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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Omada Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
139
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Omada Identity
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (3rd), Identity Management (IM) (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 29.9%, down 31.4% compared to last year.
Omada Identity, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 4.2% mindshare, up 4.2% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

Featured Reviews

Brad Davenport - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 3, 2023
Offers rich contact sharing, many self-service features, and the ability to categorically list all the endpoints in the infrastructure
I think in any technology infrastructure, you're going to have environments where improvements could occur. I think some areas where ISE could be better are perhaps in the number of integrations that they offer from a virtual standpoint, as well as having a better and more comprehensive pathway for the customer to go from a physical environment to a virtual one. Many of our clients today are hybrid. They have a physical footprint in a data center somewhere, as well as a public cloud instance for things. Today there really isn't an elegant pathway for a client that wants to go 100 percent cloud, and that's an improvement I think that could be along the way.
BA
Apr 3, 2024
Helps ensure compliance with timely termination of access, and saves time, but the reporting functionality is limited
The roadmap that Omada Identity provides for deploying additional features is adequate, but it would benefit from more frequent communication with its customers. They occasionally hold advisory board calls where multiple customers participate. During these calls, they discuss the roadmap and what they're working on. However, they also have several community forums. Frankly, most people don't have the time to monitor all those resources for updates. While the Omada certification survey is a helpful tool for verifying user roles, creating the survey itself can be challenging. The process is not very user-friendly, and the available documentation is not sufficient to get started easily. For more complex surveys, it may be necessary to resort to professional services. Omada's reporting functionality is limited and could benefit from greater customization. Unlike other solutions that allow users with SQL knowledge to create tailored reports, Omada restricts users to pre-defined reports offering only generic data that may not be relevant to specific needs. Omada currently forces users to install the newest version. We would appreciate the flexibility to choose an earlier version, such as the one preceding the latest release.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The live logs and live sessions for troubleshooting are the most valuable features because they provide a detailed report of any issues."
"Cisco ISE is a comprehensive solution that allows you to control access to network resources granularly based on policies."
"Typically, the installation is pretty simple."
"The posture assessment is a valuable feature because of the ability to do assessments on the clients before they connect to the network."
"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."
"It's keeping our company safe from rogue devices connecting to our network. From a security standpoint, there's peace of mind knowing that every device that connects is a good one."
"The most valuable feature is the provisioning of the device so as to ensure that they are compliant with the security policy that we need to have."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with StealthWatch and DNA as one fabric."
"The support response time and the freedom from strange bugs and strange things happening in the software are valuable."
"The customer success and support teams have been crucial."
"The most valuable feature in Omada is the governance. We work with other products and other product vendors, but the sweet spot in the market for Omada is where things are heavy on governance."
"The most valuable feature for us is the ability to set up connectors to various IT systems and offer a wide range of supported connectors."
"The most relevant feature is Omada's reporting engine. Omada never 'forgets' and archives every process. All steps an admin, user, or manager has executed, are recorded in Omada."
"The most valuable aspect of the product is that it is Microsoft-based and it supports all Microsoft technology."
"The administrative features and SoD are valuable."
"The best feature in Omada Identity is that it enables us to implement standardized employee life cycle processes so that we don't have to create them ourselves. We can then use the standard workflows. The breadth and scope of the solution’s IGA features also fulfill our requirements."
 

Cons

"The opinion of my coworkers, and it's mine as well, is that the user interface could use some tender loving care. It seems counterintuitive sometimes. If you go to the logs, it's hard to figure out which one you need to look at."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and it is not simple to use."
"I'd like to see an easier way to upgrade to larger versions, as well as more best practices that are easier to locate on their support page."
"Adding new devices was a little cumbersome. I haven't done it that many times, but I remember that adding new devices to the authentication piece of it was a little cumbersome. The way I was shown to do it, I thought it was odd because we had to go into the active device, copy the file down, export it, make some changes to it, and then reimport it as opposed to being able to click it and having a template to fill out."
"They should improve the documentation. There tends to be a lot of old text, or the new things aren't always up to what's been released on the code, and sometimes the documentation is inconsistent."
"It could be more intuitive in terms of how to configure the policies."
"They should improve their licensing. Licensing is always trouble with Cisco, and Cisco Identity Services Engine is no different. The way the product is licensed could be improved."
"If Cisco could grant more control, the features could be more focused on network and security administration, reducing the need for integration with other components."
"When you do a recalculation of an identity, it's hard to understand what was incorrect before you started the recalculation, and which values are actually updated... all you see are all the new fields that are provisioned, instead of seeing only the fields that are changed."
"The Omada Identity SaaS version doesn't provide all the features Omada Identity on-premise provides."
"The current reporting tools in Omada are limited, but we expect significant improvements in the new version."
"The architecture of the entire system should also be less complex. The way they process the data is complex."
"If you find an error and you need it fixed, you have to upgrade. It's not like they say, "Okay, we'll fix this problem for you." You have to upgrade. The last time we upgraded, because there was an error in a previous version, we had to pay 150,000 Danish Krone (about $24,000 at the time of this review) to upgrade our systems... That means that we have to pay to get errors fixed that Omada has made in programming the system. I hope they change this way of looking at things."
"I would like to see them expand the functionality of the tool to continue to be competitive with the monsters out there. For example, they could add functionality on the authentication side, functionality that Octa and SailPoint have. But they should do that while maintaining the same simplicity that makes Omada a product of choice today."
"Improved traceability would be helpful for administrators. For example, let's say a user's permission is being revoked. We can only see the system that has carried out a particular action but not what triggered it. If an event definition or something has changed in the criteria for the permission being removed or something like that, we don't have immediate access to that information. It takes a little detective work."
"When the re-certification process is launched that makes Omada very slow. There are performance issues in the current version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is complicated."
"The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team."
"It is not that pricey."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"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."
"Licensing is a disaster. It's a mess and I hope they fix it soon."
"The price is a bit on the high side."
"Cisco ISE's licensing can get pricey."
"Omada isn't cheap or expensive. The licensing model is flexible. I've only had limited interactions with the Omada sales team, but they were positive. They don't sell the customers more licenses than they need. It's important to accurately forecast future usage. For example, we have many licenses that we don't use because we don't have the identities yet. We pay extra, which isn't good."
"It's a fair price for the on-premises system. Compared with what we had before, it's much cheaper and we get all the modules in one. We tried to go with the cloud, but it was far too expensive."
"Omada Identity is competitively priced and delivers good value for our money."
"Omada is expensive."
"It is not cheap. None of these solutions are cheap, but we have good pricing at least for now from a licensing perspective."
"Being Dutch, I can only say that it is extremely expensive, but all software products are expensive. If you have 38,000 users, then even one dollar or one euro per person would amount to a significant amount of money. Because of the high number of users, anything gets expensive very fast here."
"There were a lot of administrator, partner, and supplier accounts for people who were no longer working for us but still in the system. So, we reduced the number of users no longer with the company, which saved us some money on licensing."
"It is licensed per managed user per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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 Omada Identity?
We don't have to go in and do a lot of the work that we did before. It may have saved us somewhere in the range of 10 to 30 percent of the time we spent on provisioning access.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omada Identity?
My client deals directly with the Omada Identity team in terms of licensing. I never look at pricing, so I'm not aware of how much the solution costs, but it's worth the money. Often, when you begi...
What needs improvement with Omada Identity?
There are some technical bits and pieces that we have looked at that could be better. For instance, when you do a recalculation of an identity, it's hard to understand what was incorrect before you...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Omada Identity Suite, Omada Identity Cloud
 

Learn More

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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, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: September 2024.
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