We performed a comparison between Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) and Cisco Secure Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Cisco Security Portfolio solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The authorization and accounts inside of ISE are very useful for us."
"Cisco ISE's profiling and posturing features ensure that all devices are compliant with regulatory authorities."
"It is a good product for what it does...So, it is one of the most critical systems that we have."
"Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities."
"From a configuration point of view, it's simple."
"It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access."
"Stable network administration solution that can be installed easily, and comes with fast technical support."
"Profiling is one of the most valuable features. We have a lot of different devices between cameras, access points, and laptops that get plugged in."
"The stability of the product is good."
"Cisco's technical support is the best and that's why everybody implements their products."
"It brings us the ability to work from anywhere and has allowed us to work remotely without having to incur a lot of other costs. If we didn't have this type of solution, since we have so many on-prem services that are required, we would have likely lost money and been unable to deliver. We have a video services team who helped build the content for our sporting events. When you are watching a Leaf game and those swipes come by as well as the clips and things, those are all generated in-house. Without the ability to access our on-premise resources, we would have been dead in the water. So, the return on that is pretty impressive."
"The traffic inspection and the Firepower engine are the most valuable features. It gives you full details, application details, traffic monitoring, and the threats. It gives you all the containers the user is using, especially at the application level. The solution also provides application visibility and control."
"The customer service/technical support is very good with this solution."
"The most valuable features are the IPsec VPN and web filtering."
"A stable and solid solution for protection from external threats and for VPN connections."
"The CLI is the most valuable feature. This solution is very flexible and offers different functionality including firewalls and VPN connectivity."
"Cisco ISE's real-time data analytics for database logging could be improved."
"The price here in Brazil is very expensive."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit."
"Its user interface could be better. It's not bad. They've just redesigned the whole user interface. It's not terribly difficult. The drop-down menus are easy to use. However, when you're looking for some things in the user interface, it takes a minute to find where you were prior."
"Cisco ISE integration with Cisco ACI is something that can be done in a less complex way. And the simplification in that area may help us do better."
"The solution configuration is complicated for setting the infrastructure. They have improved over the years but there is still a lot of room to improve. When comparing the simplicity to other vendors, such as Fortinet and Aruba they are behind."
"In the next release, I would want to see this kind of solution in the cloud as opposed to on prem because when enhancements are made to the software, if it's in the cloud, it's overnight. I mean you're not going to have to respin the servers that the license sits on, it's all microservices kinds of things in the cloud. That would be my recommendation. If I'm a customer, that's what I'm looking at - for cloud based software subscriptions."
"Sometimes, there are instances when Cisco ISE simply fails to function without any apparent reason, and regardless of the investigation we undertake, the logs indicate that everything is functioning properly, making it somewhat inexplicable."
"Changes you make in the GUI sometimes do not reflect in the command line and vice versa."
"I have worked with the new FTD models and they have more features than the ASA line."
"The user interface for the Firepower management console is a little bit different from traditional Cisco management tools. If you look at products we already use, like Cisco Prime or other products that are cloud-based, they have a more modern user interface for managing the products. For Firepower, the user interface is not very user-friendly. It's a little bit confusing sometimes."
"It would be nice if you didn't have to configure using a command-line interface. It's a bit technical that way."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"The management of the firewalls could be improved because there are a lot of bugs."
"They need to do an overhaul of the management console."
"They really need support for deployment."
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Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is ranked 1st in Cisco Security Portfolio with 135 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 6th in Cisco Security Portfolio with 404 reviews. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is rated 8.2, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is most compared with Aruba ClearPass, Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and Portnox CORE, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Sophos XG. See our Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
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