Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews & Product Details

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is a comprehensive network access control (NAC) solution that serves as the cornerstone of a zero-trust security framework. It enables organizations to enforce security policies, manage endpoints, and ensure that only trusted users and devices can access network resources. By integrating intelligence from across the network stack, ISE provides real-time contextual information, allowing for precise control over who and what connects to the network. Key Features and Functionality: - Context-Aware Access Control: ISE gathers detailed information about users, devices, locations, and access methods to enforce policies that grant or restrict network access based on comprehensive contextual data. - Endpoint Compliance: The platform continuously assesses device posture to ensure compliance with security policies, preventing unpatched or non-compliant devices from posing risks to the network. - Automated Threat Containment: ISE can automatically identify and contain threats by leveraging network intelligence, effectively turning the network into a proactive defense mechanism. - Flexible Deployment Options: Supporting both on-premises and multi-cloud environments, ISE offers deployment flexibility to meet diverse organizational needs. - Integration with Security Ecosystem: ISE integrates seamlessly with other security solutions, enhancing overall security posture through coordinated policy enforcement and threat response. Primary Value and Problem Solved: Cisco ISE addresses the critical need for secure and efficient network access control in today's complex IT environments. By providing a centralized platform for policy enforcement and endpoint management, it reduces the risk of unauthorized access and potential security breaches. Organizations benefit from enhanced visibility into network activities, streamlined compliance with security policies, and the agility to adapt to evolving security threats. Ultimately, ISE empowers businesses to maintain a resilient security posture while supporting operational continuity and growth.

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Community

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Ross Marchant

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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Integrations

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Eric Q.

Administrador de Seguridad TI

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

4/21/2026

"Unify and automate network access with real visibility"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

The ability to unify and automate network access through security postures, meeting predefined conditions, allows for real profiling and visibility to identify who and what connects to the company's network. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Particularly, the solution features multiple and extensive configuration options or modules, which at first can be somewhat confusing during the platform management process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Bisrateab G.

Cyber Security officer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

9/19/2025

"3 years of hands-on experience as an administrator managing Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) ."

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

With 3 years of experience administering Cisco ISE, I find its biggest strengths are centralized access control, strong security enforcement, and clear visibility into network activity. It simplifies managing user, device, and guest access while integrating well with other security tools to strengthen overall network defense. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

he VPN gateway must be properly configured to prompt for and process password changes, since Cisco ISE only validates credentials against the identity source. If this setting is not enabled on the VPN device (such as ASA/FTD with AnyConnect), users won’t see a prompt to update expired passwords, even if Active Directory allows the change. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?

Cisco ISE solves the challenge of controlling who and what connects to the network by providing centralized authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA). It gives visibility into users and devices, enforces consistent security policies, and streamlines guest and BYOD access. For me as an admin, this means fewer security gaps, easier policy management, and stronger protection of critical resources without having to manage multiple disconnected tools. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rajesh K.

Cloud security Engineer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/17/2025

"Vulnerability enggine"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Dynamic and context-aware access policies based on user, device type, time, and location.

Profiling and posture assessment for both managed and unmanaged devices.

Centralized policy management that scales across large distributed networks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Complexity in Configuration and Policy Design:

ISE has a steep learning curve. Setting up policies—especially for large environments with multiple identity sources and posture checks—can become complex and time-consuming. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Gamil R.

Computer and Collaboration Eng

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

9/9/2024

"Long Successful Journey"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

All-in-One Solution

Central Control

Compatibility and scalability

Support (Either by Cisco TAC, Community, Wep,...) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

High Cost.

Complexity for beginners.

Changing the Schema especially for the Licensing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

ANSHUMAN T.

Technical Lead

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

9/10/2023

"A Comprehensive Cisco ISE Review"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

I like Cisco ISE for it's network access control capabilities, centralized policy management, and integration with multivendor support. It helps enhance network security .It can be worked as a Radius server. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

1st I would say it's a complex set up. It is very costly. And it is not user-friendly. A new user need to take time to understand the set-up.In some cases, Cisco ISE may require significant hardware resources to run efficiently, Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ezequiel P.

Presales Engineer Security

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

1/26/2024

"Network Security Orchestrator"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Cisco ISE is Orchestrator of our network, concentrate all users and mitigate attacks & have multiples features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Maybe many releases and change of license Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Prashant B.

Network Security Engineer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

2/10/2023

"Cisco ISE with Zero Trust Approach"

4/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Cisco ISE is an excellent product in terms of security and service. It has a dot1x feature, which makes it zero trust at an extreme level. Cisco ISE is very useful for network administrators and security engineers to protect their environment. the part I like.

1. dot1x pre-authentication in both wire and wireless.

2. granular policies to control endpoint.

3. complete visibility of endpoint discovery. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Cisco ISE is a good product, but their are some flaw which just need to address,

1. Licensing is very costly

2. you need to upgrade all of your infra.

3. Require dedicated resource for ISE

4. Automation and integration with some more product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?

1. ISE resolves Pre-authentication, which means Zero Trust, which is very useful for Banking and the financial environment.

2. Endpoint network access with compliance help more to protect the network environment in all type of network line wired, wireless and VPN. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

J S.

Site Reliability Engineer III

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

1/11/2023

"Dynamic Network Security"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Cisco ISE is very useful for our firm as it provides a very good and dynamic (automatic) segregation of endpoints connections to their right vlan connection and also the right access to be provided for an endpoint device. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

At the moment the process of IOS upgrade as it is not as straightforward as the other IOS devices that we are using in the firm such as Switches and Routers. If Cisco can improve this to be more simple then that will make our life easier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Marina B.

Network support analyst

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

2/5/2023

"The best security tool for management and authorization of networked devices"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Cisco ISE enables authentication and authorization of users, devices, and applications across the network.

Real-time security: It provides real-time protection against network security threats and attacks.

And finally is ease to use: Cisco ISE offers an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface, allowing administrators to efficiently deploy and manage the solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

It depends on the type of organization that wants to implement it, but I consider the following points as disadvantages:

Cost: It can be expensive compared to other similar solutions.

Complexity: The solution can be complex to implement and configure, especially for companies with larger or more complex networks.

Hardware requirements: Cisco ISE requires specific hardware to operate and can be costly to purchase and maintain. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?

Allows me to control and monitor access to the network and resources, ensuring that only authorized users have access to them.

The best feature is that it offers real-time protection against security threats and attacks, helping to prevent possible security compromises. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ibrahim A.

IT Manager

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

2/21/2023

"One of the best Identity and Access policy management solutions"

5/5

What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

Network visibility and control, profiling the devices whether it's done automatically or manually using granular policies, and the variations of the conditions to match and apply control policies are amazing Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?

The software upgrade is not an easy step and it's risky, sometimes it's canceled or stopped on any node in the setup due to some issues or bugs, also in the posture assessment part can be enhanced by adding real remediation actions like forcing the windows & AV update, having more conditions like checking the open ports, the configured default accounts can be added to the posture check as well Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.