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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Ruckus Cloudpath 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)
Ruckus Cloudpath
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
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 Ruckus Cloudpath is 1.9%, up from 1.9% 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.
Mohammad Abdur Rahim Sarker - PeerSpot reviewer
Long-range capabilities and robust security have empowered seamless and reliable connections in diverse environments
Our primary use case for Ruckus Cloudpath is within the hospitality industry and educational institutions, such as large hotels and universities. We implemented the solution in the infrastructure to provide services to customers and students. Specifically, we use it in premises like student labs…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features that do work, work well, and we use it on a daily basis."
"Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities."
"The ability to allow or deny hosts onto the network is valuable. It provides great security to the network environment."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the policy sets."
"They have recently made a lot of improvements. My clients don't have much to complain about."
"It is a good product for what it does...So, it is one of the most critical systems that we have."
"I found the CMDB Direct Connect in Cisco ISE 3.2 the most promising feature for my use case."
"The wireless devices are used to control access, transmit messages, and integrate with the main system."
"Ruckus Cloudpath is effective for network security since it points out errors, especially when working with APIs."
"I find the solution to be very rich in features."
"The ease of use is great, and the automation wizards can do a lot."
"The solution is easy to use, well designed, robust, and has good traffic capacity."
"I have found it easy to use with no significant issues once the small initial problems were resolved."
"The tool's most valuable features include the phenomenal functionality of DPSK. The ease of use, particularly when it is correctly set up, is remarkably simple. Tracking users is straightforward and dynamic. This allows us to identify where a user might encounter issues within the process."
"Ruckus Cloudpath is very stable."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if it could be configured easily by default."
"There can be a little bit more integration between the controller management and ISE. There are two dashboards, you have the controller dashboards, and you have the ISE dashboard it would is a way to maybe integrate that into one. That would be great. It's not that bad. It would be easier if it could be combined into one dashboard."
"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."
"The one main thing that it can improve on is the GUI. As the newest addition to the team, I struggle a little bit to get around it just because it has so many features."
"I would like to see the product simplified more, especially with the configuration."
"The integrations with the switches and the wireless controllers are not really straightforward. There is what they call the best practice for them, but it may not be what we have on-premise."
"Sometimes some of Cisco ISE's graphical interfaces could be a little bit smoother. However, with the different versions, the product is getting better and better."
"I'm frustrated by the resource consumption and how many resources it needs to run. It takes a lot of RAM. It takes a lot of space and a lot of IO power. It's frustrating to do upgrades because it takes a long time."
"The setup had a few initial small problems, however, everything was resolved and it is very good now."
"There is room for improvement in deployment."
"Ruckus Cloudpath needs more API features and enhanced automation capabilities."
"The scalability could be better."
"The tool needs to support multi-vendor environments. Currently, my experience with it has been primarily within Ruckus environments. However, I haven't explored it for multi-vendor scenarios. It would be great to see newer builds that are multi-vendor capable of full integration."
"There is room for improvement in deployment. I would like to see more effort put into troubleshooting."
"The setup process is a bit complex."
"The hardest part we've had to deal with is trying to find some physical product recently as everything is going like hotcakes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"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 costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"Hardware appliances are expensive...Now moving to DNA-styled licensing, we have subscription-based licensing for everything. I hope it will continue to be fair, but we will have to wait and see."
"That's where things got a bit more complicated. Previously, it was a one-time purchase and we just had to renew support. These days, there's a subscription model, which is supposed to be easier and cheaper as well, but it's more pricey"
"The price for Cisco ISE itself is very low, however, Cisco professional services are quite expensive. Subscription amount is dependent on number of users."
"It is fairly expensive and that's part of why we have implemented it in the type of 'hack' that we did, to service multiple clients."
"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"The pricing is a little bit high."
"The cost was somewhere around $700 for the access points, however, there was a discount."
"The licensing of the solution is user-based and the price is good."
"I would rate the tool's pricing as a seven on a scale of one to ten. Compared to others, it's not overly expensive, but it does come with a cost. Since it's a licensed-based product, it can become expensive, especially if there is a need for additional licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Ruckus Cloudpath?
The tool's most valuable features include the phenomenal functionality of DPSK. The ease of use, particularly when it is correctly set up, is remarkably simple. Tracking users is straightforward an...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ruckus Cloudpath?
The pricing of Ruckus Cloudpath is on the expensive side. I would rate the pricing as an eight out of ten, with ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with Ruckus Cloudpath?
Ruckus Cloudpath needs more API features and enhanced automation capabilities. I would like to improve the automation aspect, ensuring that if any issues arise or alerts are detected, the cloud pla...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

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