We performed a comparison between Aruba ClearPass and Cisco ISE (Identity Service Engine) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Although Cisco is a worldwide, well-known, trusted, and respected branded product, with many known complexities, Aruba ClearPass is flexible, versatile, and more user-friendly than Cisco. Aruba’s aggressive stance on keeping hackers out with strict authentication policies and its cost-effective business model and excellent technical service make it a NAC solution to consider seriously.
"The customized modules for guests, the self-registration and login, one license for all, no license for guest users, and the self-integration of sandbox integration are the most valuable features."
"We are mainly using Aruba ClearPass for our clients for securing access to their on-premise assets. As per customer expectations, we are trying our best to track the complete user activity in the network. This is the main and the core feature we require."
"Aruba has improved my organization because it supported me on my level of access."
"We can double verify whether a machine is compliant with our policy on the one hand, and on the other hand if it's one of our machines we let it into the network."
"The support is top notch, expert, and very friendly. "
"Aruba ClearPass has improved the security control in our network environment."
"ClearPass's best feature is its comprehensiveness."
"The web dashboard and the policy manager are very intuitive and very easy for the engineers to use."
"The solution is great for establishing trust for every access request no matter where it comes from."
"Assisting a larger number of users in gaining access and guiding them through the process of getting on Cisco ISE has been seamless."
"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."
"Using this solution gives us the ability to allow proper access to the network."
"The ability to integrate our Cisco AnyConnect connections to the active directory has been great."
"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."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"It is scalable because we use a network load balancer at the front of the PSN. It can be extended as we want to multiply. It's scalable to our environment. We have around 8,000 users and we are planning to expand it."
"The technical support has some room for improvement. It takes them a long time to respond sometimes. I rate Aruba support six out of 10."
"I can't think of an area where the solution is lacking a feature or a capability."
"The pricing policy could be more flexible."
"Licensing cost is extremely high."
"An issue with Aruba ClearPass is the lack of information and poor community support. You can't find the material easily on the internet for any issues. For example, if you're looking for any configuration or exploring any issue, it's not easy to find information, and this is the problem with Aruba ClearPass. Access to helpful information and poor community support could be improved. Another area for improvement in Aruba ClearPass is that some of its advanced features aren't easy to find. For example, my team needed to apply Google single sign-on, but it wasn't easy to find. Aruba ClearPass is a big solution with a lot of capabilities, and it's a very advanced solution, so you need to either have some experience with it or undergo some training. Aruba ClearPass is a very good solution from the network perspective, but the issue is the poor support you get from the community. When you try using the solution, some areas aren't easy. When you search on YouTube, you'll find very few materials about Aruba ClearPass. It isn't like Cisco where you can find information from hundreds of websites, on YouTube, etc. This is bad for Aruba, so this area should be improved. Aruba has a training center, but the usual training offered is only for Aruba Wireless and Aruba Switches. If you have another solution, it's not easy to integrate it with Aruba ClearPass, so this is an area for improvement. You need to do some research to successfully integrate your solution with Aruba ClearPass. We integrated Aruba ClearPass with Ubiquiti WiFi, and it's working fine with no issues. My next project is to start integrating Aruba ClearPass with Cisco Switches. The solution is good, but on the website, there's no book and no video, and you can't find the material on Aruba ClearPass easily. This is one of the issues with Aruba."
"The monitoring of Aruba ClearPass needs improvement. For example, they have monitoring for TECHx and you can find out what the administrator did. However, if Aruba ClearPass is managing GUI devices, you do not know what the administrator is doing."
"The improvement can be in the cloud area. They can improve it for the cloud so that we can deploy it on the cloud."
"Aruba ClearPass has fewer deployment scenarios and flexibility than Forescout."
"The opinion of my coworkers, and it's mine as well, is that the user interface could use some tender loving care. It seems counterintuitive sometimes. If you go to the logs, it's hard to figure out which one you need to look at."
"Cisco ISE's performance could be better, faster, and more robust."
"The initial setup process is complex since there are so many big components."
"The solution lacks properly knowledgeable support, especially internationally, and this is why I am exploring other applications."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and it is not simple to use."
"Deploying to a machine, as opposed to a dedicated appliance, can be a bit difficult."
"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade."
"On the network services devices, when you click on filter, the filter comes up. However, when I type in a search and I want to click on something it defaults back to the main page. I keep having an issue with that, and I'm not doing anything wrong."
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Aruba ClearPass is ranked 2nd in Network Access Control (NAC) with 75 reviews while Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is ranked 1st in Network Access Control (NAC) with 135 reviews. Aruba ClearPass is rated 8.6, while Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Aruba ClearPass writes "Easy to use, multifeatured, and reliable policy management platform for identity authentication and new device onboarding". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) writes "Gives us that extra ability to assist the end user and make sure that we are making them happy". Aruba ClearPass is most compared with Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, Microsoft Intune, Ruckus Cloudpath and macmon Network Access Control, whereas Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is most compared with Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Fortinet FortiAuthenticator and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. See our Aruba ClearPass vs. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) report.
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