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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs NordLayer 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 Network Access Control (NAC)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
NordLayer
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (27th), Internet Security (12th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (21st), ZTNA as a Service (20th), ZTNA (16th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 24.9%, down from 30.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NordLayer is 0.2%, up from 0.1% 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.
Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The access policies, and all of the policies in Cisco ISE, are important to us."
"I've had no issues with scalability. I started using it on two campuses, and now I'm using it across the country and scaling it across subsidiaries in other countries."
"[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 were originally a Cisco shop and Cisco ISE integrated well with our other Cisco switches and networks."
"Visitors can be granted access to the wifi network using their cellphones, notebooks or tablets in a very easy way. The ease of accessibility that anyone can have to the network is very quick and is a big improvement in our network."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"The way the ISE works is you can get into defining. Let's say, in my case, I've got a Windows laptop and I've got an Apple product and those have unique identifiers, unique back addresses. It would say that this in my profile so I could get to those apps with either device, 24/seven. That's how granular the ISE or these NAC Solutions can get."
"The most important feature for us is visibility in terms of user connections. It's the ability to see what devices are online for a particular user that helps a lot with our troubleshooting."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
 

Cons

"Difficult to figure out the protocols and nodes in order to implement correctly."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication."
"Segmentation can be improved."
"There can be a little bit more integration between the controller management and ISE. There are two dashboards, you have the controller dashboards, and you have the ISE dashboard it would is a way to maybe integrate that into one. That would be great. It's not that bad. It would be easier if it could be combined into one dashboard."
"When I work with customers to do my knowledge transfer, they're really overwhelmed with the navigation of the product and the number of things you can do with it. From a user interface standpoint, Cisco could focus on making certain tasks a bit more guided and easier for customers to walk through. That is, a user-friendly interface and streamlined workflows would be great."
"I would like to see them simplify the dashboard. It's very configurable, but, at the same time, it's not easy to maneuver through it. They should "Merakify" it."
"The policies could be adjusted to make them more easily implementable."
"The licensing documentation needs to be better."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"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."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
29%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Legal Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

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
Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.