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Portnox vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

macmon Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (8th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 5.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox5.4%
macmon Network Access Control2.7%
Other91.9%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Yusuf Oezeren - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at MOD IT GmbH
A robust solution that provides protection to effectively control the access to your network
The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly. The interface is user-friendly but, for example, when we have new people starting to work, they never work with NetOne and it is a bit hard to expand in certain places. In addition, when I have to pull the last corrected MAC address, I need to put the space between it in order to find the address. If I don't put it in there, I don't get any resources. This needs improvement. They should maybe add integration with LanSuite. We can include it to see the direct information we get from our LAN Tree. If I click on the MAC address, I will then directly get the hostname, and that will open a tap-in line so I see what the last update was.
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

"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"I like the fact that you can take your device anywhere and still have that visibility from anywhere because it's agent-based."
"The Portnox dashboard is very easy to use, and the UI is simple."
"The product is a valuable solution within zero-trust architecture, enhancing network security and visibility."
"The solution has a valuable reporting feature."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"Portnox helped to free up staff time and resources for other IT security priorities and IT work."
"Portnox ensures system compliance through policy enforcement, including antivirus updates, Windows operating system updates, and system patches, helping network administrators maintain system health and security across the network."
"The Vidahost feature is currently in action, and it appears to be providing valuable data insights."
 

Cons

"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The Wi-Fi integration could be done better from their end."
"It could be a little cheaper."
"Their filtering system tends to lag quite a bit, so when I'm doing filtering at times, it doesn't filter the items properly."
"The licensing is based on a per-port price, even when you are not using all of the ports, and this is something that could be improved."
"From a resource perspective, the OEM can do better in terms of resource utilization."
"As there are no agents in Portnox Clear, the customers of the product cannot download any agents on their devices, making them unsure if the product offers proper security."
"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 Portnox, the area that has room for improvement is that older data is not fetching correctly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive."
"Pricing is not cheap. It is based on licenses per port. After licensing is purchased, you only pay for support."
"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."
"The users are not very happy with the new licensing option where there is only a subscription license. There is no perpetual license."
"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."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The tool is more expensive than Fortinet."
"It is not bad. It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable. We do have RADIUS servers for the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The vendor price is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
Portnox's pricing is very conservative and offers great value for money. If I compare it with any other solution, pricing is definitely at the top of the list because it is very affordable. Pricing...
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
In Portnox, the area that has room for improvement is that older data is not fetching correctly. For an older switch, for example, a six-month-old switch that we just added, it does not happen to e...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
My use case for Portnox is for whitelisting ports and adding policies. We are using two modes: enforce mode and monitoring mode. For monitoring, we are using some smaller switches, just some busine...
 

Also Known As

macmon NAC
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 1,500 installations in all over Europe in all industries: Stepchange, Volkswagen, Vivantes Healthcare, MBDA Weapons, APS engineering, Alfred Ritter GmbH (Ritter Sport), Haßberg-Kliniken, 1. FSV Mainz 05 eV., Siempelkamp, AEB etc.
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Portnox vs. macmon Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.