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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
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
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 (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 22.8%, up from 21.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)22.8%
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)1.8%
Other75.4%
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

"There is good integration with third-party systems like antivirus patch management, MDM."
"Member Access Control and the ability to integrate all Cisco wireless, Cisco networking, switches, routers, and firewalls."
"They have recently made a lot of improvements. My clients don't have much to complain about."
"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"One of the advantages is that you can easily find rogue endpoints. For example, if you don't want to allow any endpoints where you don't know the people plugging into what kind of devices, ISE can give you a big, clear picture, e.g., what kind of endpoints are getting connected to your network. That is one of the advantages."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very stable."
"From a configuration point of view, it's simple."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Since we have started, we struggled a lot to implement this solution into our network, and we opened a case a couple of times. Up until this point, nothing else needs to be improved with this product."
"The Cisco wireless​ controller needs to add more than one physical port."
"The licensing documentation needs to be better."
"The initial setup process is complex since there are so many big components."
"Deploying to a machine, as opposed to a dedicated appliance, can be a bit difficult."
"Migration could be better. Right now, we back up with the new version, and it requires a lot of licensing and other things. Whenever we choose a product, it's very difficult because we have to meet the requirements of each feature. There is no standard feature, so the best system that we bought may not fit the solution. We have to look at every feature that the customer uses. If you compare it with other products like Aruba, it's not the same. With Cisco, I have to read all about the features on this version and the licensing required for the product. In Aruba, that thing is covered when you get one license because it covers almost everything. It could also be more scalable."
"Sometimes, there are instances when Cisco ISE simply fails to function without any apparent reason, and regardless of the investigation we undertake, the logs indicate that everything is functioning properly, making it somewhat inexplicable."
"It is a good product, but in order to use all of the functions of the product, you must have a good understanding of the product. You must know how to use and manage it. It is a little bit complicated to configure and manage. It must be simplified to make it easy to manage for end users. In the initial stage, we found ISE complicated for end users. It was not easy to manage it or to write authentication and authorization protocol. They must improve its management and make it easy for end users. The monitoring and reporting capabilities can be improved because end users want to quickly see what is happening in their network. There were some restrictions in working with other vendors. It should also have a better and easy integration with other vendors."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There are other cheaper options available."
"The price is a bit on the high side."
"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."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"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 Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Retailer
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise90
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
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