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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Impulse Point SafeConnect 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 Network Access Control (NAC)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 18.5%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)18.5%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.8%
Other79.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

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.
CD
Director of Computer Information Services at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to scale, enforces policies well, and has responsive technical support
A lot of campuses use SafeConnect. It gives us good visibility and enforces policies. It helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access. Technical support is responsive. The stability is pretty good. It is very easy to scale the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My team has gained a lot from Cisco ISE as it does also provide automation, which is a big asset in the eighth hour. After setting it up, it took a lot of the weight off in many ways. We have a co-worker, who we call the ISE Master because he's in charge of the ISE configurations. He's able to save a lot of time by being able to monitor everything from there. So it did take off a lot of time that we would waste by going individually to that different device and trying to figure out what was wrong."
"The return on investment we have seen is related to time in terms of troubleshooting. The logs, such as the security logs, inform us of the issues that people have had. ISE has been very instrumental in helping isolate those issues. We've seen a lot of cost savings because we don't have to pay an IT person to waste time doing something that should be instantaneous."
"The ability to allow or deny hosts onto the network is valuable. It provides great security to the network environment."
"The most valuable features of this solution are guest authentication and stop authentication."
"Improves switch account management."
"If someone is looking for a concrete solution to control the access, then ISE is a better solution."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) has simplified guest access management for us without compromising security for our organization."
"The live logs and live sessions for troubleshooting are the most valuable features because they provide a detailed report of any issues."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
"It gives us good visibility and enforces policies, helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access."
 

Cons

"This solution has problems in terms of stability."
"Cisco ISE requires a lot of time-consuming administration."
"Cisco ISE has numerous features that are impractical, and I won't utilize them since they require payment."
"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible."
"Compatibility with other vendors is what needs to be improved in Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine). We should be able to use it with other vendors, for all specifications."
"It should be virtualized because many people have begun migrating to the cloud. They should offer a hybrid version."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"We are waiting for TACACS integration to completely replace the Cisco ACS line of products."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an expensive solution when compared to other vendors."
"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."
"Previously, Cisco ISE had a perpetual licensing model, but now they have shifted to a subscription-based licensing system."
"The price is okay."
"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."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"Cisco has actually transitioned to a lot of subscription models, fees, and licenses."
"For our tier group, for one year, the cost is probably around $10,000 for the license. If you do multi-year, you could get two years, and you could get it for about $8,000 per year. If you do three years, you get it around $7,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

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
SafeConnect
 

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
Aerohive Solution
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Portnox Security and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.