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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs WSO2 Identity Server 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
WSO2 Identity Server
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and WSO2 Identity Server 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 24.2%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
WSO2 Identity Server, on the other hand, focuses on Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), holds 1.5% mindshare, down 3.5% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)24.2%
Aruba ClearPass23.6%
Fortinet FortiNAC17.9%
Other34.30000000000001%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
WSO2 Identity Server1.5%
Auth019.4%
Ping Identity Platform11.8%
Other67.3%
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)
 

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.
Ritesh_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Utilizing key management and seamless single sign-on integration for enhanced user profile management
WSO2 Identity Server's key management feature stands out as a particularly impactful feature for enhancing security. Additionally, from a user perspective, the self-user portal and user profile management capabilities are highly valuable. It allows users to manage their profiles, change passwords, and offers a self-care portal type of functionality. The single sign-on capability integrates seamlessly with various platforms, including Google, Facebook, LDAP, and Active Directory, which supports rapid product launches.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers automatic profiling of phones and computers, enabling administrators to identify and categorize devices seamlessly."
"The authorization and accounts inside of ISE are very useful for us."
"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."
"They provide you multiple ways to achieve security, not only on-prem, but also when you have remote and guest workers. Especially post-pandemic, a lot of our customers have remote workers. So, it has been really helpful."
"With NAC, the profiling feature is valuable. We're able to see what we have out there in the network and dynamically assign policies to it. We can then use that to enforce TrustSec policy or anything else with NAC."
"The implementation is very simple."
"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 feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed. I get notifications for new laptop devices. I think the user interface looks good compared to previous versions."
"The keystore feature has been most valuable for us."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Some of the valuable features of the solution are the easy integration with processes, such as Single Sign-On. Overall WSO2 is straightforward and does not need customization."
"The single sign-on procedure itself, as well as the ability to connect to external user sources such as Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP servers, are the solution's most valuable features."
"We use the solution for customer identity management, authenticating customers coming in through a web portal."
"The product provides easy integration between API manager and IT server components."
"It's very easy to implement everything."
"Comprehensive ecosystem."
 

Cons

"With the recent release of the solution, we had a bunch of bugs and we had to delay our deployment. Other than that, the solution is good."
"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."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication."
"An issue with the product is it tends to have a lot of bugs whenever they release a new release."
"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."
"An area that could be improved is the agent. The challenge now is that agent and most of the computers have changed. They could think about agent-less deployment."
"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."
"There should be more visibility into TrustSec policy actions. When TrustSec blocks something or makes any kind of changes to the network, we don't always see that. We have to log into the switch itself, or we have to get some type of Syslog parsing to do that."
"The high availability architecture has to be improved."
"This solution does not have BPM workflows already integrated, we had to integrate the BPM module externally. They do not provide full-featured auditing and certification modules out of the box."
"The solution's licensing model could be more flexible, and pricing could be improved."
"I found the initial setup to be very complex."
"This solution requires extensive knowledge to be used effectively as certain areas of its use are not user friendly."
"There needs to be a good support model and easy-to-understand documentation."
"The solution seems to be pretty outdated."
"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the price is okay."
"It would be beneficial to have a single license that included all of the features."
"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."
"The price for Cisco ISE is high."
"It's an expensive solution when compared to other vendors."
"The price for Cisco ISE itself is very low, however, Cisco professional services are quite expensive. Subscription amount is dependent on number of users."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"The price is a bit on the high side."
"At this time we are working with the open-source version."
"WSO2 Identity Server is not an expensive solution."
"We have to take their support, but that is a minimal charge if I'm comparing it to other identity managers."
"They should bring in some good pricing models to host the marketplace."
"I rate the product price an eight out of ten. There is a need to pay more for the extra features provided by the solution."
"I have found the solutions license is priced competitively compared to others."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Transportation Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 WSO2 Identity Server?
The product provides easy integration between API manager and IT server components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WSO2 Identity Server?
The pricing is currently the same as the API Manager, so it's not surprising. Since we used it primarily for SSO and the self portal, there were no additional pricing concerns.
What needs improvement with WSO2 Identity Server?
Currently, all required features are supported. If new use cases for artificial intelligence arise, it could be beneficial to incorporate those. However, for our current projects, WSO2 Identity Ser...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

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
Nutanix, ELM, AlmavivA, BDigital, StubHub, M-creations, MedVision360
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