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Portnox vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

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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

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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (8th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.6%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 7.7%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox7.7%
macmon Network Access Control2.6%
Other89.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

SA
Wireless Network Engineer at Forvia
The product is stable and easily connects with clients, but it is not scalable and does not provide deeper troubleshooting
There is no information on the protocol where the clients stop to authenticate. There are some policies, but I don't know whether the device stopped on the authentication or authorization levels. I don't know whether it is getting the right certificate. I have to work on assumptions. If I want to go to the history to see what happened to a client the previous day or two days ago, it will be very hard because the server is used by multiple devices. For every device and user, macmon creates a file into the RADIUS appliance for deep troubleshooting. To troubleshoot, it creates a bunch of files. If I want to check what happened in the history, I have to check all the files. In some cases, there are 100 files. It is impossible for me to go to each file to see where it happens. It will be good to find the file my client authenticated based on the MAC address. Otherwise, the product must have one file for a specific date. I don't have any problem in terms of dates because it's normal. However, having hundreds of files per day is very hard to troubleshoot. The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates. It must provide deeper troubleshooting and reduced log. Also, the RADIUS logs are very huge.
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

"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"When we started with macmon we had immediate success, we could see our network and see the devices and could easily go online."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"The most important of all is that we are aware of situations the minute anyone on the network has issues, with a very good graphical interface that shows us exactly where the issue is and what ports it is occurring at, making it a lot easier for us to troubleshoot network issues and helping with uptime and productivity."
"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 most valuable features of this solution are the agent features; I like the fact that you can take your device anywhere and still have that visibility from anywhere because it's agent-based."
"Portnox helped to free up staff time and resources for other IT security priorities and IT work."
"I'd recommend others to use it; it's easier to use and has this GUI that can give you more visibility to all you are doing on the device, and also it gives you a more analytic view of the people that are trying to connect."
"Portnox is a highly effective tool that will significantly lower your incident resolution times, so be prepared to push through a slight learning curve at the beginning."
"The technical support is top-notch and great."
"The cloud-based feature of Portnox is excellent."
 

Cons

"The service macmon offers is already great."
"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 solution did have some stability issues, however, all I had to do was restart it."
"Now, the way security is viewed, maybe including something like AI, to automate some of the things that are required to be done would be great."
"In many situations, the authentication steps cause slightly slow access and introduce some delay in the authentication process."
"I do not have anything in mind for Portnox to improve, perhaps except for the interface to make it much easier to use."
"On the performance side, we have occasionally run into some random RADIUS timeouts and weird intermittent Wi-Fi authentication delays."
"I believe there are some difficulties with the removal of devices that could be improved."
"I guess the only thing that might really make a difference is a change in the pricing structure."
"While Portnox is solid, there is definitely room for improvement, particularly with the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive."
"The solution is very expensive and I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"The vendor price is fair."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"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."
"Pricing is not cheap. It is based on licenses per port. After licensing is purchased, you only pay for support."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
The pricing and setup cost as well as licensing is a bit high compared to the competition. If it were better, we could also have some pricing specific or special discounts to cater for SMBs.
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
If the MSSP offering could be the primary push or primary concern, it would be the best thing that could happen. Based on the Tanzanian market, AI governance is something that is coming through. Fo...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
Portnox is for the network access control use case. The use case focuses on wired network access, specifically how users are connecting to the network and how we are checking their security posture...
 

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.
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 Portnox vs. macmon Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.