No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Aruba ClearPass vs Impulse Point SafeConnect 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba ClearPass
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 17.5%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Aruba ClearPass17.5%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.7%
Other80.8%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Darko Skurla - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Customer Solutions Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Role-based policies have simplified secure access control for all users and smart devices
I do not know about the functionality of Aruba ClearPass integration with a third party. If you ask me if there is support for Zebra and for different IoT devices, they have it. However, I do not know how to describe integration with other products. Aruba ClearPass can act as a RADIUS server and it can connect to the domain RADIUS server, for example. The biggest problem is when a customer does not know what they want with Aruba ClearPass. I can recommend Aruba ClearPass to other users because it is very stable. My review rating for this product is ten out of ten.
CD
Director of Computer Information Services at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to scale, enforces policies well, and has responsive technical support
A lot of campuses use SafeConnect. It gives us good visibility and enforces policies. It helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access. Technical support is responsive. The stability is pretty good. It is very easy to scale the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a reliable solution for our guest network access as well as mobile device registration."
"Aruba ClearPass has improved the security control in our network environment."
"There are many features of ClearPass that are worth mentioning -- mainly the extensive support of almost all networking protocols and mobile platforms, the flexibility to integrate with other systems, the debugging and logging facilities, and finally the ability to fully customize web login and payment pages."
"The most valuable feature for us is the ability to manage each access point from a single application."
"The ClearPass solution includes role and role-based user and machine access, and they handle network segmentation using wired and wireless access methods."
"Providing granular control over which devices are permitted to join our corporate wireless network, as well as in-depth AAA (accounting, in particular) for TACACS+ sessions, is huge."
"This is a very reliable and robust product and we plan to continue using it"
"Access Tracker is invaluable for troubleshooting access control incidents and quickly getting to the root cause."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
"It gives us good visibility and enforces policies, helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access."
 

Cons

"The cost of Aruba is very, very high. It's the biggest challenge we have with this product."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"Possibly some of the functions could be improved, but it's hard to say."
"After HP, their support is the worst."
"ClearPass' interface could be more user-friendly."
"The scalability could improve."
"The OnGuard agent requires some enhancements."
"For future updates of Aruba ClearPass, I would like to see improvements to the GUI, and adding wizards for specific tasks would be helpful."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has a licensing model."
"The price of Aruba ClearPass is expensive. When you want to build redundant systems it can be seen as necessary, so the enterprise will manage all of those costs."
"You can get Aruba ClearPass either where you purchase it outright or you can be subscription-based. The cost will vary according to what is selected, but it's licensed per device. For example, for a hundred users or a hundred device license, it would cost approximately $2,000."
"The solution is costly."
"In terms of your fixed cost, it is much less than a lot of other solutions in the market. The initial cost is very high."
"The pricing model for Aruba ClearPass is complex. Customers only pay for the license fees, with no additional costs."
"The licensing cost for Aruba ClearPass is a bit expensive. Its pricing could be better. The license costs around $125,000 for the perpetual license and support for one year. Aruba can give you a license with five thousand endpoint access and one thousand five hundred onboard licenses on one hundred endpoints and two controllers."
"We pay an annual licensing fee for Aruba and there are no additional costs."
"For our tier group, for one year, the cost is probably around $10,000 for the license. If you do multi-year, you could get two years, and you could get it for about $8,000 per year. If you do three years, you get it around $7,000 a year."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise34
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What is the biggest difference between Aruba ClearPass and FortiNAC?
I've done quite a lot of work with ClearPass, and not a lot with FortiNAC/Bradford. ClearPass incorporates a number of different functions including ClearPass Guest for creating complex wireless g...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aruba ClearPass?
Compared to Cisco and others, the pricing is reasonable. Licensing costs are case-specific and have been manageable.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Avenda eTIPS
SafeConnect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consulate Health Care, Los Angeles Unified School District, Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), San Diego State University, KFC, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities
Aerohive Solution
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: July 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.