No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs macmon Network Access Control comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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)
macmon Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
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 macmon Network Access Control is 2.6%, down from 2.9% 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%
macmon Network Access Control2.6%
Other78.9%
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.
Yusuf Oezeren - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at MOD IT GmbH
A robust solution that provides protection to effectively control the access to your network
The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly. The interface is user-friendly but, for example, when we have new people starting to work, they never work with NetOne and it is a bit hard to expand in certain places. In addition, when I have to pull the last corrected MAC address, I need to put the space between it in order to find the address. If I don't put it in there, I don't get any resources. This needs improvement. They should maybe add integration with LanSuite. We can include it to see the direct information we get from our LAN Tree. If I click on the MAC address, I will then directly get the hostname, and that will open a tap-in line so I see what the last update was.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has all of the features available, in fact, more than what you need."
"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."
"[One of the most valuable features] is just the ease of use. It's pretty simple to set up certs that we can add to our clients to make sure that they connect properly, [as is] whitelisting Mac addresses."
"We have become more reliable because we do not have any vulnerabilities coming into our network, which is important since a lot of employees are using their own endpoints to connect to our infrastructure."
"Unauthenticated devices are not allowed on our network and that has been an improvement for our company."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"The interconnection with the ecosystem and the ability to force rules all over the network are the most important features."
"If someone is looking for a concrete solution to control the access, then ISE is a better solution."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"When we started with macmon we had immediate success, we could see our network and see the devices and could easily go online."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
 

Cons

"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."
"The pricing and licensing structure are not ideal for customers."
"I don't see as many customers as I should adopting the onboarding feature. I think Cisco should make that process a lot easier and less intrusive on the end users' devices."
"Also, the menus could have been much simpler. There are many redundant things. That's a problem with all Cisco solutions. There are too many menus and redundant things on all of them."
"We are waiting for TACACS integration to completely replace the Cisco ACS line of products."
"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 does a good job of establishing trust for every access request. We have had a little bit of a challenge with profiling, but we are probably about 80% there."
"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."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is fair for what it does."
"The price for Cisco ISE is high."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"I think licensing costs roughly $2,000 a year. ISE is more expensive than Network Access Control."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"The licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"The solution is not expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
macmon NAC
 

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
More than 1,500 installations in all over Europe in all industries: Stepchange, Volkswagen, Vivantes Healthcare, MBDA Weapons, APS engineering, Alfred Ritter GmbH (Ritter Sport), Haßberg-Kliniken, 1. FSV Mainz 05 eV., Siempelkamp, AEB etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. macmon Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.