"The data collection is excellent and easy to do. It does not require a lot of configuration nor does it require rules to be written like other competitors do."
"It improved security."
"All of the features in this product are good and this is a product that I recommend."
"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."
 

Cons

"A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on."
"Sometimes, there are instances when Cisco ISE simply fails to function without any apparent reason, and regardless of the investigation we undertake, the logs indicate that everything is functioning properly, making it somewhat inexplicable."
"It's expensive to scale Cisco ISE, but our situation is stable so we don't need to scale it for now."
"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades."
"In the next release, I would want to see this kind of solution in the cloud as opposed to on prem because when enhancements are made to the software, if it's in the cloud, it's overnight. I mean you're not going to have to respin the servers that the license sits on, it's all microservices kinds of things in the cloud. That would be my recommendation. If I'm a customer, that's what I'm looking at - for cloud based software subscriptions."
"Cisco ISE is complex. The deployment and design of networks with it is so complex. If it could change it would be better."
"The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced."
"Difficult to figure out the protocols and nodes in order to implement correctly."
"This product is missing a lot of features which other competitors are providing. One of the key features that are missing right now is risk scoring. Additionally, there is not much scope for customization - everything is hard-coded and predefined, so it does not allow the developers to make many modifications."
"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."
"The user interface and workflow need improvement, and more connectors would help."
"It could be a little more flexible with the installation of the product."
"The stability of RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle could improve; it has some bugs that need to be fixed."
"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."
"We were excited that the self-provision feature was now built into the box but disappointed at the implementation."
"Application and appliance stability needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It would be beneficial to have a single license that included all of the features."
"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."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"According to my sales and account team, the prices we're getting are pretty good."
"The pricing is complicated."
"The price is okay."
"The licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs."
"We are using the cloud platform, but we don't find it compatible to be served as a multi-tenant platform. This is a large drawback. It becomes expensive because it is then an all-dedicated solution. You have to have a separate tenant for each client, which increases the cost. The overall unit pricing can be less expensive than how it is right now."
"Pricing varies based on user count/number of modules you need."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

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 RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
There is room for improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle. As the size becomes larger, the collections and unifications of the IDs process become quite slow, which can be improved fu...
What is your primary use case for RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
We provide RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle as a service, mainly to oversee the digital identity lifecycle, from the initiation to the off-boarding at the end of that digital identity. Our cli...
What advice do you have for others considering RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Overall, I would rate RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle at an eight out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
SecurID
 

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
NTT Com Asia, Virgin Blue, Bank of Uganda, EMEA Telecommunications Company, LAit (Lazio Innovazione Tecnologica), NyNet, OTP Bank, Red Bull Racing, Rupert House School, Signify, UK Local Authority, Bancolombia, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (BPPR), TIVIT, Array Services, International Computerware, KPMG LLP, Moffitt Cancer Center
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: July 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.