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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)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Aruba ClearPass is 24.5%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdelhamid Saber - PeerSpot reviewer
Secures the network with flexible controls and excellent support
We use Aruba ClearPass as a network access control solution. It prevents unauthorized access and allows access for users in the internal environment, performing checks and onboarding We use ClearPass to secure our environment. Before ClearPass, our environment wasn't as secure. The most…
CD
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

"Aruba ClearPass has complete NAC features."
"Access Tracker is invaluable for troubleshooting access control incidents and quickly getting to the root cause."
"What I like most about Aruba ClearPass is that it has the best enforcement feature for the network. I also like its Guest Captive Portal and virtual security enforcement features, but the virtual security enforcement feature is still under testing by my company. Aruba ClearPass also has a wonderful UI which I find valuable."
"Aruba ClearPass is feature-rich and fairly straightforward to implement."
"The most valuable features of Aruba ClearPass are the GUI and its ease-to-do configuration. Additionally, we can troubleshoot many things in one window."
"Aruba ClearPass is a simple solution for customers to see what is happening on their network."
"It provides a single access point and is highly available."
"It has an easy to learn web GUI and ​command lines.​"
"It is very easy to scale the product."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to upgrade its user interface. Right now, it's not so user friendly, and it's an aspect that my clients' wish was improved upon."
"The initial setup phase of the solution was really very difficult, owing to which the setup phase can be considered as an area that can be improved."
"I would like to see better integration with the firewall for zeroing out blacklisted users."
"Aruba ClearPass needs significant improvement in being user-friendly. The configuration and overall use are not easily understandable."
"It would be good if ClearPass made it a SaaS solution."
"I found the internal authentication policy and user authentication problematic. I was facing issues with user authentication, but we eventually resolved these problems."
"It should be clearer in the pre-sales stage that clear, documented, executive-supported InfoSec policy is the key to success."
"We cannot onboard IoT devices such as printers, cameras, and some smaller devices."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model for Aruba ClearPass is complex. Customers only pay for the license fees, with no additional costs."
"The product is quite expensive. I rate its pricing a seven out of ten."
"​Cost is important. I switched because Aruba's costs were well below Cisco's."
"Aruba ClearPass has permanent licenses. You purchase it one time and this license is yours. You don't need to refresh it for five years, et cetera. They have a couple of licenses for enabled features with not only one license."
"Licensing and pricing are extremely straightforward."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is too expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"The price of Aruba ClearPass is expensive. However, Cisco ISE was as expensive when we were comparing."
"There are three types of licenses."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 do you like most about Aruba ClearPass?
If you are looking at the base installation, then it was a very straightforward process, which I would rate an eight or nine out of ten.
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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 Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.