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Aruba ClearPass vs UserLock 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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (2nd)
UserLock
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Authentication Systems (21st), Access Management (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Aruba ClearPass and UserLock aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Aruba ClearPass is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 23.6%, down 25.1% compared to last year.
UserLock, on the other hand, focuses on Authentication Systems, holds 1.1% mindshare, down 1.5% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Aruba ClearPass23.6%
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)24.2%
Fortinet FortiNAC17.9%
Other34.30000000000001%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Authentication Systems Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
UserLock1.1%
Microsoft Entra ID12.9%
Cisco Duo8.1%
Other77.9%
Authentication Systems
 

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…
Bill H. - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable, easy to use, and integrates well with Active Directory
The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home. It’s not that I mind not having two factors, but I do get that question from time to time from some of our users who think it would be really useful. From what I’ve heard, they’re working on it and it should be coming in the next version so that’s great news.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It supports AAA and offers a range of features, including guest authentication for visitors and 802.1X authentication for employees. ClearPass provides options for customized authentication methods, such as SMS and social media authentication, which customers are effectively utilizing."
"Aruba ClearPass is a simple solution for customers to see what is happening on their network."
"Aruba ClearPass is feature-rich and fairly straightforward to implement."
"It has an easy to learn web GUI and ​command lines.​"
"I like the integration options with a multitude of other vendors and Aruba applications."
"It eliminated the management of 10 different individual discrete RADIUS servers."
"The web dashboard and the policy manager are very intuitive and very easy for the engineers to use."
"Aruba ClearPass is feature-rich and fairly straightforward to implement."
"We mainly implemented UserLock for multi-factor authentication, but the user login insights are also nice."
"The most valuable features are two-factor authentication and real-time logon monitoring."
 

Cons

"A more streamlined menu of licensing options would be helpful."
"The user interface should be improved. The logs and how the logging mechanism works can also use an upgrade."
"The product's graphical user interface (GUI) could use an update and better integration between the guest management and policy management interfaces."
"The period of firmware updates is very short."
"An issue with Aruba ClearPass is the lack of information and poor community support. You can't find the material easily on the internet for any issues. For example, if you're looking for any configuration or exploring any issue, it's not easy to find information, and this is the problem with Aruba ClearPass. Access to helpful information and poor community support could be improved. Another area for improvement in Aruba ClearPass is that some of its advanced features aren't easy to find. For example, my team needed to apply Google single sign-on, but it wasn't easy to find. Aruba ClearPass is a big solution with a lot of capabilities, and it's a very advanced solution, so you need to either have some experience with it or undergo some training. Aruba ClearPass is a very good solution from the network perspective, but the issue is the poor support you get from the community. When you try using the solution, some areas aren't easy. When you search on YouTube, you'll find very few materials about Aruba ClearPass. It isn't like Cisco where you can find information from hundreds of websites, on YouTube, etc. This is bad for Aruba, so this area should be improved. Aruba has a training center, but the usual training offered is only for Aruba Wireless and Aruba Switches. If you have another solution, it's not easy to integrate it with Aruba ClearPass, so this is an area for improvement. You need to do some research to successfully integrate your solution with Aruba ClearPass. We integrated Aruba ClearPass with Ubiquiti WiFi, and it's working fine with no issues. My next project is to start integrating Aruba ClearPass with Cisco Switches. The solution is good, but on the website, there's no book and no video, and you can't find the material on Aruba ClearPass easily. This is one of the issues with Aruba."
"The technical support has some room for improvement. It takes them a long time to respond sometimes. I rate Aruba support six out of 10."
"The licensing model can be frustrating. A more streamlined menu of licensing options would be helpful."
"The response from technical support can be very late. We have faced delays in the resolution of production issues after raising tickets, which impacts productivity."
"The product and service are already great as it is but if I could add one feature, I guess it would be nice to have another factor of authentication (two additional factors) like your phone and a token for example, for when people forget their phone at home."
"I would like to see UserLock add the ability to automatically create a group policy in Active Directory. That might streamline the setup process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are three types of licenses."
"The price of Aruba ClearPass is expensive. However, Cisco ISE was as expensive when we were comparing."
"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."
"I can say that the package or licensing model offered for the solution is a permanent one."
"We pay an annual licensing fee for Aruba and there are 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."
"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."
"I can't give the exact cost of Aruba ClearPass because that's handled by the purchasing team, but it's on the cheaper side, and on a scale of one to five, I'm rating the cost a four. Initially, the pricing for the solution is expensive in terms of deployment, but in the long term, for example, after more than five to ten years, the operational cost incurred by the company is quite affordable because you don't have to renew the license. It's a one-time purchase. My company only uses the standard license for Aruba ClearPass."
"You will be hard-pressed to find better pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
Government
18%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise32
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

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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
Barclays, US Department of Justice, National Bank of Kuwait, Turkish Aerospace, New York Albany School District, Regtransfers, University of Kent, Camden City School District, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Bank of Cyprus, Detran-PE: Pernambuco State Traffic Department
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.