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Aruba ClearPass vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Aruba ClearPass customer support receives mixed reviews, with praise for expertise but criticism for response speed and international efficiency.
Sentiment score
5.3
Cisco ISE support is praised for expertise but criticized for slow responses and inconsistent quality, especially with complex issues.
We have escalated questions to tech support, and I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.6
Aruba ClearPass needs improvements in user interface, integration, scalability, customization, pricing, and technical features like SNMP and SSL management.
Sentiment score
4.5
Cisco ISE requires improved integration, usability, and performance, with enhanced features and efficiency for better user adoption and experience.
It is also better to improve threat intelligence for built-in threat detection and prevention.
A more streamlined menu of licensing options would be helpful.
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Aruba ClearPass is praised for scalability, ease of expansion, and handling large environments, though a few note improvement areas.
Sentiment score
7.0
Cisco ISE is scalable for enterprises but requires proper design, planning, and hardware considerations for efficient deployment.
In our environment, ClearPass handles up to 100,000 users, which is better than some other NAC solutions like Fortinox that scale up to 25,000.
Aruba ClearPass is very scalable.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
4.5
Aruba ClearPass offers expensive yet competitive pricing with complex licensing, balancing initial costs with long-term affordability for enterprises.
No sentiment score available
Cisco Identity Services Engine pricing is competitive but complex, with tiered licensing and additional costs potentially impacting smaller businesses.
Achieving the best price requires careful selection from a menu of licensing options.
Cloud solutions are expensive, while on-prem setups with shared environments are cheaper but not effective.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
Aruba ClearPass is praised for its stability and performance, handling high loads reliably with minimal issues reported.
Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco Identity Services Engine is stable and reliable, with occasional update and scaling challenges, and generally effective support resolution.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
7.8
Aruba ClearPass excels in policy management, flexible security, and user-friendly access control, supporting BYOD, guest access, and vendor integrations.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco ISE provides robust network control, seamless Cisco integration, and enhances security with policy management, zero-trust, and BYOD support.
The ClearPass solution has reduced the amount of engineering time compared to previous solutions, making it more efficient for our purposes.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba ClearPass
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
140
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 25.2%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 29.2%, down from 31.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Aug 17, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

SvenVenables - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, multifeatured, and reliable policy management platform for identity authentication and new device onboarding
The only area that really needs improvement in Aruba ClearPass is the onboarding for doing TLS authentication. The biggest problem we've seen in our environment is Huawei not being able to get onto Google Play. No Huawei device can be onboarded via Aruba ClearPass easily. An additional feature we'd like to see in the next release of Aruba ClearPass is for its OnGuard function, its health check function. We'd like it to have the functionality for installing or copying files that are required for remediation on health checks. For example: if you're using Aruba ClearPass and you do a health check, if the client is missing a file or a particular product such as an antivirus product, we would like the opportunity to have the files copied or installed in the platform, because currently there are some limitations when you want to do remediation. If the client is missing a file and you want them to install a specific application, we have to provide an HTTP download so they can download the file for the remediation to work. What I would like to see is a bigger storage area in Aruba ClearPass so we can upload those files in the platform, rather than having those files in an external server for downloading, because we've had huge problems with doing remediation to locations that require an HTTP download. What we'd like is having the ability to put the applications on Aruba ClearPass directly, to make the remediation steps for clients when they're missing software, to get those directly from the platform, because currently, you can't put a big file onto Aruba ClearPass as there are size limitations.
Rohit-Joshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to ensure that any machine that comes into the network is patched and secure
Posturing is the most valuable feature. There are other tools available that can do some of their other features, like network authentication. The posturing was something because of the nature of the industry that we are in. There are people who go outside for work. Their machines are at times not in the network, and not patched properly. We don't know when they're going to come back, whether it is in a good state, whether it has antivirus, whether it's installed on those machines. Posturing is something that we have made our baseline policy that whenever a machine comes back to our network, it should have a certain level of the operating system and a level of security and antivirus installed. We couldn't have done this posturing without Cisco ISE. This is its greatest feature. It does help me to detect and remediate my network. It enables me to detect any external threat that comes to my network and remediate. If a machine comes into my network that does not qualify per my baseline policy, I have a policy that the machine gets redirected to where it can be patched and remediated. I can ensure that it is fully patched and secure. The entire idea of having ISE is to enhance cybersecurity resilience. The zero trust architecture was coined by the cybersecurity team itself. It was a task given to us in the infrastructure space to see how we can bring resilience into the cybersecurity network and ISE was the solution.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What is the biggest difference between Aruba ClearPass and FortiNAC?
I've done quite a lot of work with ClearPass, and not a lot with FortiNAC/Bradford. ClearPass incorporates a number of different functions including ClearPass Guest for creating complex wireless g...
What do you like most about Aruba ClearPass?
If you are looking at the base installation, then it was a very straightforward process, which I would rate an eight or nine out of ten.
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 cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
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 someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine)?
Cisco ISE is a comprehensive solution that allows you to control access to network resources granularly based on policies.
 

Also Known As

Avenda eTIPS
Cisco ISE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consulate Health Care, Los Angeles Unified School District, Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), San Diego State University, KFC, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba ClearPass vs. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.