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Aruba ClearPass pros and cons

Vendor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

4.3 out of 5

85 reviews
94% willing to recommend

3,020 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Aruba ClearPass enhances security through robust user authentication and network access control for wired and wireless devices, including BYOD and IoT. The platform's clustering and centralized management optimize operations by reducing RADIUS server complexities. It offers versatile network features like AAA and 802.1X. However, initial setup is complex, and support is limited. The pricing model lacks flexibility, and IoT handling could improve, making ClearPass challenging for some buyers.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Aruba ClearPass offers robust user authentication for both wired and wireless endpoints, including BYODs.

Access Tracker is invaluable for troubleshooting access control incidents efficiently.

Aruba ClearPass provides network access control, visibility, scalability, and security in a complex BYOD and IoT environment.

The clustering model saves time and reduces errors by managing RADIUS servers efficiently.

The authentication capabilities and integration with Active Directory are highly valuable.

CONS

Aruba ClearPass has complex pricing and licensing, which could be more streamlined.

The initial setup and configuration are considered difficult and could benefit from simplification.

Technical support needs improvement, with reports of slow response times and limited community resources.

Users find managing policies and end-to-end configurations challenging, particularly in wired technology areas.

Integration with other systems, such as firewalls and social media for user authentication, could be enhanced.

Aruba ClearPass Pros review quotes

MN

Network & Information Security Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2022

The setup is simple.

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Head of IT at Hubtech

Oct 4, 2022

What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is that it has the best enforcement feature for the network. I also like its Guest Captive Portal and virtual security enforcement features, but the virtual security enforcement feature is still under testing by my company. Aruba ClearPass also has a wonderful UI which I find valuable.

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Aditya Buditama

System Engineer - Network at PT.Helios Informatika Nusantara

Jul 15, 2022

What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is its access tracker that serves as its monitoring feature. The access tracker is really helpful when you want to troubleshoot authentication failures.

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Aruba ClearPass

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Senior Technical Engineer at EOH

Apr 25, 2022

The most valuable thing about Aruba ClearPass is its ease of use. It has always been a very reliable and very stable policy management platform.

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reviewer2268381

Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 20, 2024

If you are looking at the base installation, then it was a very straightforward process, which I would rate an eight or nine out of ten.

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reviewer1328712

Cisco Network Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 2, 2022

The web dashboard and the policy manager are very intuitive and very easy for the engineers to use.

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reviewer1364637

Architecte Système at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 18, 2020

We find that at the end of the projects we manage, all functionalities perform quite well. We've tested it a lot and find it to be overall a very good solution.

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Network Architect at iOCO

Oct 17, 2022

The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are its ease of use and the general network access controls.

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Sales Manager - GCC at Gerab System Solutions LLC

Mar 28, 2023

The most valuable feature, I would say, is the cost-effectiveness of the solution when compared to others.

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Senior Wireless Engineer at FASTtelco

Aug 29, 2024

It supports AAA and offers a range of features, including guest authentication for visitors and 802.1X authentication for employees. ClearPass provides options for customized authentication methods, such as SMS and social media authentication, which customers are effectively utilizing.

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Aruba ClearPass Cons review quotes

MN

Network & Information Security Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2022

After HP, their support is the worst.

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Head of IT at Hubtech

Oct 4, 2022

An issue with Aruba ClearPass is the lack of information and poor community support. You can't find the material easily on the internet for any issues. For example, if you're looking for any configuration or exploring any issue, it's not easy to find information, and this is the problem with Aruba ClearPass. Access to helpful information and poor community support could be improved. Another area for improvement in Aruba ClearPass is that some of its advanced features aren't easy to find. For example, my team needed to apply Google single sign-on, but it wasn't easy to find. Aruba ClearPass is a big solution with a lot of capabilities, and it's a very advanced solution, so you need to either have some experience with it or undergo some training. Aruba ClearPass is a very good solution from the network perspective, but the issue is the poor support you get from the community. When you try using the solution, some areas aren't easy. When you search on YouTube, you'll find very few materials about Aruba ClearPass. It isn't like Cisco where you can find information from hundreds of websites, on YouTube, etc. This is bad for Aruba, so this area should be improved. Aruba has a training center, but the usual training offered is only for Aruba Wireless and Aruba Switches. If you have another solution, it's not easy to integrate it with Aruba ClearPass, so this is an area for improvement. You need to do some research to successfully integrate your solution with Aruba ClearPass. We integrated Aruba ClearPass with Ubiquiti WiFi, and it's working fine with no issues. My next project is to start integrating Aruba ClearPass with Cisco Switches. The solution is good, but on the website, there's no book and no video, and you can't find the material on Aruba ClearPass easily. This is one of the issues with Aruba.

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Aditya Buditama

System Engineer - Network at PT.Helios Informatika Nusantara

Jul 15, 2022

What needs improvement in Aruba ClearPass is just the endpoint context server, in particular, the indication with the context server because sometimes the daily process isn't as smooth-sailing. Sometimes, the information isn't up-to-date. I'm not sure if that's a vendor limitation, but currently, it's the only tricky part of the current configuration. What I'd like to see in the next release of Aruba ClearPass is a dashboard or a monitoring feature that would allow users to see the integration process with an external server because there's no visibility into that right now.

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Aruba ClearPass

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Learn what your peers think about Aruba ClearPass. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.

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Senior Technical Engineer at EOH

Apr 25, 2022

TLS authentication onboarding in Aruba ClearPass needs to be improved. The biggest problem we've seen in our environment is Huawei not being able to get onto Google Play. No Huawei device can be onboarded via Aruba ClearPass easily.

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reviewer2268381

Chief Information Security Officer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 20, 2024

If you look at the tool's deployment phase from a fine-tuning perspective, I feel it was very complex.

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reviewer1328712

Cisco Network Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 2, 2022

I can't think of an area where the solution is lacking a feature or a capability.

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reviewer1364637

Architecte Système at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 18, 2020

The solution needs to upgrade its user interface. Right now, it's not so user friendly, and it's an aspect that my clients' wish was improved upon.

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Network Architect at iOCO

Oct 17, 2022

A specific component is part of the solution called ClearPass Onboard, which can sometimes be complex and challenging to set up. If they could simplify the process and make it easier, that would be a benefit.

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Sales Manager - GCC at Gerab System Solutions LLC

Mar 28, 2023

I remember our technical team stating that the installation front of the solution was a bit difficult when compared to other solutions.

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Senior Wireless Engineer at FASTtelco

Aug 29, 2024

I found the internal authentication policy and user authentication problematic. I was facing issues with user authentication, but we eventually resolved these problems.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 65)

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