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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Proofpoint Insider Threat Management 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...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Proofpoint Insider Threat M...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
User Activity Monitoring (3rd), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (10th), Insider Risk Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Proofpoint Insider Threat Management 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 24.2%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
Proofpoint Insider Threat Management, on the other hand, focuses on Insider Risk Management, holds 18.2% mindshare, up 8.1% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)24.2%
Aruba ClearPass23.6%
Fortinet FortiNAC17.9%
Other34.30000000000001%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Insider Risk Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proofpoint Insider Threat Management18.2%
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management13.4%
Varonis Platform13.0%
Other55.4%
Insider Risk Management
 

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.
reviewer1271289 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good value, easy to use, and easy to deploy
In terms of what can be improved, that is a question I think the end users can tell you better. I'm not the end-user for this system. However, I can say that it needs to be more scalable. I think they already have a good value proposition in terms of being a hybrid model, and the reporting is okay, as well. It could have better integration with other SIEMs, but this integration has to come from the SIEM side, not ObserveIT.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect Posture because it scans all the programs on the workstation and checks if the antivirus is up to date, as well as the cryptographic keys on our SSD."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"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."
"It does what it's supposed to. We use a certificate-based authentication method for corporate-managed devices. That means when a user walks in with their managed laptop and plugs it into the network, it chats with Cisco ISE in the background, allows it on the network, and away they go."
"It is a good product for what it does...So, it is one of the most critical systems that we have."
"The authorization and accounts inside of ISE are very useful for us."
"The profiling model included is the most valuable feature."
"ObserveIT is small, easy to use, easy to deploy, and is not complicated, so it's more generally suited for only SMBs. It's a good value with a cheaper price."
 

Cons

"The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced."
"This product doesn't work in isolation."
"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."
"We do tend to run into a lot of issues with ISE when it comes to bugs."
"The upgrades could be better. Every time we try to do an upgrade, we have problems. It's a pain."
"Troubleshooting and multi-ISE can be challenging with the solution."
"Some of the reporting could be improved."
"The knocks I have against the product are the number of bugs that we encounter, constantly, and the amount of upgrading that we have to do."
"ObserveIT is not scalable and it's not for the medium to large corporations. It's for the smaller environments. For the larger corporations, we have other scalable solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, licensing can be quite complex with Cisco products. It would be nice if it was a bit more intuitive and had fewer "gotchas" in there."
"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 licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"In terms of the licensing and the pricing structure of the Cisco Identity Services Engine, there's been a huge advantage to our clients recently with the advent of the enterprise agreement."
"The solution is not that cheap."
"Its price is probably good if you use all of its features and functionalities to protect your environment. If you use only a part of the functionality, its price is too high. It is just a question of value and the functionality you use."
"There are other cheaper options available."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Media Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise31
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...
Looking for recommendations and a pros/cons template for software to detect insider threats
In addition to responsesfrom Xavier Suriol and reviewer1324719, also consider ObserveIT from Proofpoint.
Looking for recommendations and a pros/cons template for software to detect insider threats
Hello All,I hope you had a merry Christmas.In this case it is as simple as it is.Just take Proofpoint ObserveIT - many companies in the public and financial sector have been using it for years.By ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
ObserveIT
 

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
Coca Cola, Allianz, Premiere League, Xerox, AIG, Cigna, Starbucks, Revlon, Toshiba, Nissan and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2025.
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