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NordLayer vs Portnox 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

NordLayer
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
20th
Ranking in ZTNA
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (38th), Internet Security (16th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (28th), ZTNA as a Service (25th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (34th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (25th)
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
6th
Ranking in ZTNA
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of NordLayer is 0.5%, up from 0.2% 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%
NordLayer0.5%
Other94.1%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner delaware Singapore at delaware Singapore
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.
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 solution is convenient and easy."
"For the information security team, the security level was improved because it helped to manage and prevent rogue devices from connecting to the corporate network. The reporting was granular, and reports we scheduled for delivery on Portnox were useful during investigations and audits, especially in cases where the IP address changed."
"The simplicity of the product is commendable."
"The technical support is top-notch."
"Portnox saves me about fifty percent of my time."
"The cloud-based feature of Portnox is excellent."
"It's a stable product."
"I am impressed with the solution's voucher capability and authentication. The tool is integrated with Active Direct storage."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
 

Cons

"The tool is not perfectly stable."
"It would be good to integrate Portnox CORE with CLEAR."
"It can't work fully redundant."
"We have seen instances where the older version stops working properly, and we have to update each system individually."
"There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless."
"The price could be better."
"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."
"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. Portnox CORE is agentless, whereas Portnox CLEAR is not agentless."
"The support team is very limited. They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours; the team sits in during the EMI and US hours."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"Pricing is not cheap. It is based on licenses per port. After licensing is purchased, you only pay for support."
"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 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."
"Pricing is quite reasonable."
"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."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
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

No data available
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.