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Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass
Ranking in Network Management Applications
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Network Management Applications
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Management Applications category, the mindshare of Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is 2.4%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Management Applications Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN2.4%
Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass1.7%
Other95.9%
Network Management Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Karthikeyan Ravi - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President of Technology at Netcon Technologies India Private Limited
Has an automated feature for user onboarding and supports heterogeneous devices
We use the product for the automated onboarding of corporate users with secure network access. It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks. It allows us to control the devices, including posture, endpoint verification, validation, latest patching, and signatures The product’s most…
ND
Network Manager at HPCL
Faced complex visibility and policy challenges but have improved basic traffic routing control
I have found some other solutions more insightful and user-friendly as compared to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, but the basic SD-WAN functionality is good enough. I am using it only because it was done as a pilot project, specifically for my 60 to 70 sites. For the majority of the sites, I am using Fortinet's Secure SD-WAN solution and I found that more viable and more in alignment with my requirements. For example, there is not any Internet Service Database available in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN intrinsically. If I want to write a policy based on applications, I am not able to write it, at least in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela deployment that we have done, and that is fairly easy to do in Fortinet. The second issue is the logging capability. I think the visibility that Fortinet Secure SD-WAN has is not even comparable. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN does not provide that sort of insight or control as far as traffic steering is concerned. With respect to the SLAs, I barely know which sort of SLAs are violated in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, so I do not have clear visibility on where the traffic is moving from at my spoke or hub locations. I believe Fortinet gives me a very clear picture of where the traffic is going. Overall visibility, whether it is data traffic or logs, is much better in Fortinet compared to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. The complexity of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela is noticeable and quite complicated to configure. If something breaks, you have to involve TAC and others to fix it. On the contrary, you can work with underlays. Even if your IPsec overlay tunnel is down, it does not impact your production. Thus, we find Fortinet's solution significantly better than Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN solution. I have used Application-aware Routing in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. However, I found it to be very complicated, especially regarding policy writing. For my breakout of VC traffic, we had to write a bunch of IP addresses for Zoom, Webex, and others. Presently, it can only identify Webex as an application, and I highly doubt whether there is any application identification for Zoom and other platforms, as we were not able to find it during our implementation. It is done through static whitelisting of the IPs, which is not a scalable solution since IPs can change at any time. Overall, the application-aware routing policies are not as flexible and scalable as the Internet Service Database feature of Fortinet provides. The struggles encompass policy writing, logging capabilities, traffic visibility, and complex configuration. There is also the issue of load balancing. We have faced considerable challenges with traffic load balancing between the links. Although the SLA targets are configurable, understanding how traffic flows is challenging, making troubleshooting exceedingly difficult. Overall, I find it a quite complicated solution with not that much operational usability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think the best features are the user profiling and the BYOD facilities."
"It helps secure IoT endpoints for specific networks."
"Cisco is definitely cutting edge, absolutely cutting edge in terms of robustness on the capability of the network to be very stable with very low delay."
"Cisco is always good with technical support, it's easy and the contact is fast when you really need it."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a good product."
"Cisco's technical support is very good, and they're one of the few companies that provide local support, so if we face any problem, they respond to and resolve it within three to four hours at most."
"Troubleshooting is swift, allowing for fast turnaround times whenever we encounter an issue."
"The solution provides good consolidation, centralization, and manageability for edge routers."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a stable solution."
"Initial setup is easy."
 

Cons

"There could be in-built end-to-end map integration features for IoT devices instead of using third-party tools."
"I think the solution would be greatly improved by adding application level visibility on the dashboard."
"Cisco SD-WAN doesn't have automation capabilities, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and isn't IOT-based."
"When you buy the equipment, they should already put it into your cloud account. It should already be set up so that we can manage with vBond. We came across an issue where it wasn't resolved in the DNS. We are using Umbrella, so we need to create a VPN IPSec tunnel to Umbrella to enable the users to browse. I would really like to see an internal built-in firewall so that we don't have to go to Umbrella. This functionality might already be there. We are quite new to this solution, and we are still learning about it."
"The licensing model needs to be improved."
"The solution is difficult to set up. It's tedious."
"There should be more security features in the hybrid and on-premise deployments of Cisco SD-WAN. The cloud has most of the security features."
"Its license model needs to be improved. They always make the license model too complex."
"This solution is only good for basic routing."
"The solution should not be so bound to ISPs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass is an expensive product compared to other vendors."
"It's costly. The cost is high compared to competitors."
"The Cisco SD-WAN licensing model needs to be simplified. There are currently three types of licenses: enterprise agreements, individual licenses, and DNA subscriptions. This can confuse customers, requiring a dedicated person to determine which type of license is right for their organization."
"Cloud subscription management must be paid for, although this does not incur a perpetual fee."
"There is no license required for this solution."
"The cost is reasonable. I would rate the price as seven out of ten."
"It is expensive."
"It is expensive. The license limitation is there in terms of bandwidth. Basically, Cisco is always good in terms of performance and related things. However, if you want to have a license, for example, for 100 Mbps, they charge you because of their 100 Mbps. If you want to go without the license of 300 Mbps, it is a bandwidth license as well. This is not happening with other vendors. That is the reason why we moved away from Cisco. The bill gets a little bit high. I do remember that one time we were trying to increase the bandwidth for at least five devices, and the license got as high as 20-grand for five devices, only for the license. It was expensive for us at the time. Our company is not a big company, but it is a solid company. The price was very high, and we moved away from Cisco because of the price."
"We can only buy three-year licenses, not monthly. The cost seems high for us, especially since we're in Vietnam, which isn't a rich country. But we still like the product because it is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise48
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
Cisco offers premium enterprise capabilities, but its pricing, setup cost, and licensing models represent the most significant hurdles for IT organizations. Cisco hardware commands a premium price ...
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a strong and reliable SD-WAN solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The user interface could be more intuitive for new users, and reporting and ana...
What is your primary use case for Cisco SD-WAN?
My main use case for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is managing and monitoring SD-WAN connectivity across branch locations. I primarily use it to monitor network health, troubleshoot tunnel and routing issu...
 

Also Known As

Alcatel Lucent ClearPass, ClearPass Policy Management System, ClearPass
Cisco SD-WAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Blickle and Scherer, Loughborough University, CSF Inox, Caritas Speyer
Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Alcatel-Lucent ClearPass vs. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.