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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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
142
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Symantec Privileged Access Manager 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 25.8%, down 31.3% compared to last year.
Symantec Privileged Access Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 1.5% mindshare, up 1.5% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

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.
Muzi Lubisi - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure management of sensitive servers and seamless applications with direct linking
The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions. A majority of customers use it for RDP, and a couple for Linux servers. The broader capabilities, including access to multiple systems, web-based applications, and clustering, have never posed an issue. The threat analytics aspect is also a robust feature that analyzes all pertinent information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution enables us to do everything from one interface."
"The implementation is very simple."
"We were originally a Cisco shop and Cisco ISE integrated well with our other Cisco switches and networks."
"The biggest value of ISE is that it can get so granular with gaming systems, versus IoT and BYOD."
"The solution offers automation and real-time visibility, which aids in monitoring and troubleshooting issues with endpoints."
"With NAC, the profiling feature is valuable. We're able to see what we have out there in the network and dynamically assign policies to it. We can then use that to enforce TrustSec policy or anything else with NAC."
"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."
"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
"Stability is solid as a rock."
"Symantec PAM is easier to deploy compared to its competitors, such as BeyondTrust."
"The credential injection feature is highly valued, particularly for RDP sessions."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"The product is very scalable in terms of concurrent sessions that it can handle at a time, number of device it can support, accounts that it can manage, or number of nodes that you can deploy in a cluster."
 

Cons

"This product doesn't work in isolation."
"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."
"The primary issue is the slowness of the application and the web interface. We have multiple admin nodes and app nodes. So when I need to get some information about a particular user, the GUI would take ten to fifteen seconds in loading when we need to know right away."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Difficult to figure out the protocols and nodes in order to implement correctly."
"It should be virtualized because many people have begun migrating to the cloud. They should offer a hybrid version."
"The templates could be better. When you have to do certs, especially with X.500 certs, it isn't very intuitive."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
"Recent releases need improvement in webpage management."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"According to my sales and account team, the prices we're getting are pretty good."
"I think licensing costs roughly $2,000 a year. ISE is more expensive than Network Access Control."
"There is a license to use this solution and the price is reasonable."
"It has a fair price. It is better than it was before."
"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."
"If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
"Don’t go with an agent model. Don’t go with a model that has you buying a thousand different parts. Go with PAM that gives you everything, or you’ll just be paying costs of implementing another tool that PAM would have just given you up front."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"It is reasonably priced."
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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
16%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Due to the nature of the solution, it is hard to gauge, but compared to competitors, the pricing is very good. I would rate it as an eight and a half out of ten.
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Recent releases need improvement in webpage management. For instance, navigating through a webpage that acts like a wizard, where I proceed to the next page and enter more information, is not handl...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

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
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.