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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 2024

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
8.4
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security, reduces breaches, ensures compliance, simplifies management, and consolidates systems for cost savings and efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Umbrella improves security, reduces costs, and enhances productivity, offering quick ROI and increased efficiency with threat prevention.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco ISE support is praised for knowledge and responsiveness, yet occasionally inconsistent with integration and follow-up challenges.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella is praised for efficient support and extensive resources, with minor delays in email and purchasing processes.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Sometimes it's challenging to identify which support team is responsible for certain issues, which is a significant concern.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
The support channel isn't like the usual Cisco support where I could call instantly for a hardware issue like a router or switch.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers high scalability, supporting large deployments and enterprise expansions despite hardware and setup challenges.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based infrastructure, enabling easy deployment and management across diverse organizational sizes globally.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
Cisco Umbrella is scalable for our company.
It is a scalable solution but requires improvement in specific areas.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is highly reliable and stable, though larger deployments may experience occasional performance and configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for its excellent stability, high uptime, and reliability despite rare minor connectivity issues.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
I will give stability a score of seven, as there are some glitches from time to time.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Identity Services Engine requires improved integration, user interface, documentation, compatibility, and management efficiency to enhance user experience.
Cisco Umbrella needs improved integration, user experience, reporting, and regional data centers for better security and network performance.
The whole setup works well with Cisco access points and Cisco switches, but when you have multiple vendors in the environment, such as HP switches or access points like Aruba, you'll find they will not work well with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).
Pricing can be more expensive compared to other vendors, and there is a significant price gap observed, which doesn't seem justified by some specific features.
Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE offers three pricing tiers, with high costs and complex licensing, but provides extensive features and potential discounts.
Cisco Umbrella pricing is fair yet expensive, with flexible plans, negotiable discounts, and complex scalability for large enterprises.
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
Making large organizational costs significant.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE enhances network security with integration, 802.1X authentication, policy management, ease of use, and strong access control.
Cisco Umbrella offers DNS-based protection, web filtering, and integration, enhancing security and productivity for hybrid work environments.
This solution ensures organizations have secure environments and also supports robust policy enforcement, allowing control over who has access to various parts of the network.
The solution is integrated with other Cisco devices and can offer automation for an organization, making deployments more dynamic and providing real-time visibility.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
The most valuable aspect is that it is hosted with Cisco and can detect any new anomalies, acting almost like an XDR.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 23.5%, up from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 12.0%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
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. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent
The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
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 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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
OpenDNS
 

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
Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.