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

 

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)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
macmon Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
9th
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 May 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 25.8%, down from 31.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of macmon Network Access Control is 2.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

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.
Yusuf Oezeren - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Cisco ISE is a comprehensive solution that allows you to control access to network resources granularly based on policies."
"SGTs are valuable because they make it easy to enforce policies, instead of pushing them across all the other platforms."
"In terms of scalability, you need to factor in your licenses. With a virtual platform, the scalability is more than sufficient. We have over one thousand users."
"Authentication is the most valuable feature because it puts our company at another level of security."
"I have found that all of the features are valuable. It is very easy to deploy because we are able to port users directly from Active Directory (AD) and LDAP."
"The product is useful for device administration."
"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"The authorization and accounts inside of ISE are very useful for us."
"The API is a great way to get information from other tools."
"We use it with our Cisco switches so we can see which switch it is actually connected to."
"The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me."
 

Cons

"In an upcoming release, the solution needs to be more agentless and more independent. Additionally, there could be improved integration with other next-generation solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, or Check Point."
"The initial setup process is complex since there are so many big components."
"There should be a single button that can be pressed to dismiss all of the alarms at once."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication."
"In order to make it a ten, it should be more user-friendly. You need somebody who is knowledgeable about it to use it. It's not easy to use. We have to rely heavily on technical support."
"In a future release, I would like to see network access control. That is something that customers seem to be looking for."
"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."
"The service macmon offers is already great."
"The solution must allow users to filter files based on dates."
"The single sign-on process can be improved and the interface should be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay."
"Hardware appliances are expensive...Now moving to DNA-styled licensing, we have subscription-based licensing for everything. I hope it will continue to be fair, but we will have to wait and see."
"I think the price is okay."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"Being fully honest, the Cisco licensing model right now is really confusing. We don't know what licenses we have where. We have Smart licensing, but the different levels are way confusing."
"It costs around 50,000 baht in the first year, but I'm unsure about the second year."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive."
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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...
What do you like most about macmon Network Access Control?
The ease of connecting with the client is valuable for me.
What needs improvement with macmon Network Access Control?
There is no information on the protocol where the clients stop to authenticate. There are some policies, but I don't know whether the device stopped on the authentication or authorization levels. I...
 

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