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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Identity Governance and Administration 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
8.4
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security and efficiency, providing cost savings and IT consolidation, making it vital for network management.
Sentiment score
7.6
Symantec Identity Governance boosts ROI by streamlining onboarding, enabling self-service, and automating user management, enhancing IT efficiency.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco Identity Services Engine customer service is praised for commitment, but technical support feedback varies due to delays and complexities.
Sentiment score
6.2
Symantec's customer service is praised for responsiveness but needs improvement in geographical support and complex issue expertise.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Sometimes it's challenging to identify which support team is responsible for certain issues, which is a significant concern.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco ISE excels in scalable environments, efficiently supporting deployments with flexibility for thousands of endpoints across various sizes.
Sentiment score
7.3
Symantec Identity Governance scales well and adapts to organizational needs, though some face customization and resource challenges.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is reliable with high user satisfaction, though some report stability issues, especially during upgrades and high capacity.
Sentiment score
6.6
Symantec Identity Governance's stability is generally satisfactory, with performance issues arising under heavy loads or improper tuning.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco ISE struggles with setup complexity, non-intuitive UI, integration challenges, upgrade issues, and demands for better features.
Symantec Identity Governance needs improvements in UI, integration, documentation, security, cloud performance, scalability, and user-friendliness.
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).
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE offers strong features with complex, expensive pricing, but discounts through partnerships can help alleviate costs.
Symantec Identity Governance pricing is mid-range, seen as expensive, with flexible licensing but time-consuming implementation.
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
Making large organizational costs significant.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE provides comprehensive access control, seamless integration, and enhanced security with intuitive management for versatile network operations.
Symantec Identity Governance streamlines provisioning, access control, and policy compliance with flexible integration and user-friendly self-service features.
This solution ensures organizations have secure environments and also supports robust policy enforcement, allowing control over who has access to various parts of the network.
There is value because it helps us secure the network and prevents certain things from happening which could cause financial loss.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Symantec Identity Governanc...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (10th), Identity Management (IM) (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Symantec Identity Governance and Administration 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 25.1%, down 30.7% compared to last year.
Symantec Identity Governance and Administration, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.5% mindshare, up 1.3% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
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.
Sudip Karmacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a simple GUI and is easy to deploy, but has no proper documentation on how to do backups, and has lengthy configurations and workflows
There are several areas for improvement in Symantec Identity Governance and Administration. They have no proper documentation on how to do backups. They also have a lengthy workflow process where we have to make some configurations to manage automation in the rules and in our tasks which takes time. We have to manually configure all the configuration files, and we cannot export users because there's no export system in Symantec Identity Governance and Administration. What we'd like to see in the next release of the solution is for them to make configuration and integration with other systems their top priorities. We have many API systems to manage, so hopefully, if they make these enhancements shortly, we can directly connect with our API systems when using Symantec Identity Governance and Administration.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
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 Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
The product’s most valuable feature is flexibility. It can be customized as per the customer’s requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
The pricing has been very reasonable, but licensing costs vary based on the customer. It follows a user-based licensing model.
What needs improvement with Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
Symantec should develop a SaaS solution for cloud environments to make the solution available in various marketplaces for easy deployment. It should also offer bundle installation instead of one by...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
CA Identity Suite, Symantec IGA, Layer7 Identity Suite, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Minder, CA IAM, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Governance
 

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
Acciona, Core Blox, DBS
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2025.
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