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

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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)
RSA Identity Governance and...
Average Rating
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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 29.5%, down 31.4% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.5% mindshare, down 1.6% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit-Joshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 3, 2023
Enables us to ensure that any machine that comes into the network is patched and secure
Posturing is the most valuable feature. There are other tools available that can do some of their other features, like network authentication. The posturing was something because of the nature of the industry that we are in. There are people who go outside for work. Their machines are at times not in the network, and not patched properly. We don't know when they're going to come back, whether it is in a good state, whether it has antivirus, whether it's installed on those machines. Posturing is something that we have made our baseline policy that whenever a machine comes back to our network, it should have a certain level of the operating system and a level of security and antivirus installed. We couldn't have done this posturing without Cisco ISE. This is its greatest feature. It does help me to detect and remediate my network. It enables me to detect any external threat that comes to my network and remediate. If a machine comes into my network that does not qualify per my baseline policy, I have a policy that the machine gets redirected to where it can be patched and remediated. I can ensure that it is fully patched and secure. The entire idea of having ISE is to enhance cybersecurity resilience. The zero trust architecture was coined by the cybersecurity team itself. It was a task given to us in the infrastructure space to see how we can bring resilience into the cybersecurity network and ISE was the solution.
Harshul Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 29, 2022
Lacking customization, poor support, but useful auditing
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise. We have our own proprietary cloud solution created along with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle and it's deployed on the AWS platform. We use RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle for a broad level use case for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"The product is stable."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"Cisco ISE is a powerful solution. It gives us the ability to control who's accessing our network, and Cisco has made it very easy."
"Typically, the installation is pretty simple."
"The endpoint profiling feature is among the most valuable because it keeps me from having to manually maintain a MAC address bypass list to track endpoints. I can have ISE profile them for me and then put them in the right bucket."
"The return on investment we have seen is related to time in terms of troubleshooting. The logs, such as the security logs, inform us of the issues that people have had. ISE has been very instrumental in helping isolate those issues. We've seen a lot of cost savings because we don't have to pay an IT person to waste time doing something that should be instantaneous."
"The solution enables us to authenticate with AD."
"With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes."
"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."
"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."
"The data collection is excellent and easy to do. It does not require a lot of configuration nor does it require rules to be written like other competitors do."
"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."
 

Cons

"We face many bugs."
"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."
"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."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"Deploying to a machine, as opposed to a dedicated appliance, can be a bit difficult."
"The upgrades could be better. Every time we try to do an upgrade, we have problems. It's a pain."
"It would be helpful for us to know what needs to be deployed, configured, and what changes we need to make to our devices when we don't receive the specific login which is an indication of a lack of connection or incorrect configuration."
"The web interface needs improvement. The new web interface that they have is not as easy to manage and we find it to be very slow."
"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."
"This product is missing a lot of features which other competitors are providing. One of the key features that are missing right now is risk scoring. Additionally, there is not much scope for customization - everything is hard-coded and predefined, so it does not allow the developers to make many modifications."
"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."
"If you use the appliance version then it won't handle a huge database volume."
"Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy costs."
"RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle could improve out-of-the-box customization."
"The user interface and workflow need improvement, and more connectors would help."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"That's where things got a bit more complicated. Previously, it was a one-time purchase and we just had to renew support. These days, there's a subscription model, which is supposed to be easier and cheaper as well, but it's more pricey"
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"Being fully honest, the Cisco licensing model right now is really confusing. We don't know what licenses we have where. We have Smart licensing, but the different levels are way confusing."
"In terms of the licensing and the pricing structure of the Cisco Identity Services Engine, there's been a huge advantage to our clients recently with the advent of the enterprise agreement."
"The licensing is subscription-based and based on the user account."
"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"We are using the cloud platform, but we don't find it compatible to be served as a multi-tenant platform. This is a large drawback. It becomes expensive because it is then an all-dedicated solution. You have to have a separate tenant for each client, which increases the cost. The overall unit pricing can be less expensive than how it is right now."
"Pricing varies based on user count/number of modules you need."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes.
What needs improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy...
What advice do you have for others considering RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Two of the members of our company's in-house team and a consultant for support were required to take care of the maintenance phase of the product. I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
SecurID
 

Learn More

 

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
NTT Com Asia, Virgin Blue, Bank of Uganda, EMEA Telecommunications Company, LAit (Lazio Innovazione Tecnologica), NyNet, OTP Bank, Red Bull Racing, Rupert House School, Signify, UK Local Authority, Bancolombia, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (BPPR), TIVIT, Array Services, International Computerware, KPMG LLP, Moffitt Cancer Center
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2024.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.