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Cisco AnyConnect vs. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco AnyConnect

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco offers an SSL VPN solution via AnyConnect.N/A

    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers a network-based approach for adaptable, trusted access everywhere, based on context. It gives the user intelligent, integrated protection through intent-based policy and compliance solutions.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    We use Cisco Identity Services Engine to complement the products in our security architecture.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    ISE integrates well with DNA Center but it is in no way a replacement.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    ISE stacks well up against other products in our portfolio with protocols like RADIUS, TACACS and REST APIs.
    ISE is in many ways good for integration with both other Cisco products (switches, firewalls, WLAN controllers) and products from other vendors. Even with cloud services …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Stacks up nicely alongside them and we chose Cisco because our business is a Cisco shop and keeping our number of support vendors low is a big way that we keep things simple resulting in a low headcount in the IT Dept. We use it in …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is definitely better, PxGrid alone wins the race. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is more dynamic and vibrant, with a myriad of features.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    92 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    80 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    128 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    92 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    142 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    61 Answers
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    99 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    66 Answers
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    115 Answers
    Features
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Virtual Private Network
    Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Cisco AnyConnect and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Feature
    Cisco AnyConnect
    9.2
    29 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    -
    Ratings
    AES 256-bit Encryption9.429 Ratings00 Ratings
    Kill Switch9.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Platform Support8.828 Ratings00 Ratings
    Split Tunneling9.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    IP Address Masking9.426 Ratings00 Ratings
    No-Logs Policy9.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Server Locations9.123 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automatic Wi-Fi Protection9.524 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simultaneous Connections9.424 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customer Support Services9.025 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    FireMon
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco IOS Security
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.3
    (118 ratings)
    9.0
    (146 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.8
    (12 ratings)
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    9.2
    (97 ratings)
    7.9
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    9.9
    (9 ratings)
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.9
    (95 ratings)
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    7.2
    (4 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco AnyConnectCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Providing secure remote access with a robust VPN, creating an encrypted tunnel so employees can safely access internal company resources like file servers and private apps from anywhere. It also allows enforcing device compliance: depending on policies, checks whether a device has an active antivirus and the latest OS updates before allowing it to connect. When there is not much need for remote access, the cost is too high.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Well suited... I've used it for both wired and wireless access, and it's perfect for that. In addition to enforcing security on the port, you can also lock down east-west traffic. When you get to the point where you're configuring secure group tags and things like that, you can keep people from getting to places they shouldn't. Basically, you could turn your entire network into a firewall if you wanted to. You can secure access based on the identity of any given user through role-based authentication. For example, if you have salespeople and you don't want them accessing your financial or PCI environment, they authenticate as a salesperson and you can completely stop them from getting to any of that. That's really important, especially for us. Our payment card infrastructure servers are heavily locked down. Granted, in our situation, we firewall all that off anyway, but you still don't want some random individual to be able to even attempt that sort of thing. That's what it's really good for. I'm trying to think of a weakness. I don't know. We don't really struggle with it. There's nothing that I use it for where I wish it were better, at least not that I can think of offhand. I'm sure there are things, I just can't think of anything off the top of my head.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Cisco
    • All Cisco AnyConnect data transfer processes are secure to enhance security.
    • It can connect multiple terminals across various sites directly.
    • Centralized management of the workstations connected to the network became easier than ever for managers with multiple locations in the organization's workforce.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • manageable scaled administrative access to network devices as needed
    • Great use as a radius server which allows proper authentication and authorization into the network
    • Multiple conditions that can be utilized to grant users access based on their role in the organization
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cisco
    • Cisco AnyConnect can use the system resources as long as the program is being run.
    • Account activation may be very difficult when connecting from areas requiring captive portal login, if certain settings are not allowed.
    • By default, it is possible to request the user to authenticate again at specific intervals.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • Trustsec needs more documentation and configuration best practice examples
    • The licensing model can be difficult to explain and understand for customers
    • Difficult to get an accurate benchmark to know exactly how many Cisco Identity Services Engine nodes and the size of the deployment should be
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    It is perhaps the second most functional tool we have, it will definitely be renewed every year. Our network is stable, which ensures that there is less for our technicians to troubleshoot, which frees them up to ensure other parts of the company are maintained. This keeps our costs low and our downtime at a minimum.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    We are so very reliant on Cisco Identity Services Engine at this point that finding another solution would be a big hassle for us.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Cisco
    It is very useful tool for companies having hybrid work culture. It will allow their employees to work seamlessly from home, office, other branches. This tool will increase your productivity as it will facilitates your employees to access corporate applications 24x7. Overall it is easy to use, deploy and integrate.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    For us the solution is very easily useable on its own. Perhaps that has to do because we started using ISE in the 1.2 days and have seen it grow during the years. Policy creation, etc. is all very visible and thus easy to use. Deployment of multiple nodes is also incredibly easy and flexible. You can easily add or remove nodes as you wish.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    I have been using Cisco AnyConnect for past two years and thus I can say very firmly that I have never seen the outage from the Cisco AnyConnect services either It is VPN, System Scans or the Network Connectivity. Talking about the errors likewise major errors I have faced throughout my period of use.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    We do have to occasionally reboot the servers when they get low on memory, but we're also a few versions behind. Availability has generally been pretty good though with no major outages in the time that we've had it implemented.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Cisco
    Absolutely no speed issues, and I see no evidence of slowdowns across any of the multiple platforms I use daily. It's operation is completely invisible most of the time, except where there is a loss of connection due to server issues or a loss of power. Everything loads quickly and accurately.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    yes it does. depending on where you coming from. Logs are pretty busy same as report. it also depending on devices count and design.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Cisco
    I don't know but nobody provides proper support for us as end user. They should have people to check whether end user is facing issues or not. Cisco AnyConnect having very high charges and still there is no proper support! Many requests and many tickets have opened, but the working speed is very low for the support team! They should have it to optimize.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Cisco support is second to none, both in terms of how you access support but also the knowledge of the individual support teams. If you focus on one technology and provide "manufacturer support" then you can rest assured that you are accessing Cisco's top individuals. I feel like this is a USP for Cisco support.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Training can only cover certain areas, there are a lot of areas training just can't cover. You have to learn by doing it.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    Our Managed Services vendor helped us with the implementation. When we initially setup our AnyConnect using MFA for remote connectivity, the setup was easy and straight forward and worked just fine. After a year, we decided to change to an "always on" feature and use machine and user based security certificates instead of MFA. We had to open a ticket with Cisco support and have their assistance getting this feature to work. Turned out they had a small bug in the code for that version of AnyConnect and it has since been corrected. We have had no issues with the upgrades since that time. The deployment of the software to the user machines was done with SCCM and was straight forward. The user machine upgrades are easy - when the user machine connects and sees a new version available, it upgrades itself! What could be easier?
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    I think our system integrators lacks some competencies and this has led to an implementation that is still perfectible. (i.e. dedicating an interface for intra-cluster communication)
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco is one of our core partners besides Microsoft and SAP. And so yes, we are utilizing very many projects from Cisco. I would mention the whole networking equipment, the routing equipment, the wireless LAN, and also when it comes to infrastructure to compute infrastructure, we are utilizing Cisco servers within our converged infrastructure Flex spot. So we have been running a flex bot from Cisco, NetApp, and VMware for 12 years, and we are still very satisfied with the product. We are looking forward to upgrading to the newest blades and fabric interconnect to continue this journey.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    I think all give some visibility of device monitoring and management, but Cisco Identity Services Engine gives a good way to manage more details about the device in a centralized way that gives a wider range of monitoring and control than the other softwares individually. I don't think Cisco Identity Services Engine eliminates the need for these other software as of now, but there is potential for Cisco Identity Services Engine to be able to take over more of these roles.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Cisco ISE was competitively priced and Cisco was able to leverage some of our existing contracts to help ease the purchase.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Cisco
    Cisco AnyConnect has been a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. Customer support is consistently top-notch, coming up with quick fixes to whatever difficulties are thrown your way. I would not hesitate to reccommend Cisco AnyConnect to any business that needs connected employees throught the world.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    It's fully customised and comprehensive. only thing is you need to know what you want. Proper research and planning would save lots of time and effort .
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • We are able to seamlessly work on multiple clients daily, and it allows us to quickly handle more projects at the same time.
    • Cisco AnyConnect has allowed our own company's coworkers to remotely connect back to the corporate network, easily assisting work schedules and processes, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to work remotely, meant our processes still happened quickly and efficiently, by being able to leverage and use Cisco AnyConnect VPN.
    • Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked 100% remotely for a few years now. This was always due to the reliable connectivity and ease of use with Cisco AnyConnect VPN. I live 2+ hours from our nearest corporate office, and even further from some of my client locations, and I have always been able to connect to any of my multiple Cisco AnyConnect VPN connections, within seconds.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • I don't know about negatives because we haven't seen it right now, but positive impact is one is the roadmap we have. And now since we are going ahead with doing the deployment of Cisco ISE, we see that we are getting closure to, so at the end of the day, we have to make sure that operationally we stay excellent. So that's where operational excellence comes in. Cisco ISE is basically addressing that for us. Right now we are in a situation if there is a WIFI issue or if there is an authentication issue, it gets really difficult to isolate the problem. But with Cisco ISE , this functionality is going to come in. So we believe that it would be a good ROI.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)