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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Ping Identity Platform 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)
Ping Identity Platform
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3rd), Authentication Systems (5th), Data Governance (6th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (5th), Access Management (3rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (2nd), Directory Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Ping Identity Platform 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.
Ping Identity Platform, on the other hand, focuses on Authentication Systems, holds 1.7% mindshare, down 2.0% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Authentication Systems
 

Featured Reviews

Adarge Ekholt - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 3, 2023
The ability to see what devices are online for a particular user helps a lot with our troubleshooting
Another big benefit for us is definitely security in terms of wireless user activity. We spent a lot of time looking at live logs and user logs to figure out where they've been in the network and in which buildings. We can get rogue granular with locations of where people are and where they're experiencing issues. We have definitely saved time since using ISE when it comes to building some of the policies around the types of users, like library users versus student union or even admin users. The policy building is complicated, but after a while, it's pretty straightforward in terms of repeatability of staff turnover, and things like that. It's not the learning curve that's hard for continuous maintenance.
SandeepKumar30 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 8, 2024
Efficient product and supports automation through shell scripting
We have six to eight members who provide operational support for Ping Identity products. They perform day-to-day operational support, including root cause analysis, Ping server installation, server maintenance, troubleshooting data sources, and any issues related to stopping processes. We create standard operating procedures for them to follow. If there's a high-priority incident that cannot be resolved by our SOPPO, CTP, IDaaS, and other support teams, we escalate the issue to the Ping Identity vendor team. We set up meetings to discuss the issue and find a solution. I am also part of the support team as a senior consultant. Considering our daily activities and customer identity issue resolution, I would rate the operational support for Ping products at six to seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The access policies, and all of the policies in Cisco ISE, are important to us."
"A lot of customers use a third party to manage their guest Wi-Fi. Cisco ISE presents the ability to bring that in-house so that customers can have full control over it, change the branding, and get extra telemetry from it and the user data. It works really well for our customers."
"Not having to trust devices and being able to set those levels of trust and more finely control our network is a benefit."
"Cisco ISE's integration with other external identity servers like Duende is very simple and easy."
"The first benefit is that we can implement zero trust architecture because of Cisco ISE. I can assure my CISO in my company that my network is such that nobody can just bring in their laptop, desktop, or any sort of mobile device and can directly get connected to my network. That is a benefit that I can only allow people who I trust on the network."
"For device administration, all devices have multifactor authentication in collaboration with IT, so it secures access to all of our devices. For guest and wireless access, it's a matter of a lowly manager who we give access to the portal and he can assign access to the guests, so it's a very simple process now. It keeps the IT focusing on their work, and gives the business people the right access."
"Technical support is okay."
"Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities."
"The soundness of the solution is its most valuable feature. For example, if you are in our corporate network, you can log on without any traffic interfering."
"It is a scalable solution."
"I work on the application onboarding process because we have multiple customers and get data from different sources."
"It's pretty stable as a product."
"The solution has a smooth and configurable user interface for single sign-on capabilities."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is a scalable solution...It is a stable solution."
"People use the solution to secure their applications and authenticate particular processes."
 

Cons

"Third-party integration is important, as well as the continuous adaptation feature which is the AIOps. It would be helpful to include the AIOps."
"I don't see as many customers as I should adopting the onboarding feature. I think Cisco should make that process a lot easier and less intrusive on the end users' devices."
"Profiling is a really good feature. However, it sometimes is a challenge for customers when there are issues with the remediation part. I would add a built-in remediation solution. That would be a very nice feature."
"It could be less monolithic. It's one huge application, and it does everything under the sun, so it's hard to deal with and upgrade and manage."
"Also, the menus could have been much simpler. There are many redundant things. That's a problem with all Cisco solutions. There are too many menus and redundant things on all of them."
"In order to make it a ten, it should be more user-friendly. You need somebody who is knowledgeable about it to use it. It's not easy to use. We have to rely heavily on technical support."
"Some of ISE's features need to be more agile. For example, we couldn't integrate our data because Cisco needs your data to be in its own format."
"I would like to see the product simplified more, especially with the configuration."
"It has a long way to go until it is a cloud-based solution."
"Currently, the main integration is SAML-based, but other integration methodologies need to be supported."
"PingID's device management portal should be more easily accessible via a link. They provide no link to the portal like they do for the service. The passwordless functionality could be more comprehensive. You can't filter based on hardware devices. Having that filtering option would be great. Device authentication would be a great feature."
"One significant challenge was ensuring smooth user migration during system upgrades in Ping."
"The product's community has certain shortcomings that require improvement."
"PingFederate's UI could be streamlined. They have recently made several improvements, but it's still too complex. It's a common complaint. The configuration should be simplified because the learning curve is too steep."
"Ping Identity Platform must improve its UI since its management console is complicated."
"It requires some expertise to set up and manage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not that pricey."
"Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs."
"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."
"I have complaints. I don't enjoy the licensing model. Once we moved from 2.7 to 3.1, switching from Base, Plus, and Apex to Essential and Advantage in Premier, we went from a perpetual, with our base licenses, to now a subscription-base. So, we will have to renew those licenses every year, and I'm not a fan of that for our base licenses. Apex/Premier, we already expected, which is fine, but for basic connectivity, I am not a fan of that."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been very important to our organization and has been a big factor. We've had issues in the past, but one of the things I like about ISE is its logging features. Security wise or information wise, it really has been a powerful tool."
"I think the price is okay."
"The technology is good, but to use some of the other features, and capabilities, they request that we purchase the Cisco DNA Center. As a result, the bundled price is a little high."
"The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."
"Ping offers flexible pricing that's not standardized."
"The product is costly."
"The pricing is neither too expensive nor too cheap."
"Compared to some SaaS-based solutions, the platform is relatively cost-effective."
"The platform's value justifies the pricing, especially considering its security features and scalability."
"PingID pricing is a ten out of ten because it's a little bit cheaper than other tools, such as Okta and ForgeRock, and supports multiple tools."
"Ping Identity Platform is not an expensive solution."
"The tool is quite affordable."
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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
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
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 PingID?
The mobile biometric authentication option improved user experience. It's always about security because, with two-factor authentication, it's always a separate device verifying the actual user logg...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingID?
The pricing is neither too expensive nor too cheap.
What needs improvement with PingID?
The management console needs to be improved. PingID should revise it.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Ping Identity (ID), PingFederate, PingAccess, PingOne, PingDataGovernance, PingDirectory, OpenDJ
 

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
Equinix, Land O'Lakes, CDPHP, Box, International SOS, Opower, VSP, Chevron, Truist, Academy of Art University, Northern Air Cargo, Repsol
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: September 2024.
801,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.