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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
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st)
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 (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 23.5%, up from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is 1.3%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"The solution is very reliable."
"It integrates with the rest of our platform, like our firewall, and helps us a lot. It also does a good job establishing trust for every access request."
"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."
"The product is useful for device administration."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration."
"Technical support is okay."
"The feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed. I get notifications for new laptop devices. I think the user interface looks good compared to previous versions."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"A main issue is that the upgrade process, over time, is extraordinarily fragile. Repeatedly, over the past several years, when we've tried to upgrade our Cisco ISE implementation, the upgrade has broken it. Ultimately, we have then had to rebuild it because we need it."
"It would be ideal if Cisco could provide some short training videos or documentation to customers to help them understand how to use the product."
"We face many bugs."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit."
"I would rate this solution a 7.5 out of ten. To make it a ten they should have more people on tech support. They need to invest more in the product. It's a good product. They should just work on tech support. More support for the customer. It's not that easy to get somebody to understand this product. I have had some issues with tech before for the solution. One of them brought the solution down due to some of his activity. They need to hugely invest in their tech support."
"There are always some things that I would request."
"Sometimes some of Cisco ISE's graphical interfaces could be a little bit smoother. However, with the different versions, the product is getting better and better."
"The area where things could be improved is education. It's complicated to deploy initially because you have to know what you're getting into."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are other cheaper options available."
"It is fair."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"It is fairly expensive and that's part of why we have implemented it in the type of 'hack' that we did, to service multiple clients."
"Cisco ISE is not inexpensive, but the solution is well-built and worth the expense."
"Pricing and licensing are not my expertise. As far as budgeting is concerned, we run an ELA with Cisco. It's a part of our ELA."
"The price can be lower, especially for subscriptions. It should be a lot cheaper to have a wide range of customers. The price should be comparable to competitive products like Forescout or Fortinet FortiNAC. Forescout is cheaper for customers looking for a cloud solution."
"That's where things got a bit more complicated. Previously, it was a one-time purchase and we just had to renew support. These days, there's a subscription model, which is supposed to be easier and cheaper as well, but it's more pricey"
"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
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Retailer
11%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.