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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence 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
145
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
IBM Security Identity Gover...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (13th), Identity Management (IM) (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 21.7%, down 27.9% compared to last year.
IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence, on the other hand, focuses on User Provisioning Software, holds 2.0% mindshare, up 1.9% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)21.7%
Aruba ClearPass21.2%
Fortinet FortiNAC15.5%
Other41.6%
Network Access Control (NAC)
User Provisioning Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence2.0%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud24.5%
Saviynt13.0%
Other60.5%
User Provisioning Software
 

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.
reviewer1830612 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head, Cybersecurity at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
We use the solution to ensure organizations conform to industry base certifications and best practices
We use the product to ensure organizations conform to industry base certifications and best practices and do not contradict their security policies within the base points they specify in the system, which are used to match everything against their governance use cases I think the product's most…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco ISE scales exceptionally well."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very stable."
"Improves switch account management."
"I love the policy sets, they are really nice and dynamic."
"Cisco ISE integrates with everything else."
"The endpoint profiling feature is among the most valuable because it keeps me from having to manually maintain a MAC address bypass list to track endpoints. I can have ISE profile them for me and then put them in the right bucket."
"SGTs are valuable because they make it easy to enforce policies, instead of pushing them across all the other platforms."
"There are a lot of integrations available with multiple vendors. This has made the solution easier to work with."
"Lifecycle management, governance and documentation."
"I would rate the price eight out of 10, with 10 as the best value for money."
 

Cons

"I believe that Cisco can improve the way its policies are built because it's a little complex."
"Cisco ISE has numerous features that are impractical, and I won't utilize them since they require payment."
"Profiling is a really good feature. However, it sometimes is a challenge for customers when there are issues with the remediation part. I would add a built-in remediation solution. That would be a very nice feature."
"I would definitely improve the deployment and maybe a little bit of the support. Our first exposure to ISE had a lot of issues."
"Documentation is probably the worst part of the software."
"We would definitely like to see a little bit of an improvement in the web GUI navigation. Some of the things are a little bit hidden in the drop-down menu. If we could get a way to get to those quicker, it'd be much more useful."
"Difficult to figure out the protocols and nodes in order to implement correctly."
"The policies could be adjusted to make them more easily implementable."
"Self service center is not always easy to understand."
"The solution is a bit pricey for some regions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"I get very good pricing from Cisco, so I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem with licensing because we get enterprise or global licensing."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"It is fairly expensive and that's part of why we have implemented it in the type of 'hack' that we did, to service multiple clients."
"I think the price is okay."
"It costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"It is not that pricey."
"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."
"I would rate the price eight out of 10, with 10 as the best value for money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
13%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
No data available
 

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
IGI, IBM Security Identity Manager, ISIM
 

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
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