# Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews **Vendor:** Cisco **Category:** [Network Access Control Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/network-access-control-nac) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 51 ## About Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) 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. ## Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews ### 1. Unify and automate network access with real visibility **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eric Q. | Administrador de Seguridad TI, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 21, 2026 **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. **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. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allows ensuring that only authorized users and devices can access resources or equipment on the company's network, complying with the previously defined parameters or conditions. ### 2. 3 years of hands-on experience as an administrator managing Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) . **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bisrateab G. | Cyber Security officer , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 19, 2025 **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. **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. **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. ### 3. Vulnerability enggine **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rajesh K. | Cloud security Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 17, 2025 **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. **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. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Unauthorized Access Control It ensures that only authenticated and authorized users/devices can access specific network segments—reducing insider threats and lateral movement. ### 4. Long Successful Journey **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gamil R. | Computer and Collaboration Eng, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2024 **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,...) **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** High Cost. Complexity for beginners. Changing the Schema especially for the Licensing. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Authorization for Users ( WLAN), Devices and Administrators. Profiling Posturing. ### 5. A Comprehensive Cisco ISE Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** ANSHUMAN T. | Technical Lead, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 10, 2023 **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. **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, **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cisco ISE helps prevent unauthorized devices or users from gaining access to a network, once we configure NAC. Also we can use this as a Radius server for Radius authentication.We can configure Tacas + also. ### 6. Network Security Orchestrator **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ezequiel P. | Presales Engineer Security, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2024 **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. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Maybe many releases and change of license **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Connectivity and checking user before connect to our net. ### 7. Cisco ISE with Zero Trust Approach **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Prashant B. | Network Security Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 10, 2023 **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. **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. **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. ### 8. Dynamic Network Security **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** J S. | Site Reliability Engineer III, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 11, 2023 **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. **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. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Dynamic segmentation of devices for a more secure and controlled environment. Also, the TACACS login to our network devices makes our life easier, with this we are just managing our own AD account for authentication. No more random local passwords to be managed. ### 9. The best security tool for management and authorization of networked devices **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marina B. | Network support analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2023 **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. **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. **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. ### 10. One of the best Identity and Access policy management solutions **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ibrahim A. | IT Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2023 **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 **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 **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Controlling the access to the network and restricting the allowed permissions for all users, reduced the follow-up and check on the critical updates on the OS level and the endpoint security on all client machines. ### 11. CISCO ISE **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 18, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The security provided by CISCO ISE in our network accessing applications. It is also very flexible in integrations in different securities. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** A bit complicated in terms of implementation, however, support is always active to help in any issue at any time. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a security personnel, I recommend this solution to protect your network I am impress how this solution capabilities can. And it cause less hassle and harm in network. ### 12. "Comprehensive Review of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)" **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Prajwal Gowda H. | Automation Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The best things about Cisco ISE are: Centralized management of network access and security. Wide range of authentication options (e.g. AD, RADIUS, LDAP). Integration with Cisco devices and other network infrastructure. Advanced threat defense capabilities through integration with other security solutions. Scalability for enterprise-level deployment. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Some limitations of Cisco ISE include : Complex setup and configuration process. Higher cost compared to some other NAC solutions. Requires a dedicated appliance for deployment. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** 1. Network security: ISE provides granular control over network access and security policies, helping organizations secure their networks against unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, and other threats. 2. User authentication and authorization: ISE enables organizations to authenticate and authorize users based on various criteria, such as device type, location, and network access method, helping organizations enforce security policies and prevent unauthorized access. ### 13. Cisco ISE is one of the best NAC solutions in the market if configured right it will keep on running **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Abed Al-Mawla I. | Technical Team Leader, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Configuring the dot1x posturing and profiling is easily just match and set Changing someone's Vlan via policy And don't forget segmention And it's seamless integration with current cisco products makes it a great option **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Alarm management , acknowledging a bunch of alarms Live log is refreshed every x seconds to view data but it can be made live PxGrid integrations sometimes needs to be approved or accepted again in DNA center **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having to incorporate all the employees inside a company and assigning them the role they need without having complex SSIDs and contact IT just to change a vlan each and everyone an employee changes office ### 14. Cisco ISE: Incredible NAC solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 07, 2022 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE is an excellent NAC solution that gives complete visibility about our network. It tells details about endpoints running in our environment and what operating system they contain, which is very useful for auditing purposes. Features like pre-auth, and 802.1x make it the best solution for banks and healthcare sector. The TAC team is very supportive, and they help us in deployment to make the process fat so we can have maximum ROI. It gives complete details about window-based devices. If anyone uses cisco network devices in their environment, then cisco ISE is a perfect choice. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE is a completely Agent Based solution. Hence, this is an area of improvement because agents can not be deployed on every IT asset. Moreover, deploying agent on every endpoint is a challenging task that takes a lot of time and causes delays in production and implementation. IoT, Biometric devices, and digital clocks can not work with the agent-based solution. So, security gaps always remain because a malicious user can enter the network through IoT devices. Apart from this, the user interface is not at all good. We do not have the option of posture checking. We can not scan for open ports in our environment. These features are primarily present in other NAC solutions. The implementation takes a lot of time because we need to change our entire network to Cisco. After all, it does not support other network devices. This makes the cost very high. It does not help a heterogeneous network. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use Cisco ISE for pre-authentication and radius purposes, which helps make our network environment safe. Without authentication, no endpoint can enter our environment. Moreover, it works fantastically for both wired and wireless mediums. We have integrated CISCO ISE with our active directory server. We are using it as a radius server that helps authenticate the guest user and give them access to the network. We can also see how many windows devices are running in our environment and their details. We can keep the accounting of authenticated as well as non-authenticated user hence we have complete visibility. The product is embedded with fantastic functions and features. ### 15. Cisco ISE **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hasnain A. | Network Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The centralised management, easy to configure and simple deployment functiontionalities of Cisco ISE are exceptional **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Powering up Cisco ISE and accessing GUI takes too much time. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cisco ISE provides centralised management of all network nodes regardless of location dynamic vlan allocation to users and guests ### 16. Implemented ISE across NBK Network. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hussain N. | System Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 26, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** We can remove Port Security on Switches, No more voilations on switch **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Switch configurations are complicated and unstable **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its more secure for a large network, no intrusions and its centralized network access can be controlled. ### 17. CISCO ISE help a lot for enterprises **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fatih Naufal A. | Founder & CEO, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 25, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Easy to manage network device and end point devices, all of it in just one dashboard to see those all. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I think the dashboard and UI can be more simplified so it is easier to navigate and see the important things **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Manage network devices and end point settinng in one platform ### 18. Incredible access control security product. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Umar G. | Solutions Integration Architect , Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** 1- Integratiom with AD users 2- guest clients handeling 3- client's health check strong features 4- byod **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** 1- Pricing (having comparison in mind with other vendors who provide more multiple features in one device like Sangfor et). **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is helping enterprises to identify legitimate users & devices correctly and providing fantastically secure and robust access control services including guest users/machines. ### 19. Amazing ISE **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kapil K. | Consultant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 17, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Unlike other AAA solution, ISE produses high range of integrated tool for managing the users wired or wireless **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Sometimes, too many options within the config setting confused. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing the user database on over 1000s of employees is challenging task... ISE is so well drafted tool to control authentication authorisations & accounting with ease. ### 20. Identity service engine **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** joni s. | Associate System Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** To identity device is legitimate to connecting to network and can use many policy to enchanted security **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Sometimes slow loading page and request all node restart if need to promoted secondary node **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Prevent device to connect network if they don't have valid identity ### 21. Cisco ISE is user friendly and easy to deploy the solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Muhammad Sajjad N. | Manager Security Architecture, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Features that are offered by cisco ISE are so good compare to traditional NAC solution **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE is costly and there is some compatibility issues **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides end to end solution to cover NAC and Posture Assessment requirements ### 22. Insightful **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ahmad . | Senior Network Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 17, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The UI and the Objectives were extraordinary. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The prolonged tasks whom one can fetch nothing but disappointment **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Providing the best Network Automation Solutions as far as flexibility is concerned ### 23. Average **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Interface with elaborated mathods that help **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Operation of each logical components options **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Reduce complex error ### 24. Good NAC solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mahesh T. | Senior Associate - project, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 22, 2022 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Radius and posturing module and profiling. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** GUI administrator issue after upgrade from 2.2 to 2.7 **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cisco ISE solving the profile and posturing for all endpoints and provide a good security. ### 25. Very good and useful software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Razvan P. | Customer Support Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 28, 2022 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I like that it makes you feel secure browsing through internet **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** There is nothing I don't dislike I enjoy using this software. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Is keeping my network and servers safe ### 26. Great for access management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Industrial Automation | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2022 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** It helps manage user access and create specific profiles. You can see when a user tries to access a profiles in real-time. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The UI can get a bit confusing to navigate at the start. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have cornered and blocked access to our most vulnerable assets. We have used ISE as a security feature to our network as well. ### 27. easier to setup that originally thought **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Airlines/Aviation | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 11, 2021 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** good documentation, fast deployment, was better that fortinac. I think that once you get comfortable with the interface it becomes quite an asset to a network infrastructure. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** interface is hard to understand right away, but that goes for all NAC products. I didnt like the new licensing style either. Also **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** problem - 3rd party vendors deploying new hardware securely. benefits ultimately is more automated deployments say a vendor wants to deploy phones or ip cameras the deployment or sw port config is automated. ### 28. Best Security Policy Server in 2020 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pankaj P. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 24, 2020 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I have been using Cisco ISE for more than 8 years now. Its the best easy to manage and most robust security policy server. The best thing I like about ISE is its ease of use in intuitiveness. Its easy to deploy and very flexible with your security policies. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** There is nothing to dislike about ISE, its absolutely out of the world.There is no recommendation as the product is absolutely brilliant. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use ISE as our TACAS+ server for admin access on network devices. We use it for endpoint protection. ### 29. A must for Cisco users who want identity services **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospitality | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2020 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** ISE is the de facto standard for identity services and network security. If you are a Cisco hardware user then there’s no better solution. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** ISE has a lot of complexity due to the inherent way 802.1x works. Different clients with authenticate in different ways and the user experience will not be equal across the board. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network security used to not exist at our site and with ISE we are able to verify every switch port is secure. ### 30. Identify and Secure **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pierce V. | Network Engineer Specialist, Computer Networking, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** ISE is the glue for everything else. It works easily with all of the various network hardware - where users would be connecting (wired or wireless), as well as Active Directory (or any other external authentication system). It works on its own to create a BYoD wireless network, with the switches to provide more isolation, or even with DNA, ACI, AnyConnect, and other Cisco solutions to gain even more insight into devices and allowing micro-segmentation. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** It is VERY complicated to initially setup. Get some training and you STILL want to hire someone to assist. But its complications are largely because of all the granularity and options that you have. Once it is setup, it is fairly easy to navigate around and find the answers you may be looking for. But any new features you may want to enable go back to the initial "complicated" process. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Trial it. POC. Whatever. Get help in implementing and designing from the beginning. Factor it into the cost. In addition, be aware that there are open APIs and databases of devices (like medical devices) ALREADY OUT THERE that Cisco can provide (for free) to speed along much of what you may attempt to do. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We've been using it for our BYoD Wireless network for years, as well as the Radius authentication for Production 802.1x WiFi users. This allowed us to migrate from ACS for the latter. For the BYoD, it permits us to have a single SSID for users to connect to -- with a corporate device there is a certificate along with the users' AD login that permits full access, personal devices lack the certificate but with AD credentials gain limited access to the network. We are also working on enlarging the scope to include Wired NAC/segmentation. And future integration with Cisco DNA and ACI. ### 31. Cisco ISE stays at the forefront of the market with its new proposals **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alejandro A. | Especialista en comunicaciones, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 23, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The product worked as expected when we implemented it. Our existing Cisco devices integrated with minimal configuration and impact. Cisco Support was willing to help with any issues we encountered. Cisco ISE offers a very good logging engine that makes troubleshooting easier. Policy configuration can also be easily done in the user interface. When users have trouble connecting, it provides clear steps for resolution. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The product updates have led us to find errors with limited gains from new features. The tool's automatic profiling feature could be further improved for more accurate discovery. The licensing model can be costly if implemented on a large scale. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** This solution is generally easy to use and implement. When considering the product, make sure to have an accurate count of the number of users. I would consider the expense of this product against competitors for your user level when making the product selection. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cisco ISE provides us with network access control on our wireless and wired networks. It is based on policies that allow us to customize how devices are collected when we try to connect to our network. The product offers multiple ways to authenticate users, whether you only want MAB authentication, username-based authentication, or the use of certificates. Our implementation has been very easy and we can take advantage of several predefined templates provided by Cisco. ### 32. Secure solution Identified **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlos B. | Technical Operations Engineer I, Computer Networking, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I like the ability to tailor rules of what connects to our networks. We can define state of the machine policy meets exact requirements to identify who or what is connecting to our network via Network Access Control policies. We can adapt different policies for different networks and where able to migrate from ACS. ISE Api allows developers to create self service portal for other engineers with little overhead learning another system to keep new device secure. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Currently our implementation has a few issues with High availability so we have a staged solution that causes some delays in onboarding new devices. This is possibly just our design implementation can be improved but having not designed it I do not have specific details and may not be an issue with the product. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Try it out in a POC or demo. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are identifying who is accessing systems and the network. We are able to control the level of access and how long access can be used. ### 33. Control is everyting for us **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Murat H. | STB Operations and Project Development Supervisor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 09, 2020 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE is scalable so that provides easy to use and nice customer support. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** We encountered some issues while setup process. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** My company selected this solution for network accession controlling. Before this solution any user in company were able to connect to our line without any authantication. after have this solution we could manage different profiles for each groups ### 34. Cisco ISE for 802.1x Authentication **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 08, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Its a quite a powerful tool .. You can do everything from Guest Portal to 802.1x Auth , MAB etc **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Initially its very tough to find out where is the right option located. The GUI is somewhat complicated **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** The product with proper hands on is exceptionally good **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** 802.1x Auth for WLAN Users ### 35. Unified Identity Service. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Edwin T. | Senior Consultant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE devices allow identity managers many facilities when making several authentication mechanisms interoperable, such as AAA + (Radius and Tacacs), Directory Services (Active Directory and LDAP). This interoperability allows a fast, centralized and easy deployment of an identity management for acces to a large number of devices and network services. It is easy to use and fully scalable **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The recommended use of an ISE device must be in an enterprise environment beacuse the license are expensive. For small companies in a high investment. And it is unlikely that they will take advantage of all their functionalities. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** For perimeter security that is highly scalable, I recommend using the benefits of this device in high availability. The administration tool is quite robust and intuitive, it allows you to perform updates and configurations deployments quickly and in a reliable way. The implementation of NAD profiles allows for them to be imported and exported so they can be shared. ISE 2.0 ships with a slew of pre-built profiles for many network devices, including Aruba, Alcatel, Brocade, and more. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** In several costumer, this The great customization possibilities makes the solution give us features like: - Customize the Guests Profiles, this include locations with SSID association. The reporting of this type of access in the network for any connection type (Wireless, wired or vpn). - For final users (endpoints) It grants the facility to take immediate actions in a simple way to apply corrections in them. They can be redirects from Url. Put and remove in quarantine, until turn off endpoints that are compromised.. ### 36. Cisco ISE is built to solve business problems **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 08, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I like the flexibility within the system for meeting/solving complex business access challenges. On top of that the logging is excellent **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I preferred the old policy sets in ISE 2.2 and below compared to the new look/feel in 2.3 and above. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Plan what you would like to accomplish with the product first then begin configuration. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We can solve complex access scenarios and micro segmentation on the LAN ### 37. Cisco ISE **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Utilities | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 12, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** It’s ability to handle AAA and radius configurations for remote devices. Also it’s feature set when coming to dot1x and and policy creation allows for a lot of different customization for allow, blocking, or restricting access to your network with either BYOD or enterprise machines. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The user interactive is almost overwhelming when you first look at it. There’s a lot of different menus and a lot of hidden/unintuitive menus and settings. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** ISE is handling our TACACS and radius requests. It’s also handing our wired access control policies. ### 38. Great Out Of The Box **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jash D. | Research Assistant, Computer Networking, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The product worked as expected without any issues. The systems integrated with minimal impact to our users. Cisco Support was superb and always willing to help with any roadblocks that were found with the product itself. The logging is very clear. Whenever users say they can't authenticate, the reason is immediatly listed in the logging dashboard. The policy configuration can also be done in any way you like. It's easy to structure and has quite a lot of predefined objects/actions. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Requires 3rd party implementation initially and also updates tend to introduce other bugs and aren't always as useful as they would seem. Automatic profiling could be improved more. Licensing model--too granular and greedy. MDM integration is a separate cost per user, etc., and is unreasonably expensive. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Make sure you have a good understanding of the amount of users you're willing to authenticate. Perhaps look into cheaper solutions, but it may be hard to find an out of the box experience similar to Cisco ISE. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Create and manage policies in order to provide network access control on both your wireless and wired network. There are multiple ways to authenticate users, whether you just want MAB-authentication, authentication by username or authentication by certificate. It's very flexible, has predefined elements and there are also valuable guides to be found. ### 39. Does the job you need **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Sports | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I love the endpoints identity page in the software - it's one of the most used features for me. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I'm not a huge fan about the new way to navigate the software and general set-up they use for getting around the program. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Give it a shot! It'll seriously handle all the things you could ever want an ISE to do, especially the ability to customize profiles - it's a game changer. Even though I am not the biggest fan about the new navigation framework they have for this, it's just a learning curve. I'm not against it, I just need a little more time to get used to it and figure it all out. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Network device profiles are something that really makes a difference because it gives you the option to customize the settings for network devices and the way it does change of authorizations, and some other cool features. ### 40. Leader in Authentication Authorization,Compliance and Posturing. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 03, 2019 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I like Authentication and Posturing features of the Cisco ISE. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Bit complex implementation. NAM file etc has to be created and pushed in each managed endpoint. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Leader in Authentication Authorization,Compliance and Posturing. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Profiling and remediation. ### 41. Find all the hosts in your network that you never knew were there **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I am finding MANY devices, in both variety and host count, that I never realized were there before. I can view policies without that policy getting corrupted, which is a very real danger with ACS. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** There is a learning curve and the current official training material is not up to date. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Plan, plan, plan. Have use cases well defined, be ready to upgrade all switch firmware, have a lab environment. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Identification of endpoints. Still in deployment, so still working on realizing further benefits. It isn't ACS. ### 42. Cisco ISE **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cisco ISE now competes with any other product in the space because of its centralized and unified highly secure access control with ISE. Cisco's support was also top notch. When we have questions they are always available and willing to help us! **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The learning curve is steep and the initial setup is complex and requires a 3rd party company. **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Fully vet the solution before you jump in. The implementation process can be overwhelming if you do not take that step first. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are still working on deploying this tool. ### 43. My experience with ISE **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 16, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** This product is excellent for TACACS and RADIUS authentication as well as profiling various devices on our network. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** At times the interface can be a bit clunky and resource intensive. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** We currently use ISE for TACACS and RADIUS authentication and authorization. We also use dACL's to enhance our network security. ### 44. Feature Rich Product **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Gambling & Casinos | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 29, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Easy to implement if you have already used Cisco ACS before. Works very well with Cisco products and has great support from the Cisco TAC and user community. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Works well mainly in a Cisco environment or with very specific nonCisco vendors **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Ensure that the environment fully supports Cisco ISE e.g. IOS versions and hardware versions. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Security compliance ### 45. Cisco Review. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The ease of the product. Our company uses these throughout every server and we have very minimum problems. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** There’s nothing I can think of right off hand. This product has not given us problems. It is a little bulky though. I would like the product to be slimmer. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our business is able to connect better with each other and our clients. ### 46. With proper training it’s a good tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The easy volume controls! When answering on a wired phone you never know if the person on the other end will be loud or quiet. So, the easy access volume is nice **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** The complexity of forwarding calls... it took me a few times to read through the instructions to figure out how to forward calld **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy and clear communication ### 47. Cisco **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Furniture | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** I like that you can set up multiple different queues and assign what agents to the queues that you would like. **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** That the system reboots every day at 630 and it kicks you out of the call you are on. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Not resolving any business problems. Just love the software and that you have control over call volumes. ### 48. Best it security **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Security features ease of proogramming and setting up competent security among smaller or very large metworks **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Cost of integration into network but infrastructure is solid **Recommendations to others considering Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE):** Costly **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** Security of semsitive material info ### 49. Cisco review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** It's good to connect securely to the intranet **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** User interface not very friendly. Vpn service lags sometimes. **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps maintain confidentiality and connect to my work vpn. ### 50. Perfect software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Networking | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 17, 2018 **What do you like best about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** Perfect program,it has allowed me to manage all my devices and saves me lots of time **What do you dislike about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)?** TBH,nothing This product is simply perfect **What problems is Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows me to control connections to all devices in my company ## Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Discussions - [What is Cisco ISE used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-cisco-ise-used-for) - [View Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-identity-services-engine-ise/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-21+10%3A32%3A14+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=d5deb02b-d3a9-4f17-b917-65478e862330&secure%5Btoken%5D=9fad4ea6c3b11c89dd07f10cfa496b9ce10d38dd93819b956bdc11b8edb57b9d&format=llm_user) ## Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Integrations - [Cisco Duo](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-duo/reviews) - [Cisco Secure Client](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-secure-client/reviews) - [Cisco Umbrella](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-umbrella/reviews) - [OpenText ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM)](https://www.g2.com/products/opentext-arcsight-enterprise-security-manager-esm/reviews) ## Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Features **Data** - Data Protection - Remote Access - Network Access **Network** - Security - Scaling - Audit **Logistics** - Processes - Blockage - IoT ## Top Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Alternatives - [Ivanti Policy Secure](https://www.g2.com/products/ivanti-policy-secure/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (24 reviews) - [FortiNAC](https://www.g2.com/products/fortinac/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (20 reviews) - [Forescout Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/forescout-platform/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (15 reviews)