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

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Saviynt 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)
Saviynt
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (4th), Identity Management (IM) (5th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (10th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (8th), Identity and Access Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Saviynt 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.
Saviynt, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 9.1% mindshare, up 8.5% 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.
VinayM - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for IAM, IGA, MFA, SSO, and access management
The technical support team's response time could be improved. After the implementation, Saviynt should provide good support to their customers. While migrating from legacy applications to the cloud, Saviynt has many bugs. The lift and shift are not very seamless. There are a lot of customizations to be done and some development is required. From the migration point of view, the solution is a little buggy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco ISE scales exceptionally well."
"The solution offers automation and real-time visibility, which aids in monitoring and troubleshooting issues with endpoints."
"Stable network administration solution that can be installed easily, and comes with fast technical support."
"My team has gained a lot from Cisco ISE as it does also provide automation, which is a big asset in the eighth hour. After setting it up, it took a lot of the weight off in many ways. We have a co-worker, who we call the ISE Master because he's in charge of the ISE configurations. He's able to save a lot of time by being able to monitor everything from there. So it did take off a lot of time that we would waste by going individually to that different device and trying to figure out what was wrong."
"When you push out the policy, it is able to populate the entire network at one time."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the NAC and the bundles that are available with Cisco ISE, such as Cisco ACS being integrated."
"The policy sets give us more granular groups for end-user access."
"It gives very good and in-depth knowledge about a particular identity. Everything is through a single click. We get to know the workflows related to a particular identity with a single click."
"We have found the implementation process to be very easy."
"The dedicated Freshdesk platform is a user community and a step in the right direction for offering learning resources."
"The most valuable features of Saviynt are database utility and report generation. These two features have a major impact, particularly when you are trying to create a report because, in other systems, you need to use a third-party utility such as a BI tool or any other reporting tool to fetch the data and send out the report to a third party team. In Saviynt, it's a system within a system, so you don't have to use any third-party tool because you can directly do your query and write that code on Saviynt and then send that report to the team."
"It is very easy to use. It addresses most of the trends in identity governance and risk management."
"The product has a great attestation feature."
"The repository has many features where you can define primary and secondary owners."
"Saviynt provides built-in access recommendations, while SailPoint IdentityNow offers access recommendations through a separate AI integration that requires additional licensing. Saviynt functions as a unified platform for various business operations, consolidating user and access data from multiple sources into a single platform. This allows for leveraging the same user base and data across different business functions, including access governance, privileged access management, data access governance, and third-party access governance. In contrast, SailPoint is a decoupled tool, requiring separate integration for managing access and permissions, especially for unstructured data. Saviynt's approach is more integrated and streamlined, providing a unified platform for access recommendations and various business operations."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if it could be configured easily by default."
"Cisco could improve the GUIs on their hardware."
"It is a good product, but in order to use all of the functions of the product, you must have a good understanding of the product. You must know how to use and manage it. It is a little bit complicated to configure and manage. It must be simplified to make it easy to manage for end users. In the initial stage, we found ISE complicated for end users. It was not easy to manage it or to write authentication and authorization protocol. They must improve its management and make it easy for end users. The monitoring and reporting capabilities can be improved because end users want to quickly see what is happening in their network. There were some restrictions in working with other vendors. It should also have a better and easy integration with other vendors."
"The price could be better. I would like to see more integration with third-party solutions in the next release. This is because many of my clients don't have Cisco."
"The solution could be more secure."
"I would say they need to expand the hardware compatibility. 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)."
"The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced."
"I would like to see the product simplified more, especially with the configuration."
"Saviynt cannot customize based on customer needs."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"It should support more customizations. In SailPoint, we can do many customizations, but we are not able to do that in Saviynt. For workflows and other things, we can only use what is already in place. Saviynt has a lot of scope for improvement on the customization part."
"We sometimes experience performance issues when the solution fails to process the data between two different applications."
"Both SailPoint IdentityNow and Saviynt have some bugs, but SailPoint is considered more mature with fewer bugs due to its longer establishment in the market since around 2005. SailPoint had its share of bugs in the early days, but they have resolved them over time, resulting in a stable product. Saviynt, on the other hand, was launched around 2013 or 2014 and is actively working to improve its product. Despite having some bugs, Saviynt is making progress and aims to build a stable product, but it is not there yet."
"The custom application integration is a little complex, and this tool doesn't provide so many plugins or additional applications."
"The solution does not work very well as the number of users increases."
"UI and support could be improved. The frequent updates and version changes can be disruptive for large organizations. Not every month, a large organization can go with the changes. Saviynt needs to consider this carefully."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate."
"It is fair."
"Cisco ISE's licensing can get pricey."
"I get very good pricing from Cisco, so I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem with licensing because we get enterprise or global licensing."
"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."
"In terms of the licensing and the pricing structure of the Cisco Identity Services Engine, there's been a huge advantage to our clients recently with the advent of the enterprise agreement."
"Cisco has actually transitioned to a lot of subscription models, fees, and licenses."
"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"Saviynt's pricing is acceptable and licensing costs are yearly."
"The price of the license for this product is quite expensive."
"The pricing is comparable to Azure Entra ID. Kind of the same"
"We are not into the licensing part. The clients take care of the licensing part."
"Saviynt has a competitive price."
"If you are investing in securing your data and avoiding any non-compliance issues, then yes, it is certainly recommended. To put it plainly, if you're willing to pay fines and aren't concerned about the misuse of data, then there might not be a problem. However, if you intend to safeguard the data of your employees, vendors, and customers, it becomes crucial. In this context, managing data security requires preventive and detective measures, such as enforcing segregation of duties and regularly reviewing permissions. Throughout an individual's life cycle within an organization or customer life cycle, various access permissions are granted. Without taking action on these permissions, there is a risk of exposure later on. If individuals retain access after leaving the organization, it poses a serious security threat. Implementing solutions like Saviynt can address these challenges, ensuring continuous access review, generating reports, alerts, and identifying potential risks."
"If you need to make any changes then there are additional fees."
"The product is less expensive than one of the competitors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Access Control (NAC) solutions are best for your needs.
851,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
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 Saviynt?
It is very easy to use. It addresses most of the trends in identity governance and risk management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Saviynt?
Saviynt is very affordable compared to its competitors. It is cloud-based, making it significantly cheaper than on-premises solutions. This cost-effectiveness aligns well with the Saudi market, whe...
What needs improvement with Saviynt?
We are in the deployment stage, so it's too early to determine specific improvement areas. However, bringing more people on the ground could enhance Saviynt's market presence. While Saviynt has pot...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

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
Shell, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Ingram Micro, Intermountain Health Care, Forterra, CoreLogic
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: April 2025.
851,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.