We performed a comparison between Aruba ClearPass and Cisco ISE (Identity Service Engine) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Although Cisco is a worldwide, well-known, trusted, and respected branded product, with many known complexities, Aruba ClearPass is flexible, versatile, and more user-friendly than Cisco. Aruba’s aggressive stance on keeping hackers out with strict authentication policies and its cost-effective business model and excellent technical service make it a NAC solution to consider seriously.
"It is beneficial from a security perspective because not everyone can connect to our wifi without going through an authentication process."
"Aruba ClearPass's most valuable features are simple accessing, operating, and management. Additionally, the dashboard and performance work well."
"The continuous server and posturing are valuable."
"The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the authentication mechanisms and the integration with Active Directory(AD)."
"ClearPass prevents hackers from accessing the network. No one can get inside without authentication. It provides a lot of features we are missing. It's incredibly powerful and stable."
"The web dashboard and the policy manager are very intuitive and very easy for the engineers to use."
"Aruba is a highly scalable product. It just works. We have no issues with scalability."
"What I like best about Aruba ClearPass is its 802.1X certificate-based authentication feature."
"It's easy to change and add policies."
"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."
"Among the most valuable features is TACACS."
"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 posture assessment is a valuable feature because of the ability to do assessments on the clients before they connect to the network."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"The way the ISE works is you can get into defining. Let's say, in my case, I've got a Windows laptop and I've got an Apple product and those have unique identifiers, unique back addresses. It would say that this in my profile so I could get to those apps with either device, 24/seven. That's how granular the ISE or these NAC Solutions can get."
"Not having to trust devices and being able to set those levels of trust and more finely control our network is a benefit."
"It would be good if ClearPass made it a SaaS solution."
"In the next version, I would like to see some enhancement or extension on the tracking side. For example, when any user enters the network, it should be more visible in the graphical form."
"ClearPass' GUI could be more user-friendly."
"The GUI of Aruba ClearPass could improve, it is not user-friendly."
"Licensing cost is extremely high."
"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."
"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."
"The implementation can improve because it is challenging to explain some of the concepts to the client."
"The pricing is fair."
"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 an upcoming release, the solution needs to be more agentless and more independent. Additionally, there could be improved integration with other next-generation solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, or Check Point."
"I would like for the next release to be easier to implement and to limit its dependencies around ISE, Windows, the network as a whole, etc."
"It would be ideal if Cisco could provide some short training videos or documentation to customers to help them understand how to use the product."
"Also, the menus could have been much simpler. There are many redundant things. That's a problem with all Cisco solutions. There are too many menus and redundant things on all of them."
"The pricing and licensing structure are not ideal for customers."
"Cisco ISE could be simplified somewhat. I would also prefer certificate-based authentication over confirmation-based authentication for all the processes. It's possible for us to do a workaround, but the process needs to be simplified."
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Aruba ClearPass is ranked 2nd in Network Access Control (NAC) with 31 reviews while Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is ranked 1st in Network Access Control (NAC) with 60 reviews. Aruba ClearPass is rated 8.6, while Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Aruba ClearPass writes "Easy to use, integrates well with other Aruba solutions, and offers good performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) writes "Secures devices and has good support, but needs a better interface". Aruba ClearPass is most compared with Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, Microsoft Intune, Sophos Network Access Control and macmon Network Access Control, whereas Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is most compared with Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Fortinet FortiAuthenticator and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. See our Aruba ClearPass vs. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) report.
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