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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs OpenText Identity Governance 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security and efficiency, providing cost savings and IT consolidation, making it vital for network management.
Sentiment score
7.8
OpenText Identity Governance boosts ROI by preventing fraud, reducing audit costs, and enhancing access management and compliance efficiency.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco Identity Services Engine customer service is praised for commitment, but technical support feedback varies due to delays and complexities.
Sentiment score
7.8
Opinions on OpenText Identity Governance's customer support vary, with some praising expertise but others criticizing response times and overall effectiveness.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco ISE excels in scalable environments, efficiently supporting deployments with flexibility for thousands of endpoints across various sizes.
Sentiment score
8.6
OpenText Identity Governance is highly scalable, effectively managing large deployments and receiving high satisfaction ratings for its performance.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is reliable with high user satisfaction, though some report stability issues, especially during upgrades and high capacity.
Sentiment score
7.9
OpenText Identity Governance is stable and reliable, with minimal issues and infrequent support calls, receiving largely positive ratings.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco ISE struggles with setup complexity, non-intuitive UI, integration challenges, upgrade issues, and demands for better features.
OpenText Identity Governance needs better connectivity, integration, modernization, and technical support, alongside improved interface, stability, and cloud deployment features.
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).
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE offers strong features with complex, expensive pricing, but discounts through partnerships can help alleviate costs.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE provides comprehensive access control, seamless integration, and enhanced security with intuitive management for versatile network operations.
OpenText Identity Governance provides robust access evaluations, role mining, and automated processes, ensuring stability and effective large-scale governance.
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.
There is value because it helps us secure the network and prevents certain things from happening which could cause financial loss.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
OpenText Identity Governance
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and OpenText Identity Governance 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 25.1%, down 30.7% compared to last year.
OpenText Identity Governance, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 0.5% mindshare, down 0.6% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

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.
JoelHercik - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature, capable solution that should be available as a cloud solution
They haven't really evolved the product to the cloud, so they don't have a cloud solution. It's just deployable in the cloud, so in some cases that holds them back in a competitive situation. I don't know if they're intent on taking their solution to the cloud, but if they do, that would be one improvement. It would allow them to be competitive down market in medium to small enterprises. I don't know if they care to address that market or not because it doesn't seem like they've made that move, but that would be one way for them to do that. As for additional features, I would suggest stronger integration. I think enabling more universal industry standard integrations would probably help them with different applications.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
10%
 

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...
What do you like most about NetIQ Identity Governance?
You can run reports and verify the access each user has. There is a process that runs automatically for access review. It sends an email to the manager and provides a task for the manager to review...
What needs improvement with NetIQ Identity Governance?
NetIQ Identity Governance is not flexible. Sometimes, filtering information to provide users with options, such as selecting the application to which they want to request access, can be challenging...
What advice do you have for others considering NetIQ Identity Governance?
The solution is worth using because of its flexibility, especially in integrating applications. However, the time required for integration varies based on the quality of documentation provided for ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
NetIQ Access Governance Suite, Novell Access Governance Suite
 

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
Western & Southern Financial Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.