Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Fortinet FortiToken comparison

The compared Cisco and Fortinet solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #1 in NAC , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 25.8% mindshare in the category. Fortinet is ranked #3 in AS , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 6.3% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Read 142 Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) reviews

15,693 Views
10,251 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiToken

Read 29 Fortinet FortiToken reviews

3,905 Views
2,808 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Fortinet FortiToken

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Fortinet FortiToken based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC).

To learn more, read our detailed Network Access Control (NAC) Report (Updated: April 2025).

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Network Access Control (NAC)

April 2025

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Helped 850,028 peers since 2012

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...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

142

Ranking in other categories

Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)

Fortinet FortiToken

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Authentication Systems (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Fortinet FortiToken aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 25.8%, down 31.3% compared to last year.
Fortinet FortiToken, on the other hand, focuses on Authentication Systems, holds 6.3% mindshare, down 7.1% since last year.

Network Access Control (NAC)

Authentication Systems

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri

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.

Read full review

Sachin Vinay

Assistant Manager-Networks at Amrita

Facilitates secure 2FA for admins, facilitates OTP generation, and enhances security

One suggestion is to develop a more user-friendly solution that is cost-effective so that a hardware-based solution can be provided to all users using VPN services or any configuration service requiring confidentiality. This would allow for broader distribution among a larger number of system admins and software engineers, which is currently not feasible with the existing hardware-only approach.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A lot of customers use a third party to manage their guest Wi-Fi. Cisco ISE presents the ability to bring that in-house so that customers can have full control over it, change the branding, and get extra telemetry from it and the user data. It works really well for our customers."

"Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities."

"One of the most important features is the authentication security for the individual connection to the network through their computer or laptop."

"Typically, the installation is pretty simple."

"It has allowed us to pull in multiple authentication databases, then centralize them into a captive portal system."

"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."

"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."

"For device administration, all devices have multifactor authentication in collaboration with IT, so it secures access to all of our devices. For guest and wireless access, it's a matter of a lowly manager who we give access to the portal and he can assign access to the guests, so it's a very simple process now. It keeps the IT focusing on their work, and gives the business people the right access."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pros

"I appreciate that it provides comprehensive security. It is tailored to this specific purpose, and it excels in fulfilling this purpose."

"Bangladesh is a price-sensitive market, and FortiToken is popular because it's more affordable than the Palo Alto and Cisco authentication solutions. Fortinet has a local director for Bangladesh, so they can deliver solutions to customers quickly."

"It provides me with the token so that I can do the Multi-Factor Authentication."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its mobile application. It is particularly beneficial as it eliminates the need for hardware management."

"Overall, I give the product a nine out of ten."

"I believe FortiToken is the simplest to implement."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Its ease of use is most valuable. It is simple to use and can be deployed out-of-the-box. It is quite a mature product with all the required features."

More Fortinet FortiToken pros

Cons

"There are always some things that I would request."

"Cisco ISE can become quite complex, especially with policy sets, the entire authentication process, and everything involved."

"It could be less monolithic. It's one huge application, and it does everything under the sun, so it's hard to deal with and upgrade and manage."

"The learning curve is steep and the initial setup is complex."

"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."

"The Cisco wireless controller needs to add more than one physical port."

"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade."

"There is room for improvement in its ability to allow end users to self-enroll their devices. Instead, you should be able to assign that permission by AD group, which is currently not available."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) cons

"Maybe the price could be improved, and the integration could be better. But the integration is different from the authenticator side."

"The problem is that our customers create budgets annually based on the figures at the beginning of the fiscal year. Our customers get annoyed when the price is adjusted in the middle of the year. I understand that it's a difficult time, and price increases make sense for hardware devices. However, FortiToken is a software product, so it shouldn't be affected by factors like chip shortages or supply chain issues. Software solutions should have more transparent and predictable pricing."

"Configuration can be confusing due to the lack of community and context-sensitive help. We've had to rely on technical support, which slows down the setup process."

"Fortinet FortiToken could be lower for some markets."

"Fortinet support has some room for improvement. It has taken a long time to resolve some issues or find a workaround."

"You need your mobile just to enroll the tokens, and sometimes, it's difficult to use for someone who is not knowledgeable"

"I would like to see the product improvements in dynamic VLAN pooling. Specifically, when users are assigned different VLANs based on their SSID, ensuring no unintended lateral traffic between users would enhance security and efficiency."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

More Fortinet FortiToken cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is okay."

"Over the years, licensing has been confusing and complicated because there are so many different licenses for each different product and each different iteration of the product."

"There are other cheaper options available."

"The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."

"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."

"The price for Cisco ISE itself is very low, however, Cisco professional services are quite expensive. Subscription amount is dependent on number of users."

"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."

"Cybersecurity resilience has been very important to our organization and has been a big factor. We've had issues in the past, but one of the things I like about ISE is its logging features. Security wise or information wise, it really has been a powerful tool."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pricing and cost advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."

"The solution’s price is good."

"The pricing is not very high, so I'd rate it around six out of ten, where one is high and ten is low."

"The platform's licensing cost is reasonable for our organization."

"The solution’s pricing is moderate and reasonable."

"Fortinet FortiToken is not an expensive solution."

"It is included as part of our firewall license."

"I would rate the pricing as an eight out of ten. We purchased the solution at a reasonable price in 2019."

More Fortinet FortiToken pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 ...

See all answers

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, ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiToken?

The solution is simple and similar to Google Authenticator. It follows time-based authentication. We use it for hardware and software in one environment. The tool offers simple and fast authenticat...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiToken?

I do not have any notes for improvement.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiToken?

I am using FortiToken for logging into the Fortinet hardware. I have four FortiGate hardware units. I am connected through a simulator on FortiToken.

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba ClearPass vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 24% of the time

Fortinet FortiNAC vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 22% of the time

Forescout Platform vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 11% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Competitors

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Fortinet FortiToken

Compared 26% of the time

Cisco Duo vs Fortinet FortiToken

Compared 23% of the time

Microsoft Entra ID vs Fortinet FortiToken

Compared 18% of the time

Yubico YubiKey vs Fortinet FortiToken

Compared 15% of the time

Thales Authenticators vs Fortinet FortiToken

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiToken Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

April 2025

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) report

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Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiToken

April 2025

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Also Known As

Cisco ISE

No data available

Overview

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers comprehensive network access control and visibility, supporting features like 802.1X authentication, profiling, and posturing. It integrates with Microsoft and other Cisco products, facilitating robust security policies across distributed networks.

Cisco Identity Services Engine is a key player in network access control, offering centralized management and a user-friendly interface. It supports zero trust principles and provides strong authentication for wired and wireless networks. ISE's capabilities include granular security policies, enhanced device posturing, and seamless integration, bolstering security infrastructure. Users benefit from its dual authentication through EAP, simplifying access management across networks.

What are the key features of Cisco ISE?

802.1X Authentication: Supports network security for authorized device access.
Profiling: Identifies devices for accurate policy enforcement.
Posturing: Evaluates device compliance for access decisions.
TACACS: Streamlines network device authentication and authorization.
Guest Access: Provides secure access to visitors.
Microsoft Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft environments.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Security Enhancement: Offers strong network security policies.
Operational Efficiency: Centralized management improves operational aspects.
Improved Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry standards.
Scalability: Supports growing network demands effectively.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and education, Cisco ISE is pivotal for securing wired and wireless networks, implementing BYOD policies, and managing user access. Organizations leverage ISE for effective authentication and authorization, while maintaining compliance with industry security standards.

Cisco

As we've seen, passwords alone don't keep unwanted guests out of your network. Password-only authentication has led to security breaches, malware infections, and policy violations. With two-factor authentication, a password is used along with a security token and authentication server to provide far better security. Authorized employees can remotely access company resources safely using a variety of devices, ranging from lpatops to mobile phones.

Fortinet

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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

Network Access Control (NAC)

April 2025

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