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Impulse Point SafeConnect vs Portnox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (7th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 7.6%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox7.6%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.7%
Other90.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

CD
Director of Computer Information Services at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to scale, enforces policies well, and has responsive technical support
A lot of campuses use SafeConnect. It gives us good visibility and enforces policies. It helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access. Technical support is responsive. The stability is pretty good. It is very easy to scale the product.
Maurice Mwaura - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Applied Principles Limited
Unified access control has improved compliance visibility and simplified passwordless access
There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless. For example, when a user is denied access, they would need a way to maybe self-resolve themselves, perhaps a way to generate a ticket on their own, something around resolutions. When it comes to users using the product, that is where good products are differentiated from products that are a bit of a challenge. Portnox has much to do in terms of their reporting. The generated reports need improvement. Things that other tools would say are normal are usually not present. For example, there is a page called NAS devices or NAS network that is able to show the switches that have been managed. Currently, there is no way of generating an easy report or an easy way of just generating something to tell the customer what they have been able to achieve so far. This is not done yet and is still very manual. I think there is work to be done there. More integrations around the various products being used would be beneficial. So far I have not encountered any major challenge. Where there was a challenge, I think support came in and helped us resolve. In fact, most of the challenges are not with the product; they are with the customer environment. I think that is just to update their documentation where they have come across a new vendor for easier integrations in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives us good visibility and enforces policies, helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
"It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components."
"The cloud-based feature is very nice."
"If your team is burnt out on managing legacy on-prem network access control or wants to move to a pure cloud model, Portnox should definitely be on your shortlist."
"Portnox saves me about fifty percent of my time."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"There is an add-on feature for application control to kill unwanted applications when launched on a user's device."
"The product is a valuable solution within zero-trust architecture, enhancing network security and visibility."
"This is a self-sufficient network monitoring and security product that saves time and employee resources."
 

Cons

"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
"Allowing for a search of MAC addresses in the interface, whether they are authenticated on the network or not, would be beneficial. Currently, it only finds authenticated MAC addresses, which complicates troubleshooting when the same MAC address is used for different requests."
"In terms of operational efficiency, things are more complicated now. It takes more time to get devices on the network, but we increased security quite a bit."
"I think while Portnox provides wonderful technology, the support and maintenance agreements are problematic."
"However, problems arise when the same MAC address is requested for a different project. Our current system only finds authenticated MAC addresses, making it difficult to troubleshoot when the same device is used for multiple purposes."
"It could be a little cheaper."
"One of the things for the on-premise is that sometimes you click on it and it takes a while for it to respond."
"From a resource perspective, the OEM can do better in terms of resource utilization."
"Portnox CORE can improve on support for unmanaged switches (or hubs) and other brands of network devices. These kinds of devices are still in use in organisations, especially SMEs who cannot afford to buy a managed switch."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our tier group, for one year, the cost is probably around $10,000 for the license. If you do multi-year, you could get two years, and you could get it for about $8,000 per year. If you do three years, you get it around $7,000 a year."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The vendor price is fair."
"The tool is more expensive than Fortinet."
"The licensing module should be reviewed to count the number of devices instead of port numbers of total switches. There is a case for this where not all ports for a switch are used by devices. Unused ports are calculated in the license, then the customer pays for license for those unused ports."
"Portnox CORE's pricing is adequate and cheaper compared to other complex solutions. Its licensing costs are yearly and include support. Cost is calculated per device."
"We pay for port licensing and support on a yearly basis, and it's not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
We did not purchase it directly. We gained access through our higher authorities, so I do not have substantial knowledge about where they obtained it. As I understand it, they acquired it from Port...
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
One area for improvement in Portnox is the initial setup complexity and documentation for custom policy creation. Navigating the cloud console can feel clunky when configuring specific posture rule...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
I mainly use Portnox to instantly isolate a compromised or non-compliant endpoint from the rest of the network the moment a threat or vulnerability is detected. Portnox's main use case is for authe...
 

Also Known As

SafeConnect
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aerohive Solution
Sallie Mae, Roku, Vuori, Legal Zoom, Anaplan, Aecon, H.I.G. Capital, McLaren Construction Group, PFCU, UK Mortgage Lending Limited, CCC Intelligent Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: July 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.