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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
143
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (16th)
 

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 24.5%, down 30.0% compared to last year.
Symantec Privileged Access Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 1.5% mindshare, down 1.6% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)24.5%
Aruba ClearPass23.9%
Fortinet FortiNAC18.0%
Other33.599999999999994%
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Symantec Privileged Access Manager1.5%
CyberArk Privileged Access Manager16.3%
Delinea Secret Server7.5%
Other74.7%
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 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."
"The best features are the scalability and the license structure."
"Technical support is okay."
"After the product was installed, no one could access the secure connection network. In order for any laptop or any endpoint device to attach to my network, it needs to be authorized or be certified to be connected."
"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"Having access and being able to add people or change authentication yourself is nice. In the past, we've used other group authentication services, and we always had to go to them and get permissions. Having that control is key."
"Improves switch account management."
"The most important feature for us is visibility in terms of user connections. It's the ability to see what devices are online for a particular user that helps a lot with our troubleshooting."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"It is great for identity governance."
"It reduces the viral attacks on my website. It also allows certain users access to see what happens daily."
"We know we can scale up with what we have, and we probably will not need to buy any further appliances down the road."
"The DB clustering is a really good benefit of using CA PAM."
"The interface is very friendly, colorful, and bold."
"The agent-based credential management solution allows clients to programmatically use the agent to collect passwords during runtime from Symantec Privileged Access Manager."
"We found that the architecture is scalable and very resilient."
 

Cons

"In an upcoming release, the solution needs to be more agentless and more independent. Additionally, there could be improved integration with other next-generation solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, or Check Point."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit."
"I believe that Cisco can improve the way its policies are built because it's a little complex."
"Profiling is a really good feature. However, it sometimes is a challenge for customers when there are issues with the remediation part. I would add a built-in remediation solution. That would be a very nice feature."
"The price here in Brazil is very expensive."
"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."
"Segmentation can be improved."
"If you have someone taking care of it, it can be quite easy to manage the solution. Otherwise, if you don't look after it and take care of it day-to-day, then it will become more complex to run."
"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."
"Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"Technical support was good when CA handled it. After Broadcom took over, it's not as good."
"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."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
"We have to do a lot of manual work to automate features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs."
"It is difficult to measure security breaches, but since we have not been attacked so far, it has paid for itself over the years."
"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."
"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."
"There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs."
"The pricing is complicated."
"This solution requires an annual license and it is a bit expensive than competitors."
"The price can be lower, especially for subscriptions. It should be a lot cheaper to have a wide range of customers. The price should be comparable to competitive products like Forescout or Fortinet FortiNAC. Forescout is cheaper for customers looking for a cloud solution."
"The licensing is simple and scalable."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"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."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"Pricing is fair compared to other top vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
 

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: August 2025.
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