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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs One Identity 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security and efficiency, providing cost savings and IT consolidation, making it vital for network management.
Sentiment score
7.7
One Identity Manager improves productivity and efficiency with automation, reducing costs and resources by 30-40% annually.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
Without it, we would need thousands of additional people.
If you do not see it as purely an Identity Management tool but as a possibility to automate processes in the company, it provides a huge amount of value.
One Identity Manager saved us approximately thirty to forty percent in terms of time, money, and resources compared to our pre-deployment setup.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco Identity Services Engine customer service is praised for commitment, but technical support feedback varies due to delays and complexities.
Sentiment score
6.9
One Identity Manager's support is praised for responsiveness, with suggestions for quicker responses and deeper knowledge at initial levels.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Sometimes it's challenging to identify which support team is responsible for certain issues, which is a significant concern.
If you have outages or critical production problems, you can count on the manufacturer to help resolve the situation.
If I raised a request while they were active, I received responses within an hour.
After submission, they contact the product team, which often takes one or two months to respond.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco ISE excels in scalable environments, efficiently supporting deployments with flexibility for thousands of endpoints across various sizes.
Sentiment score
7.4
One Identity Manager scales well, supporting growth, though performance may dip with complex setups and database management is crucial.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
We could handle about 1,00,000 records for different users.
I would rate its scalability as strong since we have not experienced any significant challenges.
We are hosting it centrally in Switzerland.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is reliable with high user satisfaction, though some report stability issues, especially during upgrades and high capacity.
Sentiment score
7.4
Users rate One Identity Manager highly for stability, despite occasional bugs, with significant improvements in versions eight and nine.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
Specifically affecting the test and development environments, not the production environment.
One Identity Manager has improved in terms of performance and added functionality.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco ISE struggles with setup complexity, non-intuitive UI, integration challenges, upgrade issues, and demands for better features.
One Identity Manager needs better performance, user-friendly design, comprehensive documentation, and improved cloud integration and reporting features.
The whole setup works well with Cisco access points and Cisco switches, but when you have multiple vendors in the environment, such as HP switches or access points like Aruba, you'll find they will not work well with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).
Pricing can be more expensive compared to other vendors, and there is a significant price gap observed, which doesn't seem justified by some specific features.
They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases.
This lack of 24-hour support is problematic from a testing and development standpoint.
It is crucial for them to expand their support team to match their product's success.
In terms of providing a single platform for enterprise-level administration and governance of users, data, and privileged accounts, One Identity is not yet there.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE offers strong features with complex, expensive pricing, but discounts through partnerships can help alleviate costs.
One Identity Manager's pricing is competitive, especially for large enterprises, but varies based on deployment and features.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Cloud solutions are expensive, while on-prem setups with shared environments are cheaper but not effective.
On-premises might incur higher costs.
We have a good enterprise license agreement, and we are very happy with what we get for the price we pay for it.
On-premises, it is cheap.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE provides comprehensive access control, seamless integration, and enhanced security with intuitive management for versatile network operations.
One Identity Manager excels in customization, SAP integration, and identity governance with automation, user-friendly interface, and extensive connectors.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers authentication using RADIUS, enhancing network security by separating and segregating networks.
There is value because it helps us secure the network and prevents certain things from happening which could cause financial loss.
The solution is integrated with other Cisco devices and can offer automation for an organization, making deployments more dynamic and providing real-time visibility.
It ensures high security through multiple approval processes, preventing unauthorized access and enhancing compliance by providing time-based access for privileged accounts with proper audit trails.
It continuously monitors user behavior in real-time, triggering automated responses, and manages secure access for both on-premises and cloud applications using protocols such as SAML.
Once you have some experience, it demonstrates best practices and guides you on the correct way to use the tool.
 

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)
One Identity Manager
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (1st), Identity Management (IM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and One Identity 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 25.1%, down 30.7% compared to last year.
One Identity Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 6.1% mindshare, down 7.0% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

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.
Ranjan Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables our organization to manage accounts across multiple target systems from a central identity management solution
The One Identity Manager web portal needs simplification. While a new Angular portal was introduced with version 8.2, the knowledge base lacks sufficient information and resources. Even with an Angular developer or a One Identity specialist, a knowledge gap exists due to the combination of AngularJS and One Identity schema expertise required. This makes it difficult to find resources that can effectively utilize the portal, highlighting the need for a more user-friendly interface. One Identity Manager currently offers Long Term Support only for version 9.0. All other versions have a two-year lifecycle with extended support. For organizations managing a complex environment with numerous connected systems, users, and assignments, upgrading every two years is impractical. Extending support for regular versions by one or two years would benefit clients in this situation.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

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 One Identity Manager?
The One Identity birthright process has helped generate user accounts more accurately and quickly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Manager?
One Identity Manager is positioned as a premium product. It falls between middle and high in terms of cost, approximately a six to seven if ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with One Identity Manager?
The user experience has been a concern in the past, particularly with the web interface, but improvements are expected with the transition to Angular. The support from One Identity is very poor. Th...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Quest One Identity 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
Texas A&M, Sky Media, BHF Bank, Swiss Post, Union Investment, Wayne State University. More at OneIdentity.com/casestudies
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.