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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) (3rd), 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.
Alon K - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO & VP of Cyber Solutions, Israel at Rockwell Automation
Gives our customers visibility and they don't have to go multiple management consoles anymore
One of the examples is related to forensics. The forensics are amazing because when you have enrichment, and the solutions talk with each other, when you need it, you have the ability to know everything in the organization: when, why, whatever. With just one click you have information from email, from the endpoint, from the web. Let's say that tomorrow morning, you have a ransom[ware] attack in your organization and you would like to know from which email it came, or where the customer saved the file, even though the incident didn't occur at the same moment. With SecureX, you have Cisco Threat Response inside. [With] one click, you get all of the flow. That's amazing value. That also releases resources for our customers. The customers don't have to connect many systems and try to register the event on each system, or to go to the SIEM and do a correlation. That's the one-stop shop for the customers, and that's amazing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the integration with StealthWatch and DNA as one fabric."
"The interconnection with the ecosystem and the ability to force rules all over the network are the most important features."
"Profiling is one of the most valuable features. We have a lot of different devices between cameras, access points, and laptops that get plugged in."
"I like the logging feature."
"In terms of features, I think they've done a lot of improvement on the graphical user interface — it looks really good right now."
"ISE is one stop shop for everything with more to offer."
"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."
"Use ISE if you want to build more resilience within your organization."
"Its cybersecurity and resilience have been extremely important for our organization."
"SecureX definitely provides us with contextual awareness throughout our security ecosystem, since it allows us to integrate multiple threat intelligence feeds, as well as multiple security appliances and platforms."
"Our customers find the product's third-party integrations valuable. Our customers are also impressed with the tool's capability to pick up third-party threat feeds and use that as part of the decision-making process."
"The SecureX solution has the best impact for the customer because it has all the visibility of my applications and my users' applications."
"It has evolved a lot, just that monitoring piece to the current Orchestrator piece. The additional analytics are there. They now have something called Insight, which can basically take data from Microsoft Azure AD and Intune to give us information about our endpoints. This is detailed information about the endpoints, from Secure Endpoint and all these different products. So, it is just constantly evolving. Every time that it evolves, we have more information with more visibility. There are more features that we have that just make everything so much easier, and it is in one place. I don't have to keep going back and forth. I don't have to go to Secure Endpoint and ISE to get the data. I don't have to go to Intune on Microsoft to get the information. It is all in one place."
"Using SecureX, a tool provided by Cisco, we can easily integrate it with many of our other Cisco products such as Cisco ISE and many networking devices."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"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."
"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades."
"The one main thing that it can improve on is the GUI. As the newest addition to the team, I struggle a little bit to get around it just because it has so many features."
"The intuitiveness of the user interface could be improved."
"Some of ISE's features need to be more agile. For example, we couldn't integrate our data because Cisco needs your data to be in its own format."
"Cisco ISE has numerous features that are impractical, and I won't utilize them since they require payment."
"ISE is a little clunky. The front-end feels like it is from the 1980s."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler."
"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."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler. It could be that all the other parts are that easy to use so that these stick out as a negative, but that's the trickiest part for us. The workflows within the orchestration are just a bit more difficult."
"Sometimes it's a little slow so that is also something Cisco should check."
"The documentation can be improved and the on-prem integration. The set of applications that it was integrated with wasn't comprehensive."
"They could put in more third-party [integrations]... also more playbooks, out-of-the-box, for automation [would be helpful]."
"For us, the biggest sticking point is that the product is not being designed for multi-tenancy use at present, from an MSP perspective."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"In general, licensing can be quite complex with Cisco products. It would be nice if it was a bit more intuitive and had fewer "gotchas" in there."
"Licensing is a disaster. It's a mess and I hope they fix it soon."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"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."
"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."
"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 pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
"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."
"It comes free with all Cisco products. So, it is a good price."
"For the value you get, the pricing of the solution is excellent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

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: May 2026.
896,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.