No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

NordLayer 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

NordLayer
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
22nd
Ranking in ZTNA
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (37th), Internet Security (16th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (24th), ZTNA as a Service (27th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (32nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (26th)
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
5th
Ranking in ZTNA
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of NordLayer is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 6.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox6.9%
NordLayer0.8%
Other92.3%
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 a network access control solution, Portnox is a very good solution."
"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."
"The cloud-based feature is very nice."
"Technical support was very helpful when we needed them."
"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."
"There is an add-on feature for application control to kill unwanted applications when launched on a user's device."
"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."
"With Portnox, you have a large-scale view of the systems on your estate, and you can use the ID of that user to search and get substantial information about a user."
 

Cons

"The tool is not perfectly stable."
"There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless."
"I believe there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of integration."
"The Wi-Fi integration could be done better from their end."
"Portnox has some difficulties with stability; sometimes there are glitches, and settings are not clear."
"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."
"It can't work fully redundant."
"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."
"One of the things for the on-premise is that sometimes you click on it and it takes a while for it to respond."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"The vendor price is fair."
"The solution is very expensive and I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The tool is more expensive than Fortinet."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"We pay for port licensing and support on a yearly basis, and it's not cheap."
"The users are not very happy with the new licensing option where there is only a subscription license. There is no perpetual license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Healthcare Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
My thoughts on the pricing are that they are usually very flexible. They work with the customer's budget. In terms of being cheap or expensive, that usually just depends on the customer. If a custo...
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
The area that has room for improvement that I had is actually the one that they fixed about two or three days ago regarding the session recording. As of now, I am yet to review and see any areas of...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
Some of the best features that I have experienced with Portnox is the integration with identity providers and the fact that they introduced ZTNA. Recently, they introduced session recording, which ...
 

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, Fortinet, Cisco and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.