Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
6.6
Cisco Identity Services Engine boosts security, simplifies IT, reduces costs, mitigates risks, and enhances efficiency with long-term support.
Sentiment score
5.8
Omada Identity reduces costs and improves security through automation, rapid implementation, and effective account management despite minor issues.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
Omada Identity has definitely helped us save time when provisioning access for various identities.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Cisco ISE customer service is praised, but tech support varies, with fast resolutions or delays and inconsistent expertise.
Sentiment score
6.6
Omada Identity's customer service is mixed, with quick responses praised but delays and outdated documentation criticized. Improvements ongoing.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Cisco support has pretty good teams for support and every time we had good answers and we could somehow solve the issues we had.
Sometimes it's challenging to identify which support team is responsible for certain issues, which is a significant concern.
The vendor support needs improvement because we have reported serious incidents that remain unresolved.
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.
first-level support lacks expertise
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Identity Services Engine scales flexibly for various environments, though virtual deployments and licensing necessitate careful planning and hardware selection.
Sentiment score
7.7
Omada Identity offers excellent scalability and integration, efficiently adapting to organizational needs with high user satisfaction despite speed concerns.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
However, you can have some latency issues depending on where your devices are.
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.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco ISE is stable and reliable, though occasional bugs occur, but technical support and proper management ensure performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
Omada Identity is stable but faces challenges in audits and integrations, with users desiring better bug support and communication.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
Sometimes when we have upgrades or failovers with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), we had some minor issues.
In terms of stability, I rate Omada Identity a nine out of ten.
We have experienced too many unexpected errors on a daily basis.
I would rate the stability as having no downtime.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek simplified Cisco ISE setup, improved integration and UI, refined stability, transparent licensing, and enhanced logging and analytics.
Omada Identity needs interface updates, better scalability, improved documentation, and enhanced performance for a more efficient user experience.
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.
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
The biggest issue, which is the reason why we are transitioning from their product to SailPoint, is the overall user experience.
There is room for improvement in Omada Identity, primarily in customization for administrators; many custom tasks require contacting providers even for simple changes.
The deployment of Omada Identity is complex; the product is not brilliantly documented.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE provides three tiers; complex, costly pricing is offset by comprehensive features and potential discounts through partnerships.
Enterprise buyers find Omada Identity competitively priced on-premise, but costly in the cloud, with negotiable licensing and setup.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Cloud solutions are expensive, while on-prem setups with shared environments are cheaper but not effective.
They are lower than some of their competitors.
the product itself is said to have a good price, although the support can be expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security via dynamic policy enforcement, seamless integration, and robust authentication for a zero-trust environment.
Omada Identity enhances security with governance, automation, integration, and user-friendly interfaces, streamlining identity management and administrative tasks.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers authentication using RADIUS, enhancing network security by separating and segregating networks.
There is value because it helps us secure the network and prevents certain things from happening which could cause financial loss.
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.
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.
Technically, the product does everything one would expect from an identity and access management platform.
Omada Identity solution is that it covers most of the concepts of IGA.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Omada Identity
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
51
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) (3rd)
 

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 24.2%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
Omada Identity, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 3.1% mindshare, down 3.5% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)24.2%
Aruba ClearPass23.6%
Fortinet FortiNAC17.9%
Other34.30000000000001%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Omada Identity3.1%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud18.4%
Microsoft Entra ID11.8%
Other66.7%
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.
Lars Henrik Jensen - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise42
 

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?
I'm not fully aware of the pricing details, which are managed by higher management; however, the product itself is said to have a good price, although the support can be expensive.
What needs improvement with Omada Identity Cloud?
There is room for improvement in Omada Identity, primarily in customization for administrators; many custom tasks require contacting providers even for simple changes. We need more hands-on customi...
 

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 Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.