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Forescout Platform vs Portnox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 27, 2024

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
8.3
Forescout Platform is valued for enhancing security, automating remediation, saving costs, and improving network reliability and privacy.
Sentiment score
7.3
Portnox CORE improved network visibility, security, and efficiency, reducing costs and enhancing decision-making through detailed analytics and automated features.
If you were moving from a traditional on-premise NAC that was 100% managed by the IT department, there would be great savings in going to a cloud-based NAC with Portnox.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Forescout Platform's customer service is responsive and helpful, but varies in response time, knowledge, and consistency.
Sentiment score
7.2
Portnox customer service is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, though some users suggest improvements in local services and ticketing.
They resolved issues quickly and provided clear explanations.
I was seeing weird things, and they were able to explain things to me and help me quickly find a resolution.
They respond very immediately and provide detailed, amazing support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Forescout Platform scales efficiently with seamless appliance additions, despite potential cost concerns, proving reliable in large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.4
Portnox is highly scalable, supporting thousands of endpoints, though large-scale deployments sometimes need additional resources.
Scalability can be costly since a physical box needs to be installed for every site.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Forescout Platform is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues that do not overshadow its performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
Users find Portnox stable overall, with occasional minor issues; experiences vary by configuration and version. Stability rated 6-9/10.
I would rate its stability as 9.5 out of ten.
The product itself is available and its uptime is 100%.
 

Room For Improvement

Forescout Platform struggles with usability, integration, false positives, high costs, needing improved analytics, support, scalability, and simplified licensing.
Portnox needs GUI improvements, better remote site functionality, enhanced support, integration, and more effective licensing and firewall features.
The console is a fat client, and a web interface would be preferable.
Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
When I'm doing filtering at times, it doesn't filter the items properly.
They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours.
 

Setup Cost

Forescout Platform is costly but offers flexible licensing and comprehensive features, competing well with Cisco ISE.
Portnox pricing includes annual per-device fees, valued for flexibility but considered high, offering notable features and scalability.
Installing a physical box on each site can be expensive.
If you compare Portnox with all other well-known standard products, it is the cheapest.
The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe.
It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable.
 

Valuable Features

Forescout Platform offers excellent device visibility, network control, and integration, praised for agentless operation, flexibility, and real-time alerts.
Portnox provides agentless network security with easy deployment, intuitive UI, seamless Azure integration, and comprehensive reporting for operational efficiency.
The platform enables automated policy enforcement, allowing us to simulate and test policies before enforcement, streamlining our security operations.
It's notable how Portnox has improved operational efficiency.
Additionally, it has a great detection and alert tool that is easy to filter and identify any rogue agents or rogue endpoints in our network.
We use Meraki for our switching, making it simple to point all our networks and offices to Portnox.
 

Categories and Ranking

Forescout Platform
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
IoT Security (1st), Endpoint Compliance (5th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (16th)
Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (11th), Passwordless Authentication (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Forescout Platform is 13.6%, up from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Odai Halawani - PeerSpot reviewer
It's an easy and effective solution, especially for device profiling without agents
Forescout Platform's most valuable aspect is its excellent device profiling for devices without agents, which is crucial for our work due to challenges with agent-based devices. Its isolation and blocking actions are particularly effective for network security. The device compliance feature helps us ensure device compliance through immediate actions like updating antivirus software. We have already integrated Forescout with antivirus and vulnerability assessment tools, allowing it to monitor vulnerability scores and automatically isolate devices if critical vulnerabilities are detected.
Scott Kerr - PeerSpot reviewer
It is seamless and integrates well with our Azure setup
We use devices like PLCs and controllers, and when we receive a request to allow one on the network, we bypass typical authentication, associate it with a group account, and push it to a firewalled VLAN. However, problems arise when the same MAC address is requested for a different project. Our current system only finds authenticated MAC addresses, making it difficult to troubleshoot when the same device is used for multiple purposes. Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
Forescout is a very powerful NAC product that does not rely on port level configuration. It can detect and block unauthorized devices very quickly. But it has a lot of capabilities and really would...
What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
I would rate the Forescout Device and Visibility Control Platform at a six out of ten.
What advice do you have for others considering Forescout Platform?
I recommend doing a compression demo. If people use it, they will buy it. So they have to see the product in place. That's the main recommendation is to do a proof of concept. If they do, they will...
What do you like most about Portnox CORE?
It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox CORE?
It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle, so I'll probably give it a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Portnox CORE?
We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE. At the end of the day, Portnox Clear's capabilities are much more...
 

Also Known As

Forescout Platform, CounterACT for Endpoint Compliance, ForeScout CounterACT
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHS Sussex, SAP, SEGA, Vistaprint, Miami Children's Hospital, Pioneer Investments, New York Law School, OmnicomGroup, Meritrust
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Find out what your peers are saying about Forescout Platform vs. Portnox and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.