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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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...
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
macmon Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 27.9%, down from 31.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

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.
Yusuf Oezeren - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust solution that provides protection to effectively control the access to your network
The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly. The interface is user-friendly but, for example, when we have new people starting to work, they never work with NetOne and it is a bit hard to expand in certain places. In addition, when I have to pull the last corrected MAC address, I need to put the space between it in order to find the address. If I don't put it in there, I don't get any resources. This needs improvement. They should maybe add integration with LanSuite. We can include it to see the direct information we get from our LAN Tree. If I click on the MAC address, I will then directly get the hostname, and that will open a tap-in line so I see what the last update was.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For us and our clients, the most valuable features of Identity Services Engine are really around the rich contact sharing that ISE gives you."
"When we use ISE, one of the helpful things is that I can go through the dashboard and get every step along the way of how a device was authenticated. If it's failing, why did it fail? Why is it unauthorized? If there's an error, what is the error and how can I fix that error? If it's something that, if they should be passing, why are they failing?"
"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great."
"Cisco ISE provides authentication for various applications. It can integrate with other applications to manage access, including Privileged Access Management for those applications. For a comprehensive environment, Cisco ISE should be able to integrate and provide asset management for an IT organization or any organization."
"At the moment, ISE seems to integrate very well with a number of other technologies."
"The feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed. I get notifications for new laptop devices. I think the user interface looks good compared to previous versions."
"Having access and being able to add people or change authentication yourself is nice. In the past, we've used other group authentication services, and we always had to go to them and get permissions. Having that control is key."
"It has allowed us to pull in multiple authentication databases, then centralize them into a captive portal system."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
 

Cons

"Cisco ISE is very complex and not very easy to deploy."
"It does a good job of establishing trust for every access request. We have had a little bit of a challenge with profiling, but we are probably about 80% there."
"I would like the product to include support for OSVS version three."
"The UI is not as intuitive as some other products, even products inside of Cisco's wheelhouse."
"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade."
"I believe that Cisco can improve the way its policies are built because it's a little complex."
"The product is expensive. It would also be a good add-on to have some machine learning."
"I'm frustrated by the resource consumption and how many resources it needs to run. It takes a lot of RAM. It takes a lot of space and a lot of IO power. It's frustrating to do upgrades because it takes a long time."
"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs."
"Its price is probably good if you use all of its features and functionalities to protect your environment. If you use only a part of the functionality, its price is too high. It is just a question of value and the functionality you use."
"It is difficult to measure security breaches, but since we have not been attacked so far, it has paid for itself over the years."
"It is fair."
"I think the price is okay."
"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."
"Pricing and licensing are not my expertise. As far as budgeting is concerned, we run an ELA with Cisco. It's a part of our ELA."
"The price is a bit on the high side."
"The solution is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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...
What do you like most about macmon Network Access Control?
The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me.
What needs improvement with macmon Network Access Control?
There is no information on the protocol where the clients stop to authenticate. There are some policies, but I don't know whether the device stopped on the authentication or authorization levels. I...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
macmon NAC
 

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
More than 1,500 installations in all over Europe in all industries: Stepchange, Volkswagen, Vivantes Healthcare, MBDA Weapons, APS engineering, Alfred Ritter GmbH (Ritter Sport), Haßberg-Kliniken, 1. FSV Mainz 05 eV., Siempelkamp, AEB etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. macmon Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.