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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
141
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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 28.8%, down 31.6% compared to last year.
Symantec Privileged Access Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 1.6% mindshare, down 1.7% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Bill Masci - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps across a distributed network, giving you a central way of authenticating everybody
A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on. The upgrade process is not very simple. It's pretty time-consuming. If you follow it step by step you're probably going to have a good time, but there are still a lot of things that could be a lot more user-friendly from an administrator's perspective. [They could be] easing a lot of the issues that people have. Instead of just saying the best practice is to migrate to new nodes [what would be helpful] would be to make that upgrade process easier. The UI is a lot nicer in 3.0. It's pretty slow, but for the most part, it's easy to find what you're looking for, especially things like RADIUS live logs, TACACS live logs. From a troubleshooting perspective, it's really nice finding stuff. For setting up policies, from that perspective, it could be a little bit better looking.
Krishnan Srinivasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances credential management and relatively inexpensive but needs feature improvements
I work for a service provider company, and we implement Symantec Privileged Access Manager solutions for our clients, which include various banking and mining clients We have implemented both the remote access and credential management features. The agent-based credential management solution…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is okay."
"The solution is great for establishing trust for every access request no matter where it comes from."
"TACACS and .1X security are the most valuable features. TACACS acts for user control, so no one can authenticate to our network devices, and .1X is to validate that unauthorized devices are plugged into our network."
"When you push out the policy, it is able to populate the entire network at one time."
"It does a good job of establishing trust for each access request, no matter the source. It's also very effective at helping with the distributed network and at securing access."
"One of the most important features is the authentication security for the individual connection to the network through their computer or laptop."
"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"I like the automation of the collection of information."
"CA PAM is working well for us."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"The interface is very friendly, colorful, and bold."
"The key benefits are we improve our governance. We ensure we can build more trust in the way we run and operate our environment, and most of all is the accountability."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"It is great for identity governance."
 

Cons

"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"There are still some bugs in ISE that need to be worked out."
"Automation [is an area for improvement]. It seems like everywhere I look, automation is super important. Automation and integrations. That's the area it could be improved..."
"If you have someone taking care of it, it can be quite easy to manage the solution. Otherwise, if you don't look after it and take care of it day-to-day, then it will become more complex to run."
"Some of the reporting could be improved."
"The templates could be better. When you have to do certs, especially with X.500 certs, it isn't very intuitive."
"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."
"When I work with customers to do my knowledge transfer, they're really overwhelmed with the navigation of the product and the number of things you can do with it. From a user interface standpoint, Cisco could focus on making certain tasks a bit more guided and easier for customers to walk through. That is, a user-friendly interface and streamlined workflows would be great."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
"The setup is complex."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"The support for other remote assistance tools would be excellent. Free included tools in Windows (Remote Assist) and Microsoft SCCM Configuration Manager (ConMgr Remote Control) allow companies to reduce the amount of RDP connections and expand the usage of the tools are frequently used by companies to provide technical support for remote assistance."
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"Cisco ISE's licensing can get pricey."
"The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team."
"I am not aware of the current price for Cisco ISE, but considering it is a Cisco product, it is likely to be quite high."
"There is a license to use this solution and the price is reasonable."
"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 price for Cisco ISE is high."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Government
10%
 

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 Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Symantec Privileged Access Manager is potentially cheaper than other solutions. I am not involved in the business side, so I do not have specific cost details.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Comparing Symantec Privileged Access Manager with market leaders like CyberArk and Delinea, CyberArk is the market leader. Delinea is better than Symantec Privileged Access Manager in terms of secu...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

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
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: November 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.