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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco

4.1 out of 5

144 reviews
87% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) integrates with Active Directory to enhance network security through robust authentication, access control, and dynamic policy enforcement. It supports scalability and integrates with various systems to simplify management. However, challenges include a complex interface, difficulties with non-Cisco vendors, and licensing issues. Concerns over its performance in China and its web interface speed need addressing for improved user experience and increased appeal to tech buyers.

Buyer's Guide

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

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) provides centralized and unified secure access control, enhancing switch account management and device administration with multifactor authentication.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers comprehensive scalability, easily accommodating growing environments and managing up to thousands of users.

Integration with various Cisco and third-party systems allows Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to enforce network rules and facilitate seamless connectivity across devices.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) simplifies guest access management by offering limited internet access and customizable access credentials.

The stability and ease of use of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) ensure reliable network administration and automation, enhancing operational efficiency.

CONS

The initial setup is complex and requires a lot of prerequisites, leading to a steep learning curve.

Frequent upgrades often result in lost functionality, necessitating further updates to restore stability.

Support for non-Cisco hardware and integration with other vendors can be challenging, impacting network functionality.

Licensing is complex, requiring significant time and resources to manage effectively.

Resource demands are high, with substantial hardware requirements for virtual environments causing operational issues.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Pros review quotes

VP of Technical Architecture at Logicalis

Aug 3, 2023

For us and our clients, the most valuable features of Identity Services Engine are really around the rich contact sharing that ISE gives you.

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Director of cyber security at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Jun 14, 2022

The solution is great for establishing trust for every access request no matter where it comes from.

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Laurence Mcbride

Senior Business Systems Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Jun 15, 2022

It does what it's supposed to. We use a certificate-based authentication method for corporate-managed devices. That means when a user walks in with their managed laptop and plugs it into the network, it chats with Cisco ISE in the background, allows it on the network, and away they go.

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

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Learn what your peers think about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.

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reviewer1261278

Associate Consultant at NTT Security

Feb 26, 2021

In terms of features, I think they've done a lot of improvement on the graphical user interface — it looks really good right now.

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CN

Network Operations Supervisor at McCoy's Building Supply

Aug 5, 2022

Not having to trust devices and being able to set those levels of trust and more finely control our network is a benefit.

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TA

Network Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 3, 2023

The authorization and accounts inside of ISE are very useful for us.

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Network Infrastructure Specialist at Central-Bank-Kenya

Feb 12, 2021

At the moment, ISE seems to integrate very well with a number of other technologies.

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Manager Network Operations at RAND Corporation

Jun 15, 2023

The solution enables us to do everything from one interface.

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Head of IT Infrastructure at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Aug 3, 2023

The first benefit is that we can implement zero trust architecture because of Cisco ISE. I can assure my CISO in my company that my network is such that nobody can just bring in their laptop, desktop, or any sort of mobile device and can directly get connected to my network. That is a benefit that I can only allow people who I trust on the network.

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Senior Network Admin at iridium

Aug 5, 2022

When we use ISE, one of the helpful things is that I can go through the dashboard and get every step along the way of how a device was authenticated. If it's failing, why did it fail? Why is it unauthorized? If there's an error, what is the error and how can I fix that error? If it's something that, if they should be passing, why are they failing?

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Cons review quotes

VP of Technical Architecture at Logicalis

Aug 3, 2023

I think some areas where ISE could be better are perhaps in the number of integrations that they offer from a virtual standpoint, as well as having a better and more comprehensive pathway for the customer to go from a physical environment to a virtual one.

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Director of cyber security at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Jun 14, 2022

The interface is a little bit complex.

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Laurence Mcbride

Senior Business Systems Analyst at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Jun 15, 2022

A main issue is that the upgrade process, over time, is extraordinarily fragile. Repeatedly, over the past several years, when we've tried to upgrade our Cisco ISE implementation, the upgrade has broken it. Ultimately, we have then had to rebuild it because we need it.

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Free Report: Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2025.

872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer1261278

Associate Consultant at NTT Security

Feb 26, 2021

An issue with the product is it tends to have a lot of bugs whenever they release a new release.

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CN

Network Operations Supervisor at McCoy's Building Supply

Aug 5, 2022

The UI is not as intuitive as some other products, even products inside of Cisco's wheelhouse.

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TA

Network Analyst at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 3, 2023

We do tend to run into a lot of issues with ISE when it comes to bugs.

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Network Infrastructure Specialist at Central-Bank-Kenya

Feb 12, 2021

This product doesn't work in isolation.

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Manager Network Operations at RAND Corporation

Jun 15, 2023

They should improve the documentation. There tends to be a lot of old text, or the new things aren't always up to what's been released on the code, and sometimes the documentation is inconsistent.

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Head of IT Infrastructure at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Aug 3, 2023

Cisco ISE integration with Cisco ACI is something that can be done in a less complex way. And the simplification in that area may help us do better.

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Senior Network Admin at iridium

Aug 5, 2022

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.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Network Access Control (NAC)

Cisco Security Portfolio

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Cisco Umbrella vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

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