Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle comparison

The compared Cisco and RSA solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #1 in NAC , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 24.5% mindshare in the category. RSA is ranked #23 in IAM , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of RSA users who would recommend it.

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Read 143 Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) reviews

17,586 Views
11,255 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

RSA Identity Governance and...

Read 10 RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle reviews

779 Views
623 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

RSA Identity Governance and...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC).

To learn more, read our detailed Network Access Control (NAC) Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Network Access Control (NAC)

August 2025

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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 (2nd)

RSA Identity Governance and...

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity Management (IM) (23rd)

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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 24.5%, down 30.0% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.3% mindshare, up 1.3% since last year.

Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)	24.5%
Aruba ClearPass	23.9%
Fortinet FortiNAC	18.0%
Other	33.599999999999994%

Network Access Control (NAC)

Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle	1.3%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud	19.1%
Microsoft Entra ID	12.2%
Other	67.4%

Identity Management (IM)

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri

Service Line Manager (Service Operations Expert) - Network Access Control at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

Read full review

Harshul Nayak

Senior Project Manager at Capgemini

Streamline identity lifecycle management with intuitive interfaces and robust policy features

The functions of RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, especially the IGA, are quite strong with their custom forms and workflows integrated. The user interface is very friendly and easy to use, making it a good product overall. However, it still has to be on-premise and the cloud version is not easily accessible, as dedicated instances are required and machines cannot be shared as multi-tenant for various customers. The advanced policy features of RSA definitely help in defining certain policies such as segregation of duties. That's particularly useful along with creating different access reviews. Regarding access control in simplifying access management, RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle has strong foundations of groups and roles, which help in defining all policies very easily. This makes it very easy to integrate with other access management tools or privileged access management tools.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."

"Cisco ISE scales exceptionally well."

"I like that Cisco ISE is easy to use."

"One of the advantages is that you can easily find rogue endpoints. For example, if you don't want to allow any endpoints where you don't know the people plugging into what kind of devices, ISE can give you a big, clear picture, e.g., what kind of endpoints are getting connected to your network. That is one of the advantages."

"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very stable."

"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great."

"The valuable feature of the solution lies in its integration capabilities with other applications."

"The way we can trust this solution is the most valuable. We have no issue with this product. It is a competitive product. You need to have a very good and deep knowledge of the product to take the full benefits of all the features, but it is a good product."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pros

"The data collection is excellent and easy to do. It does not require a lot of configuration nor does it require rules to be written like other competitors do."

"With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes."

"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."

"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."

"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."

Cons

"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."

"An area that could be improved is the agent. The challenge now is that agent and most of the computers have changed. They could think about agent-less deployment."

"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."

"There are issues with respect to the posture assessment function. It's been observed that customers are not receiving total access to the network because the assessment agent is glitchy and malfunctions from time-to-time. I would like to see refining of the compliance assessment and adding more detailed compliance of endpoints on the user end."

"Documentation is probably the worst part of the software."

"In order to make it a ten, it should be more user-friendly. You need somebody who is knowledgeable about it to use it. It's not easy to use. We have to rely heavily on technical support."

"The UI is not as intuitive as some other products, even products inside of Cisco's wheelhouse."

"The initial setup was a little bit complex. It's not that simple because it requires a lot of prerequisites for the solution to get a hold on."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) cons

"Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy costs."

"The user interface and workflow need improvement, and more connectors would help."

"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."

"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."

"This product is missing a lot of features which other competitors are providing. One of the key features that are missing right now is risk scoring. Additionally, there is not much scope for customization - everything is hard-coded and predefined, so it does not allow the developers to make many modifications."

"RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle could improve out-of-the-box customization."

"If you use the appliance version then it won't handle a huge database volume."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a bit on the high side."

"The pricing is fair for what it does."

"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."

"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."

"It's an expensive solution when compared to other vendors."

"The solution is not that cheap."

"The price is okay."

"Our customers pay for the license of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine). They have an annual subscription, rather than a monthly subscription."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pricing and cost advice

"We are using the cloud platform, but we don't find it compatible to be served as a multi-tenant platform. This is a large drawback. It becomes expensive because it is then an all-dedicated solution. You have to have a separate tenant for each client, which increases the cost. The overall unit pricing can be less expensive than how it is right now."

"Pricing varies based on user count/number of modules you need."

"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	43
Midsize Enterprise	31
Large Enterprise	90

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

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 ...

See all answers

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, ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes.

See all answers

What needs improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

There is room for improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle. As the size becomes larger, the collections and unifications of the IDs process become quite slow, which can be improved fu...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

We provide RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle as a service, mainly to oversee the digital identity lifecycle, from the initiation to the off-boarding at the end of that digital identity. Our cli...

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba ClearPass vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 23% of the time

Fortinet FortiNAC vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 22% of the time

Forescout Platform vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 9% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 5% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Competitors

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 68% of the time

One Identity Manager vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 20% of the time

Saviynt vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 12% of the time

More RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

September 2025

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) report

Download Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) product report

Buyer's Guide

RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

August 2025

RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle report

Download RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle product report

Also Known As

Cisco ISE

SecurID

Overview

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers comprehensive network access control and visibility, supporting features like 802.1X authentication, profiling, and posturing. It integrates with Microsoft and other Cisco products, facilitating robust security policies across distributed networks.

Cisco Identity Services Engine is a key player in network access control, offering centralized management and a user-friendly interface. It supports zero trust principles and provides strong authentication for wired and wireless networks. ISE's capabilities include granular security policies, enhanced device posturing, and seamless integration, bolstering security infrastructure. Users benefit from its dual authentication through EAP, simplifying access management across networks.

What are the key features of Cisco ISE?

802.1X Authentication: Supports network security for authorized device access.
Profiling: Identifies devices for accurate policy enforcement.
Posturing: Evaluates device compliance for access decisions.
TACACS: Streamlines network device authentication and authorization.
Guest Access: Provides secure access to visitors.
Microsoft Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft environments.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Security Enhancement: Offers strong network security policies.
Operational Efficiency: Centralized management improves operational aspects.
Improved Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry standards.
Scalability: Supports growing network demands effectively.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and education, Cisco ISE is pivotal for securing wired and wireless networks, implementing BYOD policies, and managing user access. Organizations leverage ISE for effective authentication and authorization, while maintaining compliance with industry security standards.

Cisco

RSA SecurID provides world-leading two-factor authentication, protecting 25,000 organizations and 55 million users. RSA SecurID extends security to bring your own device (BYOD), cloud, and mobile as well as traditional virtual private network (VPN) and web portals. RSA SecurID solutions comprise three primary components: authenticator, platform, and agents.

RSA

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

NTT Com Asia, Virgin Blue, Bank of Uganda, EMEA Telecommunications Company, LAit (Lazio Innovazione Tecnologica), NyNet, OTP Bank, Red Bull Racing, Rupert House School, Signify, UK Local Authority, Bancolombia, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (BPPR), TIVIT, Array Services, International Computerware, KPMG LLP, Moffitt Cancer Center

Buyer's Guide

Network Access Control (NAC)

August 2025

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