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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

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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

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (2nd)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (23rd), Microsegmentation Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 19.2%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 5.9%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)19.2%
Cisco Secure Workload5.9%
Other74.9%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
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.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA
Discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, providing valuable insights into vulnerabilities related to the operating system and various applications installed on our servers. Recently, Cisco announced a new product called HyperShield, an AI-based autonomous micro-segmentation solution. While Cisco has not stated that HyperShield will replace Cisco Secure Workload, it represents a natural evolution for the company. HyperShield features dynamic policy discovery and enforcement; however, once policies are enforced, they do not change until a discovery occurs, requiring a re-enforcement process. This new platform operates autonomously, minimizing the need for user or security engineer intervention. I would have expected Cisco to incorporate more automatic discovery and enforcement features within the existing Cisco Secure Workload product. Instead of enhancing the current product, they have introduced a new solution. Cisco plans to honor existing Tetration licenses, allowing users to transition to HyperShield without additional costs, reflecting the investment enterprises have already made. From Cisco’s perspective, this represents a natural progression in their product line. While the product name changes, it seems more of a rebranding effort. The enhancements are greater autonomy, improved discovery, and automatic enforcement, which are now being introduced in HyperShield. Cisco Secure Workload offers automatic policy enforcement but cannot adjust policies dynamically as the application needs to change. Having used the platform for the past five years, the recent announcement has been reassuring. Cisco has confirmed that our investment in the platform will not go to waste. They will honor our existing licenses, providing a natural migration path to the new solution without any disruption

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco ISE's profiling and posturing features ensure that all devices are compliant with regulatory authorities."
"The way we can trust this solution is the most valuable. We have no issue with this product. It is a competitive product. You need to have a very good and deep knowledge of the product to take the full benefits of all the features, but it is a good product."
"The flexibility to grant anyone access to the network easily and in a secure way is its most valuable feature."
"By implementing ISE, it can lighten the overhead of the Cisco Catalyst Switches by not implementing port security, Dynamic Arp Inspection, DHCP Snooping, and this will also improve the switch's performance since the ISE server takes over the duty of posturing with its Policy Service Node persona."
"It is scalable because we use a network load balancer at the front of the PSN. It can be extended as we want to multiply. It's scalable to our environment. We have around 8,000 users and we are planning to expand it."
"Unauthenticated devices are not allowed on our network and that has been an improvement for our company."
"Improves switch account management."
"This solution has definitely improved the way our organization functions."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"Overall, this is a really good product and I am happy with it."
"It's stable."
"This product does everything that you need it to do and more and does a lot to provide visibility in a network environment, save time and money, and make the organization IT operate in a much more streamlined fashion."
"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The solution is very user-friendly, which clients appreciate."
"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage; the telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent, it's complete, and you see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."
 

Cons

"The solution is not so user-friendly."
"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."
"The web UI should be made similar to the one in DNAC."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"Cisco ISE does not recognize devices and that is an issue we faced during its integration with our existing devices."
"Cisco ISE's performance could be better, faster, and more robust."
"ISE is a little clunky. The front-end feels like it is from the 1980s."
"The templates could be better. When you have to do certs, especially with X.500 certs, it isn't very intuitive."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"The scalability of this solution needs to be improved."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."
"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and there are few DC tools, it would be great to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."
"The multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement. The solution offers virtually no enterprise-grade possibility for monitoring."
"The product should be easy to use, but it is not. Comparing it to other products, it was very complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution requires an annual license and it is a bit expensive than competitors."
"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."
"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"I think the price is okay."
"Licensing has got much simpler since Cisco moved to the DNA model because we just have the three tiers, but it could always stand to be improved upon."
"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."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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 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 cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
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 someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
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Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Cisco Tetration
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.