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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Secure Network Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st)
Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (24th), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 22.4%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is 15.7%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

Bill Masci - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps across a distributed network, giving you a central way of authenticating everybody
A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on. The upgrade process is not very simple. It's pretty time-consuming. If you follow it step by step you're probably going to have a good time, but there are still a lot of things that could be a lot more user-friendly from an administrator's perspective. [They could be] easing a lot of the issues that people have. Instead of just saying the best practice is to migrate to new nodes [what would be helpful] would be to make that upgrade process easier. The UI is a lot nicer in 3.0. It's pretty slow, but for the most part, it's easy to find what you're looking for, especially things like RADIUS live logs, TACACS live logs. From a troubleshooting perspective, it's really nice finding stuff. For setting up policies, from that perspective, it could be a little bit better looking.
Rainier S. - PeerSpot reviewer
You are able to drill down into a center's utilization, then create reports based on it
In the last year or two, we have been working with our Cisco NAS engineers to improve our security posturing. It is more our being proactive rather than reactive. While Stealthwatch and Lancope have this ability to look inside and give you visibility (a great feature), follow-up is the rule. We would like filters that you can put into place to tap onto certain types of behaviors, alerts out, and/or hopefully a block. This is sort of what we are looking for. I might be speaking too early, because we are not down this path yet. We know the feature set is there, we just do not know yet how to achieve it. That is proactive rather than more reactive. For Lancope Stealthwatch, we would like to see it more on the ASA Firewall platform. While this might already be available, this is more a failing of Cisco to inform us if it is there. For example: * Are we on the right or wrong version of the code? * What does the code look like? * Are we are really looking at firewalls? Or is it more about the foundation and route switches that we are seeing? It is about visibility.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There is good integration with third-party systems like antivirus patch management, MDM."
"The TACACS and RADIUS have been the most valuable features so far."
"Cisco ISE's integration with other external identity servers like Duende is very simple and easy."
"In terms of scalability, you need to factor in your licenses. With a virtual platform, the scalability is more than sufficient. We have over one thousand users."
"The posture assessment is a valuable feature because of the ability to do assessments on the clients before they connect to the network."
"I love the policy sets, they are really nice and dynamic."
"Using this solution gives us the ability to allow proper access to the network."
"The valuable feature of the solution lies in its integration capabilities with other applications."
"I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time."
"It provides good visibility to the customers. People are still evaluating it, but it provides visibility and helps them to take action to remediate and mitigate the issues that are highlighted on the dashboard. It has good integration with the Cisco switching platform."
"It's easy to set up. The deployment takes one or two days. You need to collect the data from a device and then direct it to the portal."
"It has improved our internal knowledge of what's going on with the network, and that's helpful."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
"The most valuable features provided by this solution are visibility and information."
"The solution allowed us to not only get gain insight but also start collaborating with other tools."
"Overall, the implementation is very good."
 

Cons

"The web UI should be made similar to the one in DNAC."
"The primary issue is the slowness of the application and the web interface. We have multiple admin nodes and app nodes. So when I need to get some information about a particular user, the GUI would take ten to fifteen seconds in loading when we need to know right away."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment."
"The tracking mechanism in Cisco ISE is relatively costly, especially its vendor-specific protocol."
"There is room for improvement in its ability to allow end users to self-enroll their devices. Instead, you should be able to assign that permission by AD group, which is currently not available."
"I would like to see the product simplified more, especially with the configuration."
"The user interface can be improved."
"Cisco ISE can become quite complex, especially with policy sets, the entire authentication process, and everything involved."
"Stealthwatch needs improvement when it comes to speed."
"We've had problems with element licensing costs so scalability is a concern."
"If they can make this product more web-based, that would be amazing."
"I would like Cisco to make it easier for the administrators to use it."
"Stealthwatch is still maturing in AI. It uses artificial intelligence for predictions, but AI still needs to mature. It is in a phase where you get 95% correct detection. As its AI engine learns more, it will become more accurate. This is applicable to all the devices that are using AI because they support both supervised and unsupervised machine learning. The accuracy in the case of supervised machine learning is dependent on the data you feed into the box. The accuracy in the case of unsupervised machine learning is dependent on the algorithm. The algorithm matures depending on retrospective learning, and this is how it is able to detect zero-day attacks."
"It is time-consuming to set it up and understand how the tool works."
"Many of these tools require extensive on-premises hardware to run."
"I would like to see more expansion in artificial intelligence and machine learning features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers pay for the license of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine). They have an annual subscription, rather than a monthly subscription."
"Over the years, licensing has been confusing and complicated because there are so many different licenses for each different product and each different iteration of the product."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"It is not that pricey."
"The price is okay."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"The price can be lower, especially for subscriptions. It should be a lot cheaper to have a wide range of customers. The price should be comparable to competitive products like Forescout or Fortinet FortiNAC. Forescout is cheaper for customers looking for a cloud solution."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"One of the things which bugs me about Lancope is the licensing. We understand how licensing works. Our problem is when we bought and purchased most of these Lancope devices, we did so with our sister company. Somewhere within the purchase and distribution, licensing got mixed up. That is all on Cisco, and it is their responsibility. They allotted some of our sister company's equipment to us, and some of our equipment to them. To date, they have never been able to fix it."
"We pay for support costs on a yearly basis."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Our fees are approximately $3,000 USD."
"Today, we are part of the big Cisco ELA, and it is a la carte. We can get orders for whatever we want. At the end of the day, we have to pay for it in one big expense, but that is fine. We are okay with that."
"NetFlow is very expensive."
"It has a subscription model. There is yearly support, and there is also three-year support. It depends on what the customers want."
"It is worth the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
30%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 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 Stealthwatch?
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Network Analytics is the Threat Intelligence integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Stealthwatch?
The tool is not cheaply priced. In cybersecurity, you want an extra layer of security in your organization. Some sectors want NDR solutions, so you cannot deploy such tools everywhere, as they are ...
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch?
The expensive nature of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Cisco Stealthwatch, Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise, Lancope StealthWatch
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Edge Web Hosting, Telenor Norway, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Webster Financial Corporation, Westinghouse Electric, VMware, TIAA-CREF
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.