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Aruba ClearPass vs Portnox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Aruba ClearPass secures data and reduces IT time, providing varied ROI by industry despite licensing challenges and costs.
Sentiment score
7.3
Portnox CORE improved network visibility, security, and efficiency, reducing costs and enhancing decision-making through detailed analytics and automated features.
Using Aruba ClearPass has resulted in less engineering time compared to other products we've used.
If you were moving from a traditional on-premise NAC that was 100% managed by the IT department, there would be great savings in going to a cloud-based NAC with Portnox.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Aruba ClearPass customer service is highly rated, though some users suggest improvements in response time and issue escalation.
Sentiment score
7.3
Portnox customer service is highly rated for responsiveness and efficiency, with room for improvement in local services and communication.
Portnox is one level up, as their customer support is outstanding.
We have escalated questions to tech support, and I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.
The support is consistent and satisfactory.
I was seeing weird things, and they were able to explain things to me and help me quickly find a resolution.
They respond very immediately and provide detailed, amazing support.
They resolved issues quickly and provided clear explanations.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Aruba ClearPass is scalable, praised for modular growth, efficient in large deployments, and adaptable despite minor competitive gaps.
Sentiment score
7.5
Portnox is scalable and flexible, supporting growth efficiently, though larger setups may require more resources, rated seven to ten.
I believe the scalability of ClearPass is rated as ten out of ten.
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.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Aruba ClearPass is widely trusted for stability and reliability, with high performance ratings and quickly resolved issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
Portnox offers reliable uptime, though CORE users report issues with vendor support and configuration, while Clear performs smoothly.
The product itself is available and its uptime is 100%.
In the four years that I used Portnox, if it crashed or the server crashed, that would not have been more than once.
 

Room For Improvement

Aruba ClearPass needs user interface and integration enhancements, improved support, better scalability, simplified administration, and refined licensing models.
Portnox can improve with better GUI, integration, scalability, support, licensing, false positives, documentation, and Wi-Fi and AI analytics.
The language and policy enforcement mechanisms are not clear, making it difficult to use the product effectively.
A more streamlined menu of licensing options would be helpful.
I don't see any limitations in ClearPass.
Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
When I'm doing filtering at times, it doesn't filter the items properly.
They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours.
 

Setup Cost

Aruba ClearPass is considered costly with complex licensing, but many find its value justifies the expense compared to alternatives.
Portnox offers scalable, competitive pricing based on ports, with annual fees, appreciated value, but no perpetual license option.
We cannot mix in prices, and of course, prices are going higher.
Achieving the best price requires careful selection from a menu of licensing options.
Aruba ClearPass is a premium product with higher pricing, which seems unnecessary given its complexity.
If you compare Portnox with all other well-known standard products, it is the cheapest.
The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Aruba ClearPass excels in flexible security features, integration, user-friendly management, network visibility, and supports multi-vendor environments cost-effectively.
Portnox provides scalable, agentless network visibility with intuitive dashboards and automated security integration, enhancing efficiency and endpoint compliance.
The ClearPass solution has reduced the amount of engineering time compared to previous solutions, making it more efficient for our purposes.
The most effective feature for us is the OnGuard feature.
Our IT support team can easily manage daily tasks without being network administrators.
We use Meraki for our switching, making it simple to point all our networks and offices to Portnox.
It is very easy to implement on our current network hardware.
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba ClearPass
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (11th), Passwordless Authentication (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 24.4%, down from 25.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 3.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdelhamid Saber - PeerSpot reviewer
Secures the network with flexible controls and excellent support
We use Aruba ClearPass as a network access control solution. It prevents unauthorized access and allows access for users in the internal environment, performing checks and onboarding We use ClearPass to secure our environment. Before ClearPass, our environment wasn't as secure. The most…
Scott Kerr - PeerSpot reviewer
It is seamless and integrates well with our Azure setup
We use devices like PLCs and controllers, and when we receive a request to allow one on the network, we bypass typical authentication, associate it with a group account, and push it to a firewalled VLAN. 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. Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

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 do you like most about Portnox CORE?
It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox CORE?
It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle, so I'll probably give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Portnox CORE?
We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE. At the end of the day, Portnox Clear's capabilities are much more...
 

Also Known As

Avenda eTIPS
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

 

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
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba ClearPass vs. Portnox and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.