Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

ARCON Privileged Access Management vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

PRAVINKHISMATRAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced compliance and security through detailed action recordings
We have used ARCON Privileged Access Management for recording videos of user actions taken after logging into systems. Around thirty people, including network engineers, server engineers, and application engineers, use it in the company There hasn't been a notable financial benefit for our…
SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication. They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The initial setup was very simple. There was only one server we had to setup. We needed to store all the passwords, and a secure database is used."
"The session management capabilities are helpful. The session recording feature for system handling is good. It also eliminates the need to open many ports for end-users, simplifying access."
"We use ARCON Privileged Access Management to monitor and record our admin users' activity."
"The technical support is excellent."
"The product's deployment phase was easy."
"The most valuable feature is it is easy to use and the interface is intuitive."
"For compliance, each change I do, in each of the servers, is clearly recorded. We recently faced an audit and this was an awesome feature. Even our auditor had praise for it saying, "This is really a good feature.""
"The best part of this product is the administrator convenience. The portal is very user-friendly. An administrator can use it very easily."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration."
"The most valuable features are authentication, we have more granular control on the access policies for the administrators. The solution is easy to use, has a center point administration, and has a good GUI."
"The policy sets give us more granular groups for end-user access."
"Authentication is the most valuable feature because it puts our company at another level of security."
"Cisco ISE is a comprehensive solution that allows you to control access to network resources granularly based on policies."
"Typically, the installation is pretty simple."
"The product is useful for device administration."
"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"It is simple to implement and is suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"One of the key things for us about the product is around its simplicity. Being able to put in the technology that allows the business to remove complexity and also allow the security improvements."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
 

Cons

"One thing which needs improvement is where it is keeping video logs of Windows Servers, whatever activities are being carried out by the administrator. Because Windows logs are a video, they are unsearchable, so if you need to search for a specific administrator and what he has done on a server, right now you need to go through different video logs of that particular timeframe. I think they are coming up with an additional feature where in it can be indexed and can be searchable."
"A few areas for improvement in ARCON would be performance optimization, ensuring smoother management."
"It would be helpful to have a "Favorites" list. For example, if I have 100 servers but I only go to 10 servers frequently, a Favorites list would allow me to go through those ten servers only."
"Scalability could be improved."
"I'll provide feedback on additional features after the project is completed. I think it would be better to comment on that after the implementation is finished."
"For the in-house built applications, they need to provide good, solid access through their portal."
"I would like to see a "wild card" kind of a feature or something that would enable us to search the video."
"We would like to see support for privileged accounts used in web-based systems like Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway, VMware ESXI management tools, etc."
"ISE is a little clunky. The front-end feels like it is from the 1980s."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and it is not simple to use."
"The product is expensive. It would also be a good add-on to have some machine learning."
"In an upcoming release, it would be nice to have NAC already standard in the solution."
"It should be virtualized because many people have begun migrating to the cloud. They should offer a hybrid version."
"I'd like to see the logging be a bit more robust in terms of what it has baked in. If I want to do any in-depth searching, I have to export all the logs to an external platform like Elastic or LogRhythm and then parse through them myself. It would be nice if I could find what I want, when I want it, on the platform itself."
"Cisco ISE is very complex and not very easy to deploy."
"With the recent release of the solution, we had a bunch of bugs and we had to delay our deployment. Other than that, the solution is good."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"It's difficult to locate the reports, there are limits on what reports can be run from the GUI, and the report formats are lacking."
"The management console could be improved."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"The setup is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I definitely feel the product's pricing is a good value. It is one of the best products we have. The licensing is server-based."
"The product's pricing is good value. Go for user-based licensing, without any limit on the target servers."
"ARCON is a will give you all the features in a very cost-effective solution. Pricing and licensing is very good compared to other players in the market."
"They do have some licenses, which are required for things like Linux servers. However, in my environment, we do not have Linux servers."
"There are no major concerns with licensing because we can handle multiple servers in our kiosk system."
"The pricing and licensing model is very economical."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Pricing and licensing are good, very aggressive."
"I get very good pricing from Cisco, so I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem with licensing because we get enterprise or global licensing."
"Hardware appliances are expensive...Now moving to DNA-styled licensing, we have subscription-based licensing for everything. I hope it will continue to be fair, but we will have to wait and see."
"It's an expensive solution when compared to other vendors."
"There are other cheaper options available."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"It has a fair price. It is better than it was before."
"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"It is reasonably priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
849,600 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Retailer
3%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARCON Privileged Access Management?
In terms of improvements, I suggest implementing password rotation for service-based accounts, as that should be incl...
Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cann...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if some...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I woul...
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a w...
 

Also Known As

ARCON ARCOS, ARCON PAM
Cisco ISE
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RAK Bank, AXIS Bank, Reliance Capital, Kotak Life Insurance, MTS
Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk, Delinea, One Identity and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: April 2025.
849,600 professionals have used our research since 2012.