Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle 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)
RSA Identity Governance and...
Average Rating
6.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (24th)
 

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 25.1%, down 30.7% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.4% mindshare, down 1.4% 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.
Harshul Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Lacking customization, poor support, but useful auditing
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise. We have our own proprietary cloud solution created along with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle and it's deployed on the AWS platform. We use RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle for a broad level use case for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The implementation is very simple."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"Our clients like Cisco ISE because they already use various Cisco solutions. It's easy for them to use this solution because they have an engineer with Cisco certifications."
"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration."
"The product is stable."
"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 does a good job of establishing trust for each access request, no matter the source. It's also very effective at helping with the distributed network and at securing access."
"For guests we give them limited access to the internet when they come in so that access has been useful. Previously, we just used to give them the APN key which they would leave with. Now, we give them credentials to use that are for a limited period of time."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."
"With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes."
"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."
"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."
 

Cons

"Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication."
"They should improve the documentation. There tends to be a lot of old text, or the new things aren't always up to what's been released on the code, and sometimes the documentation is inconsistent."
"If I was going to improve anything, it would be the ease of migration. It's really difficult at the moment if you're looking to upgrade ISE 2.1 and you want to go to ISE 3.1 or 3.2, that whole upgrade path and, particularly, the licensing is quite a minefield to sort out."
"The UI is not as intuitive as some other products, even products inside of Cisco's wheelhouse."
"One of the issues that we used to have was with profiling because we're working with a service provider that uses a lot of bring your own devices."
"It would be ideal if Cisco could provide some short training videos or documentation to customers to help them understand how to use the product."
"We would definitely like to see a little bit of an improvement in the web GUI navigation. Some of the things are a little bit hidden in the drop-down menu. If we could get a way to get to those quicker, it'd be much more useful."
"A main issue is that the upgrade process, over time, is extraordinarily fragile. Repeatedly, over the past several years, when we've tried to upgrade our Cisco ISE implementation, the upgrade has broken it. Ultimately, we have then had to rebuild it because we need it."
"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."
"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"According to my sales and account team, the prices we're getting are pretty good."
"The price of the solution is price fair for the features you receive."
"The price is a bit on the high side."
"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."
"It is difficult to measure security breaches, but since we have not been attacked so far, it has paid for itself over the years."
"Previously, Cisco ISE had a perpetual licensing model, but now they have shifted to a subscription-based licensing system."
"Pricing is not a problem for Cisco because it has a lot of features and not much competition, although it's more expensive than other products. But if I do a cost-benefit analysis, Cisco provides high quality."
"The licensing is subscription-based and based on the user account."
"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."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

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 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.
What needs improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
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...
What advice do you have for others considering RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Two of the members of our company's in-house team and a consultant for support were required to take care of the maintenance phase of the product. I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
SecurID
 

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
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: June 2025.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.