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Fortinet FortiNAC vs Impulse Point SafeConnect 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

Fortinet FortiNAC
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Impulse Point SafeConnect
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiNAC is 12.6%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Impulse Point SafeConnect is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiNAC12.6%
Impulse Point SafeConnect1.7%
Other85.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohamed Fouad - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
Network access control has centralized device profiling and automated user isolation
The best features Fortinet FortiNAC offers include great integration with other Fortinet products. We have most of the cybersecurity products from Fortinet, including FortiMail, FortiGate, and FortiManager, among many Fortinet products. The best feature is the integration with these products. Fortinet FortiNAC can also integrate with any switching vendor using SSH to manage switches. This integration capability is very beneficial. The integration with other Fortinet products and managing switches from different vendors has helped my workflow by providing automation that makes it easy to run actions. We execute and trigger actions through Fortinet FortiNAC on FortiGate. We set up trigger actions on FortiGate to be run through Fortinet FortiNAC directly. Whenever an action happens, it is triggered on Fortinet FortiNAC, allowing us to disable and isolate a user if that machine is infected. The automation and response functionality is powerful, and the integration is very good. Fortinet FortiNAC has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to control our network and save time. We manage multiple switches that allow many users, including guest users and corporate users. We have saved time and secured our resources while accomplishing a lot with Fortinet FortiNAC.
CD
Director of Computer Information Services at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easy to scale, enforces policies well, and has responsive technical support
A lot of campuses use SafeConnect. It gives us good visibility and enforces policies. It helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access. Technical support is responsive. The stability is pretty good. It is very easy to scale the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Fortinet FortiNAC to receive excellent visibility of our network for traffic and what devices are connected to prevent attacks."
"The solution is good at giving a deep dive into each product. It tells you, for example, what is connected to the network. It gives us good reporting tools."
"The initial setup was easy and straightforward."
"Version 9.1 has been an improvement on previous versions. It's a good solution for SMB."
"It's easy to connect to a VPN without any hassles."
"Compared to other NAC vendors, Fortinet’s user interface is more user-friendly."
"Fortinet FortiNAC has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to control our network and save time."
"It's a very good solution and one thing I have noted is its simplicity and the ease of the set-up process."
"It is very easy to scale the product."
"It gives us good visibility and enforces policies, helps enforce network security by scanning devices, making sure they have current and valid antivirus solutions with up-to-date antivirus definitions, and steers our end users by enforcing policy groups and steering them to the right access."
 

Cons

"The technical support is bad. We've had to escalate to Tier 2 and Tier 3. My customer relationship manager on the other side of this has stopped returning phone calls and emails, because there has been such a constant back and forth."
"Fortinet needs to look for integration with all the OEMs."
"They need to change or upgrade the technology in the product."
"Fortinet FortiNAC could improve its hardware for use with cloud-based firewalls."
"Cisco ISE has full integration but FortiNAC doesn't."
"One of the biggest issues with Fortinet FortiNAC is that it is not intuitive and has a high learning curve."
"The product could be more user-friendly in terms of GUI."
"The implementation process needs improvement. Right now, it's somewhat complicated. They could create some templates to facilitate implementation. Right now everything is done manually, and it just takes a really long time at the initial setup."
"The solution would be much better if it offered self-service onboarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a pricey solution."
"The price of the license required is based on how many users are going to be using the solution. If you want more users you can upgrade your license."
"The product cost is moderate."
"For the projects that we do the Fortinet FortiNAC is affordable."
"If one is bad and ten is good, I rate the product price as a seven out of ten."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"Fortinet FortiNAC is reasonably priced."
"The licensing fees are a little bit high."
"For our tier group, for one year, the cost is probably around $10,000 for the license. If you do multi-year, you could get two years, and you could get it for about $8,000 per year. If you do three years, you get it around $7,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Aruba ClearPass and FortiNAC?
I've done quite a lot of work with ClearPass, and not a lot with FortiNAC/Bradford. ClearPass incorporates a number of different functions including ClearPass Guest for creating complex wireless g...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiNAC?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiNAC is that, as is typical from Fortinet, all their products have a very good licensing model and competitive pricing. I beli...
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Also Known As

FortiNAC, Bradford Networks, Bradford Networks Sentry, Network Sentry Family
SafeConnect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Isavia, Pepperdine University, Medical University of South Carolina, Columbia University Medical Center, Utah Valley University
Aerohive Solution
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: July 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.