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

"One of the main benefits we've experienced is that Arcon helps us manage all our team's tasks and provides recording capabilities."
"The video logs help us to identify any misuse of privileged accounts."
"We use ARCON Privileged Access Management to monitor and record our admin users' activity."
"Overall, I would rate ARCON Privileged Access Management nine out of ten."
"The best part of this product is the administrator convenience. The portal is very user-friendly. An administrator can use it very easily."
"The most valuable feature of ARCON Privileged Access Management is the recording of sessions. It has all the basic features we need to fulfill our use case."
"The session management capabilities are helpful. The session recording feature for system handling is good. It also eliminates the need to open many ports for end-users, simplifying access."
"Recording all videos of commands entered into devices is highly valuable."
"We found all the features of the product to be valuable."
"Technical support is okay."
"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."
"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great."
"The interconnection with the ecosystem and the ability to force rules all over the network are the most important features."
"It's easy to change and add policies."
"It's keeping our company safe from rogue devices connecting to our network. From a security standpoint, there's peace of mind knowing that every device that connects is a good one."
"The core point is that Cisco ISE is the same globally compared to FortiAuthenticator. Whether I deploy in China, the US, South Africa, or wherever, I'm can get all the capabilities. It allows me to directly integrate with 365, and from a communications point of view, that is a good capability."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"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."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"Password Management and Session Recording. The simplicity and ease that it is to be up and running out-of-the-box is very much appreciated."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"It will provide us with more security."
"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

"There is often a slow response when logging into routers, switches, or servers compared to direct access."
"I'd also suggest adding a browser isolation feature to prevent cache storage on endpoints and mitigate cache-based attacks."
"ARCON Privileged Access Management is not a user-friendly solution, and the application flow from one screen to another is very complex."
"Anti-bridging should be built into product."
"Managing users is difficult, so that is something that can be improved."
"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."
"Currently, along with the upgrade of the ARCON solution, we have to consider the desktops and the endpoints from where the solution will have to be accessed. We have to upgrade those endpoints and desktops as well. So upgrades are not smooth."
"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."
"Cisco ISE does not recognize devices and that is an issue we faced during its integration with our existing devices."
"In order to make it a ten, it should be more user-friendly. You need somebody who is knowledgeable about it to use it. It's not easy to use. We have to rely heavily on technical support."
"Cisco ISE has almost all the features we are looking for now, but sometimes the configuration, such as the conditions, is a little difficult to understand and not so easy to navigate."
"The user interface could be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"Deploying to a machine, as opposed to a dedicated appliance, can be a bit difficult."
"The learning curve is steep and the initial setup is complex."
"We would definitely like to see a little bit of an improvement in the web GUI navigation. Some of the things are a little bit hidden in the drop-down menu. If we could get a way to get to those quicker, it'd be much more useful."
"We face many bugs."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"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."
"They need to do a little bit more on the mainframe side.​"
"It's difficult to locate the reports, there are limits on what reports can be run from the GUI, and the report formats are lacking."
"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."
"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."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"There are no major concerns with licensing because we can handle multiple servers in our kiosk system."
"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."
"The product's pricing is good value. Go for user-based licensing, without any limit on the target servers."
"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."
"They do have some licenses, which are required for things like Linux servers. However, in my environment, we do not have Linux servers."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
"In general, licensing can be quite complex with Cisco products. It would be nice if it was a bit more intuitive and had fewer "gotchas" in there."
"The price of the solution is price fair for the features you receive."
"The price for Cisco ISE is high."
"I am not aware of the current price for Cisco ISE, but considering it is a Cisco product, it is likely to be quite high."
"The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"Cisco ISE is not inexpensive, but the solution is well-built and worth the expense."
"Being fully honest, the Cisco licensing model right now is really confusing. We don't know what licenses we have where. We have Smart licensing, but the different levels are way confusing."
"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."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"It is reasonably priced."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"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."
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.