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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) 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

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 Vulnerability Managem...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 21.4%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is 2.0%, up from 1.2% 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)21.4%
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)2.0%
Other76.6%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

NF
Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis
Has improved authentication management and simplified visitor network access
The log capacity in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced because today natively on the ISE can only have a look at the logs from the day before. You cannot search into the oldest logs; you have to use another tool for that. This can be blocking if you don't have any log consolidation solution. To do a search for an issue or something that happened two days ago, you cannot search directly in there. The capacity of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced. Something between one week and one month for the log capacity would be nice.
AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Self-employed at Self-employed
Offers contextual prioritization and risk-based remediation of vulnerability
An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite. There are a lot of GRC suites available, like Archer, MetricStream, Rsam, Protiviti, for example. So how would a solution like this work if my company has already invested thousands or maybe millions in a GRC solution? Do I still need it and how does it fit into an existing SAP environment? There could be interoperability, having more data sources, integrating Splunk, Qualys, FireEye, Rapid7, Carbon Black. I'm sure all that can be done to an extent, with a little more insight and a little more accuracy on the industry numbers and trends. I'd like the solution to offer any sort of assistance in any way with the remediation part, not just identification of vulnerability risk, and that is second.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."
"The feature that I found most valuable is profiling. We use that to profile certain types of devices, and then depending on the manufacturer, drop them into the appropriate VLAN without us having to go in and manually add the devices."
"Assisting a larger number of users in gaining access and guiding them through the process of getting on Cisco ISE has been seamless."
"It has improved our organization very much because we're now adopting the SGTs, Security Group Tags, and we're leveraging security based on those tags on our core systems and integrating with other SG firewalls."
"The solution is integrated with other Cisco devices and can offer automation for an organization, making deployments more dynamic and providing real-time visibility."
"It's flexible and stable. It's been good as a standard environment to run."
"It really helps secure, classify and manage users including guest and BYOD users."
"We are very happy with the solution and we have no problem using Cisco ISE solutions."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"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."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"There are issues with respect to the posture assessment function. It's been observed that customers are not receiving total access to the network because the assessment agent is glitchy and malfunctions from time-to-time."
"The initial setup is not simple. I don't consider our deployment to be complete because we were unsuccessful at trying to use the majority of the features."
"The user interface could be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"It would be nice if it could be configured easily by default."
"Cisco ISE's performance could be better, faster, and more robust."
"They should improve their licensing. Licensing is always trouble with Cisco, and Cisco Identity Services Engine is no different. The way the product is licensed could be improved."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you go directly with Cisco for the implementation it's very, very expensive."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"Cisco is expensive, but it's the cost for all the functions and value it brings. Functions like internet solutions, integrations, security, and many more features are important, but it's expensive for some clients."
"Being fully honest, the Cisco licensing model right now is really confusing. We don't know what licenses we have where. We have Smart licensing, but the different levels are way confusing."
"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Retailer
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise91
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 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
Kenna.VM, Kenna Security, Kenna, Kenna Security Platform
 

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
TransUnion
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco and others in Cisco Security Portfolio. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.