Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

ARCON Privileged Access Management vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

PRAVINKHISMATRAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced compliance and security through detailed action recordings
We have used ARCON Privileged Access Management for recording videos of user actions taken after logging into systems. Around thirty people, including network engineers, server engineers, and application engineers, use it in the company There hasn't been a notable financial benefit for our…
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.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The user interface, overall, is really good. If I have some 20 servers in my ID, I can easily see for which servers I have read-only access, for which servers I have prompt-access, and for which servers I have server admin access."
"Logging, particularly screen recording for Windows RDP sessions. Also, command-logging for SSH sessions. This really helps us to see what commands/changes have been executed in a particular service at a given point of time, and by whom."
"Overall, I would rate ARCON Privileged Access Management nine out of ten."
"Session recording is the most valuable feature, as it covers compliance and it also covers our in-house applications."
"For compliance, each change I do, in each of the servers, is clearly recorded. We recently faced an audit and this was an awesome feature. Even our auditor had praise for it saying, "This is really a good feature.""
"The initial setup was very simple. There was only one server we had to setup. We needed to store all the passwords, and a secure database is used."
"By manually keeping the user logs, we can understand and manage all the operationalized tasks."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not complex at all."
"The solution is great for establishing trust for every access request no matter where it comes from."
"For customers, it's great. It has a GUI, so the customers themselves can edit ACLs or even modify the policies. It's also an all-in-one solution with RADIUS and TACACS."
"Visitors can be granted access to the wifi network using their cellphones, notebooks or tablets in a very easy way. The ease of accessibility that anyone can have to the network is very quick and is a big improvement in our network."
"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."
"My team has gained a lot from Cisco ISE as it does also provide automation, which is a big asset in the eighth hour. After setting it up, it took a lot of the weight off in many ways. We have a co-worker, who we call the ISE Master because he's in charge of the ISE configurations. He's able to save a lot of time by being able to monitor everything from there. So it did take off a lot of time that we would waste by going individually to that different device and trying to figure out what was wrong."
"The access policies, and all of the policies in Cisco ISE, are important to us."
"The interface is pretty easy to use."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"Comprehensive coverage of the required features for the PAM solution."
"It is simple to implement and is suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"The product is very scalable in terms of concurrent sessions that it can handle at a time, number of device it can support, accounts that it can manage, or number of nodes that you can deploy in a cluster."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"It is great for identity governance."
"Whoever built it from the ground up, they understand how an organization is laid out."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
 

Cons

"Currently, we can manage only the SSH or RDP connections, but there are many more devices that are present, apart from our SSH and RDP. We want all this to be part of the ARCON solution. For the password management, they should increase the pool of supported devices, they should have more connectors."
"The usability should be expanded to other browsers like Chrome and Firefox."
"We would like to see support for privileged accounts used in web-based systems like Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway, VMware ESXI management tools, etc."
"They need to support all web browsers. At the moment it only supports Explorer, IE. They have to come up with a solution to support all browsers."
"For the in-house built applications, they need to provide good, solid access through their portal."
"This product is lacking in terms of dashboarding analytics and should have user behavior analytics. It should also have better dashboarding for executive management and security managers, which this product is missing."
"If you take Microsoft hypervisor - which comes with its own interface, its own web layer, etc. - something like that also requires privileged IDs. As per our institution policy now, everything has to come through ARCON. We have demanded that these kind of advanced features also should be there."
"Anti-bridging should be built into product."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment."
"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"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."
"The learning curve is steep and the initial setup is complex."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and it is not simple to use."
"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."
"Cisco ISE's real-time data analytics for database logging could be improved."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handled well by the system."
"The support for other remote assistance tools would be excellent. Free included tools in Windows (Remote Assist) and Microsoft SCCM Configuration Manager (ConMgr Remote Control) allow companies to reduce the amount of RDP connections and expand the usage of the tools are frequently used by companies to provide technical support for remote assistance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this product is very cheap, comparatively in the global market."
"ARCON is a will give you all the features in a very cost-effective solution. Pricing and licensing is very good compared to other players in the market."
"Pricing and licensing are good, very aggressive."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"I definitely feel the product's pricing is a good value. It is one of the best products we have. The licensing is server-based."
"The product is available with competitive pricing. Licensing is not complex. We calculated the license requirements by counting the number of admins and the number of devices which were going to integrate with it."
"I am not in a position to give any financials, but whatever we have paid, it is value for money. Their licensing model is good. They have been flexible for us."
"The licensing is simple, and there are only two types licensing: device licensing and user-based licensing."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"The licensing is subscription-based and based on the user account."
"The price is okay."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"Cisco ISE is not inexpensive, but the solution is well-built and worth the expense."
"Hardware appliances are expensive...Now moving to DNA-styled licensing, we have subscription-based licensing for everything. I hope it will continue to be fair, but we will have to wait and see."
"The licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"Its price is probably good if you use all of its features and functionalities to protect your environment. If you use only a part of the functionality, its price is too high. It is just a question of value and the functionality you use."
"It is reasonably priced."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are best for your needs.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
56%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Retailer
3%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ARCON Privileged Access Management?
In terms of improvements, I suggest implementing password rotation for service-based accounts, as that should be incl...
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...
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 cann...
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 some...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I woul...
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a w...
 

Also Known As

ARCON ARCOS, ARCON PAM
Cisco ISE
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RAK Bank, AXIS Bank, Reliance Capital, Kotak Life Insurance, MTS
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
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk, Delinea, One Identity and others in Privileged Access Management (PAM). Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.