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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco SecureX [EOL] 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Cisco SecureX [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

NF
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
Has improved authentication management and simplified visitor network access
The log capacity in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced because today natively on the ISE can only have a look at the logs from the day before. You cannot search into the oldest logs; you have to use another tool for that. This can be blocking if you don't have any log consolidation solution. To do a search for an issue or something that happened two days ago, you cannot search directly in there. The capacity of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced. Something between one week and one month for the log capacity would be nice.
Dene Lewis - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Technical Strategy and Direction CAE Technology Services Ltd at CAE Technology Services Limited
A scalable SaaS based platform that helps with cyber threat intelligence and automated hunting
I would rate Cisco SecureX a ten out of ten. I find the product to be a fantastic platform. If you are eligible, start using it straight away. The best way to evaluate it is to start using it and see where it fits within your organization. I think it helps our customers really deliver their SecOps goals, and I see it as a core foundation of CAE's own security strategy going forward. Our partnership with Cisco is one that was built on trust over a long period of time. This has enabled us to work together to be able to provide the solutions that our customers need to drive their organizations forward. The value we add as a reseller is being able to work closer with our customers, understand them, and get intimate with their organizations. That enables us to offer them the right solutions that will help them achieve their goals.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great, and using it as a source of authentication during the process of logging into Cisco AnyConnect has been very useful for us."
"We manage and support the Cisco ISE platform for a big car rental company, and it is very stable and adds a lot of value to the network."
"The feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed, and I get notifications for new laptop devices."
"The most important feature for us is visibility in terms of user connections. It's the ability to see what devices are online for a particular user that helps a lot with our troubleshooting."
"I like the guest access feature, which has been important for us."
"It has also given us a lot of extra security as the backbone of authentication for our VPN and wireless network."
"The ROI we have seen is because Cisco gives us what they promised us; they deliver, our requirements are being met, and that results in getting value for what we pay."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to manage all the applications and visibility. For example, if there is malware, spam, or another component that wants to attack the company in my servers, network, or applications, then SecureX will react to the problem."
"Its cybersecurity and resilience have been extremely important for our organization."
"SecureX enables us to have all the threat intelligence and threat event data in one place."
"It is one of my favorite things that has ever been built."
"SecureX has been keeping our devices safe during the pandemic and we haven't had any major threats that have come in or that have been found on our devices."
"If management wants to ingest reports at a high level from all of the different products, they would only need one login to SecureX to view this information as opposed to separate logins for each of the integrated products."
"One of the most valuable features is the simplicity of deploying SecureX. It's very easy to do that and then you gain very detailed visibility into everything that's going on in your network and, obviously, at the device level. There's just a wealth of information that you can pull from all of these products that are part of SecureX. You know exactly if you have an issue or not."
"We've reduced our workload by 20 to 30 percent just from being able to focus on the important things, as this product really does a lot of the grunt work for you."
 

Cons

"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"One of the issues that we used to have was with profiling because we're working with a service provider that uses a lot of bring your own devices."
"Difficult to figure out the protocols and nodes in order to implement correctly."
"If I was going to improve anything, it would be the ease of migration. It's really difficult at the moment if you're looking to upgrade ISE 2.1 and you want to go to ISE 3.1 or 3.2, that whole upgrade path and, particularly, the licensing is quite a minefield to sort out."
"There are issues with respect to the posture assessment function. It's been observed that customers are not receiving total access to the network because the assessment agent is glitchy and malfunctions from time-to-time. I would like to see refining of the compliance assessment and adding more detailed compliance of endpoints on the user end."
"The solution takes a while to get up and running before it becomes stable."
"Cisco ISE does not recognize devices and that is an issue we faced during its integration with our existing devices."
"Automation and integrations are the areas it could be improved, as we get more and more away from a lot of human involvement and into machine learning and just trusting that these systems could automatically help us."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler."
"I'm not sure that I would call it a bug, but sometimes the solution is a little slow."
"Enhancing automation capabilities could further improve the product."
"For us, the biggest sticking point is that the product is not being designed for multi-tenancy use at present, from an MSP perspective."
"I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. It's a great idea if it worked consistently, but it has to be way more mature than when I used it."
"The playbooks provided with the product are great, although I would appreciate having more playbooks available. Threats are constantly evolving, so having access to updated playbooks is crucial."
"It is good that it provides information. However, I think that there needs to be more actionable items for us based on the information provided."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"Licensing has got much simpler since Cisco moved to the DNA model because we just have the three tiers, but it could always stand to be improved upon."
"Cisco ISE's licensing can get pricey."
"It costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"It is fair."
"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"Cisco is expensive, but it's the cost for all the functions and value it brings. Functions like internet solutions, integrations, security, and many more features are important, but it's expensive for some clients."
"The pricing is competitive, especially for education institutions. Licensing can be a little bit difficult to navigate, especially with resellers with Cisco, but for us it has been pretty easy."
"The product is absolutely free to any customer. As such, the only thing one must keep in mind is that as long as he already has one Cisco security product, irregardless of what that product is, SecureX is available for free."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
"It is free. It can't get any better than that."
"Cisco SecureX is more expensive than Trend Micro. However, considering the integration capabilities with other solutions and the quality of technical support, I believe there's justification for the price difference."
"You can spend less money for another solution, but if you really want to have a good solution you have to pay. We are happy that we are getting such a good solution for what we are spending."
"The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
"For the value you get, the pricing of the solution is excellent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
 

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...
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Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Kenna.AppSec, Kenna.VI
 

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
NHS, Rackspace, UNC Pembroke, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Missing Piece
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco and others in Cisco Security Portfolio. Updated: March 2026.
885,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.