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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Omada Identity 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
7.1
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security, simplifies operations, and reduces costs while boosting productivity and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Sentiment score
5.6
Omada Identity reduces costs through automation, saving time and improving ROI, despite challenges in quantifying compliance-related ROI.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
We also save money because we increased security, stopped incidents, and reduced breaches and security breaches.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions
If we look at one customer where we initially started, they had about four to ten employees working on IGA, and it is now almost half of it.
principal IGA consultant and partner at Fortigi
Omada Identity has definitely helped us save time when provisioning access for various identities.
Senior Developer at Guidewire Limited
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco ISE support is highly rated for knowledge and responsiveness but struggles with response times and communication challenges.
Sentiment score
6.6
Omada Identity’s support is responsive and knowledgeable but inconsistent; improvements are needed in documentation and complex issue handling.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Cisco support has pretty good teams for support and every time we had good answers and we could somehow solve the issues we had.
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
TAC support from Cisco is a notable feature; it provides very professional support.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions
The vendor support needs improvement because we have reported serious incidents that remain unresolved.
Lead Cyber Security Architect at Ernst & Young
Maintenance is necessary, and aside from that, if there are issues with Salesforce cloud, then Omada Identity may go down.
IT Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
We do not contact their technical support directly because we have a service agreement already in place with them with some dedicated and some non-dedicated resources.
Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco ISE supports smooth scalability for diverse enterprises, but virtualization and hardware challenges may require strategic solutions.
Sentiment score
7.7
Omada Identity is praised for scalable integration of cloud and on-prem services, supporting large environments and growing enterprises.
You can run an all-in-one deployment and switch to distributed mode as your company grows, relying on Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to support your scalability needs.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Integrated Solutions
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
However, you can have some latency issues depending on where your devices are.
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
The scalability of Omada Identity is excellent; they offer flexible pricing for licenses, accommodating both full accounts and lighter identities, which makes it truly scalable.
Identity Access Management (IAM) Engineer at Draexlmaier
Omada Identity is a top-growing tool that is booming in the market.
IT Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Omada Identity's scalability is strong.
principal IGA consultant and partner at Fortigi
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is stable and reliable, but large deployments may face challenges, requiring proper configuration and effective support.
Sentiment score
7.6
Omada Identity is reliable and stable, rated highly by users despite minor performance issues and specific component challenges.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
Solution Architect, Presales Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Sometimes when we have upgrades or failovers with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), we had some minor issues.
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
In terms of stability, I rate Omada Identity a nine out of ten.
Identity Access Management (IAM) Engineer at Draexlmaier
We have experienced too many unexpected errors on a daily basis.
Lead Cyber Security Architect at Ernst & Young
Omada Identity is a stable and reliable tool.
IT Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco ISE is hindered by complexity, compatibility issues, costly licensing, and needs improvements in usability, support, and performance.
Omada Identity needs UI, mobile, setup, role management, analytics improvements, error handling, better performance, connectors, and communication upgrades.
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).
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
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.
Solution Architect, Presales Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
The biggest issue, which is the reason why we are transitioning from their product to SailPoint, is the overall user experience.
Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
There is room for improvement in Omada Identity, primarily in customization for administrators; many custom tasks require contacting providers even for simple changes.
Identity Access Management (IAM) Engineer at Draexlmaier
The deployment of Omada Identity is complex; the product is not brilliantly documented.
Lead Cyber Security Architect at Ernst & Young
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE pricing is complex and costly, with strong vendor partnerships needed for discounts, favoring large enterprises over smaller businesses.
Omada Identity pricing is fair but varies; cloud costs are higher, with negotiation possible for flexible pricing.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
Solution Architect, Presales Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
Cloud solutions are expensive, while on-prem setups with shared environments are cheaper but not effective.
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
They are lower than some of their competitors.
Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
the product itself is said to have a good price, although the support can be expensive.
Identity Access Management (IAM) Engineer at Draexlmaier
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE excels in security, network access control, and integration, offering adaptability, scalability, and centralized management for organizations.
Omada Identity streamlines identity management with automated provisioning, Microsoft integration, customization, and strong compliance and security features.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers authentication using RADIUS, enhancing network security by separating and segregating networks.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
There is value because it helps us secure the network and prevents certain things from happening which could cause financial loss.
Ag Systems & Networks Head at UNBS
The adaptability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) policy enforcement can fit to the site we have depending on which kind of devices we have on site and then the needs for authentication, granting access and then assigning each device into its correct network for segmentation.
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
Omada Identity helps automate reviews of access requests and reroutes them to appropriate people, which is what it should do; it really assists in reducing the workload time.
Identity Access Management (IAM) Engineer at Draexlmaier
You can really do it codeless by creating a custom process with the process designer, adding the building blocks of the process designer into the process, and then getting it to work.
principal IGA consultant and partner at Fortigi
Technically, the product does everything one would expect from an identity and access management platform.
Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

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)
Omada Identity
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (4th), Identity Management (IM) (4th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (4th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Omada Identity 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 22.4%, down 28.3% compared to last year.
Omada Identity, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 3.3% mindshare, down 3.4% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)22.4%
Aruba ClearPass21.6%
Fortinet FortiNAC16.1%
Other39.9%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Omada Identity3.3%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud14.6%
Microsoft Entra ID9.3%
Other72.8%
Identity Management (IM)
 

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.
Lars Henrik Jensen - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Cyber Security Architect at Ernst & Young
Faced deployment delays and daily errors but have streamlined access reviews and improved termination processes
The deployment of Omada Identity is complex; the product is not brilliantly documented, and it lacks the same level of documentation that could be found for systems such as SailPoint or Saviynt, making it harder to find material or help online, particularly with Omada Cloud. The system performance of Omada Identity is inconsistent; we've been analyzing this issue together with Omada, but we haven't been able to resolve whether the problem lies on their side or my client's side, which causes long response times and long run times in Omada sometimes. Omada Identity does not help deploy IGA within 12 weeks; the time frame for applying the rapid deployment solution was much longer than expected, and I am unsure if it is built on best practices across all systems. When we receive an error or system message from Omada Identity, it's very hard to decode what it means; we have had serious issues in daily imports that we can't explain, indicating a need for improved stability. The comprehensiveness of out-of-the-box connectors that Omada provides differs; the connectors for Microsoft and Salesforce are good, but for SAP, they are basically non-existent.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise43
 

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 Omada Identity Cloud?
As an administrator, we benefit from a lot of functionality that is available out of the box, but it is also configurable to meet our specific needs.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omada Identity Cloud?
Regarding the pricing of Omada Identity, this is not taken care of by me. The price and everything is managed by the organization, particularly by my IT director. Therefore, I am not aware of the e...
What needs improvement with Omada Identity Cloud?
Regarding areas of Omada Identity that could be improved or enhanced, I do not have much idea. As of now, the tool is good, and I haven't seen any bugs or errors. I consider it perfect as of now.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Omada Identity Suite, Omada Identity Cloud
 

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
Bayer, ECCO Shoes, Vattenfall, NuStar Energy, Unicredit, Schiphol Group, BMW Group, Deutsche Leasing
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.