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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs SAP Customer Data Cloud 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
SAP Customer Data Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Social Login (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and SAP Customer Data Cloud 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 25.1%, down 30.7% compared to last year.
SAP Customer Data Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Social Login, holds 37.5% mindshare, down 50.0% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Social Login
 

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.
reviewer1549194 - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable, enhances security, and the Consent Management functionality is helpful
Gigya is a CIAM that provides registration as a service. It can be used for setting up SSO or federated SSO between different sites. It also provides the solution for consent and preference management. Screens and automated emails to customers can be highly customized, and it also provides drag…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For device administration, all devices have multifactor authentication in collaboration with IT, so it secures access to all of our devices. For guest and wireless access, it's a matter of a lowly manager who we give access to the portal and he can assign access to the guests, so it's a very simple process now. It keeps the IT focusing on their work, and gives the business people the right access."
"It's keeping our company safe from rogue devices connecting to our network. From a security standpoint, there's peace of mind knowing that every device that connects is a good one."
"The endpoint profiling feature is among the most valuable because it keeps me from having to manually maintain a MAC address bypass list to track endpoints. I can have ISE profile them for me and then put them in the right bucket."
"Not having to trust devices and being able to set those levels of trust and more finely control our network is a benefit."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with StealthWatch and DNA as one fabric."
"Having access and being able to add people or change authentication yourself is nice. In the past, we've used other group authentication services, and we always had to go to them and get permissions. Having that control is key."
"The feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed. I get notifications for new laptop devices. I think the user interface looks good compared to previous versions."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"SAP CDC is very easy to use and the best part about this tool is its documentation."
 

Cons

"Cisco ISE has almost all the features we are looking for now, but sometimes the configuration, such as the conditions, is a little difficult to understand and not so easy to navigate."
"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade."
"I would rate this solution a 7.5 out of ten. To make it a ten they should have more people on tech support. They need to invest more in the product. It's a good product. They should just work on tech support. More support for the customer. It's not that easy to get somebody to understand this product. I have had some issues with tech before for the solution. One of them brought the solution down due to some of his activity. They need to hugely invest in their tech support."
"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."
"There are still some bugs in ISE that need to be worked out."
"The integrations with the switches and the wireless controllers are not really straightforward. There is what they call the best practice for them, but it may not be what we have on-premise."
"Since we have started, we struggled a lot to implement this solution into our network, and we opened a case a couple of times. Up until this point, nothing else needs to be improved with this product."
"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."
"I have struggled to give different access to different users in the same application."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."
"It would be beneficial to have a single license that included all of the features."
"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."
"I have complaints. I don't enjoy the licensing model. Once we moved from 2.7 to 3.1, switching from Base, Plus, and Apex to Essential and Advantage in Premier, we went from a perpetual, with our base licenses, to now a subscription-base. So, we will have to renew those licenses every year, and I'm not a fan of that for our base licenses. Apex/Premier, we already expected, which is fine, but for basic connectivity, I am not a fan of that."
"The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team."
"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"That's where things got a bit more complicated. Previously, it was a one-time purchase and we just had to renew support. These days, there's a subscription model, which is supposed to be easier and cheaper as well, but it's more pricey"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

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...
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Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Gigya Customer Identity Management
 

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
Nutricia-Danone, ESI, Frontier Communications, Medialaan, Verizon Wireless, Talpa Media
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.