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Portnox vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

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)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (7th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.7%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 6.4%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox6.4%
macmon Network Access Control2.7%
Other90.9%
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 API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
"When we started with macmon we had immediate success, we could see our network and see the devices and could easily go online."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"The Vidahost feature is currently in action, and it appears to be providing valuable data insights."
"The cloud-based feature is very nice. We use Meraki for our switching, and it is simple to point all of our networks and offices to Portnox. It is pretty seamless."
"This is a self-sufficient network monitoring and security product that saves time and employee resources."
"I like the fact that you can take your device anywhere and still have that visibility from anywhere because it's agent-based."
"The visibility of the product is excellent."
"Portnox helped to free up staff time and resources for other IT security priorities and IT work."
"I am impressed with the solution's voucher capability and authentication. The tool is integrated with Active Direct storage."
"Previous to the deployment we didn't have complete visibility of all the endpoints, all the devices that are connected to the network, but with the deployment of portnox, we could see all the devices and where they're connecting, and we can equally segregate and apply different rules and policies to each location that we didn't monitor specifically."
 

Cons

"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
"Areas that Portnox CORE can improve include: Support for unmanaged switches (or hubs) and other brands of network devices."
"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."
"It could be a little cheaper."
"In Portnox, the area that has room for improvement is that older data is not fetching correctly."
"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."
"The integration between Portnox CORE and Portnox CLEAR can be better. These are two different systems, and there is no unique console for both devices."
"One thing they can look at is increasing the number of support staff so that there will be more people supporting the solution than they currently have."
"Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive."
"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 pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The users are not very happy with the new licensing option where there is only a subscription license. There is no perpetual license."
"We pay for port licensing and support on a yearly basis, and it's not cheap."
"Pricing is quite reasonable."
"The solution is very expensive and I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Retailer
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
Regarding hidden maintenance costs, I would say I have never encountered a challenge where Portnox was not able to work or where I told the customer to do any major infrastructural changes. Even be...
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
I used to have difficulty sometimes with VPN in Portnox, but in general, I am not sure about areas for improvement. I did not try the mobile application, and the documentation is important because ...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
From customer to customer, the use case for Portnox is different. Some customers ask for a network to protect their board and local network, while others want to allow employees to access via VPN a...
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.