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Cisco Catalyst Center vs. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Center

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ACisco Catalyst Center provides an intent-based platform for managing enterprise networks across campus, branch, and edge environments. It combines automation, analytics, and assurance to streamline IT operations, improve security posture, and reduce manual tasks. With integratedAI/ML-driven insights, policy-based controls, and end-to-end visibility across wired and wireless infrastructures, Catalyst Center empowers IT teams toproactively detect issues, enforce compliance, and accelerate…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 Catalyst CenterCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco 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 Catalyst CenterCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    Cisco Catalyst Center stands out compared to other network management platforms thanks to its strong automation capabilities, Assurance, and deep integration with Cisco’s switching, wireless, and security portfolio. Competing tools often lack the same end‑to‑end visibility and …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    It provide a consistency on the configuration. and you can push configure to all switches. before we managed the switch independently and use prime to push config and we always miss the devices and end up the switch is not have the standard configuration. and Cat Center can …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    I think in many ways they are very similar. Cisco Catalyst Center seems more like an evolution of Prime which was already a great solution. Main difference being that Catalyst center is significantly more powerful, with that power though comes complexity and so by extension …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    We love Cisco ISE. Cisco's new controllers, 9800 controllers. They are awesome. Completely different than the old 5520 and 5508. So new product with Cisco is bringing like 9, 9 93, 3, 600 gig port switches. They're awesome.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    We went with Cisco Catalyst Center, we evaluated, I think it was called Rainbow from Altel, Lucent Enterprise because we were an Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise customer. But since we seeded with Cisco DNA Center and SD Access back in 2019, we haven't been out to evaluate anything …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    The ease of having one management to do provisioning and maintenance.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    I selected Cisco Catalyst Center because it was first on the list.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    It integrates well with SD-WAN and ISE. So since we had those already, it was an easy choice. However, we have faced challenges with supporting multi-tenancy as I have told earlier. But, we can see our endpoints and get more information from ISE such as what kind of device it …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    With Cisco Catalyst Center, I receive notification of error messages.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    It's a good evolution.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
    We haven't used anything like this. We looked at the competitors. I think we are quite early in their products, so I think now Cisco DNA center is quite mature, still in heavy development, but compared to the competitors, we think that there is nothing like it out there.
    Incentivized
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) stands out due to its comprehensive network access control and security features. Unlike Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services, which focuses on firewall and intrusion prevention, ISE provides detailed endpoint profiling, posture …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    It works, it's less expensive (incredible!), lower TCO.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    The Policies for authentication and authorization are easier to define in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) than in Windows NPS.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Cisco ISE Leads in Certain Areas of integration with Cisco infrastructure (switches, firewalls, routers).Strong support for Zero Trust and regulatory compliance segmentation & dynamic access
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is great for integrating well with other Cisco products but Infoblox is more vendor agnostic and can provide ways to manage a variety of systems. However since Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) uses TACAS for cisco switches it is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    ISE has multiple cisco servers to provide redundancies to manage whenever a user logs into a cisco system. System administrators can conduct audits in the network to see who logged in and made what changes to the network. Users are granted different network privileges. which …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    we selected ISE to deploy with SGTs and manage network devices
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Pretty similar under-the-hood, but way different GUI/UX.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    When comparing Cisco Identity Services Engine and Aurba ClearPass, Cisco Identity Services Engine provides more complex graphic user interface - it is easy to get lost within it, but on the other hand you can find everything you need. Cisco Identity Services Engine is very …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    We only use Cisco ISE, no other similar product.
    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)
    We are using a lot of other Cisco solutions, so the integration between them became much better and easier and also gave us a relatively easy way of implementing network automation. We have planned to implement Software define network with the Cisco DNA Center, so Cisco …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Aruba ClearPass and Cisco ISE are very similar in nature. The biggest differentiator that I have seen is the Cisco ISE ecosystem around native Adaptive Network Controls, programmable interfaces, pxGrid, and Cisco TrustSec environment. Due to the span of products Cisco has in …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    306 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    245 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    128 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    319 Answers
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    142 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    195 Answers
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    99 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    229 Answers
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    115 Answers
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    Enterprises
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
    Score7.7 out of 10
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    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (343 ratings)
    9.0
    (146 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (19 ratings)
    7.9
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (33 ratings)
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.2
    (4 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst CenterCisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Would recommend Cisco Catalyst Center to medium to large scale organizations that have many cookie-cutter sites and the resources to properly provision all their devices. I would not recommend to teams that do not have a strong network engineering team that can navigate the various intricacies of the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Again, the ease of use of the APIs and the API Explorer provides the tools needed to write these custom workflows that allow us to do a lot of the automation we’re doing now, saving hundreds of hours by using those tools.
    • The product is very intuitive, and there is a lot of support out there in the DevNet community to help with that.
    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
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Within its Tasks - Audit, it can sometimes allow plaintext data, including passwords, to be seen. There should be functionality to detect password usage and appropriately obfuscate the data.
    • Occasionally, Catalyst Center does not sync changes properly within templates, which requires deleting and reconfiguring the template version. Better processes here would be beneficial.
    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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    I think new products are often "half-baked" or over hyped when they release, as was the case with DNAC. We were well ahead of the curve in acquiring it. But as it has matured it is now a fantastic addition to our infrastructure. I think we are easing into a stage where it is hard to envision a large organization NOT having Catalyst Center in place. If for nothing outside of the mapping and troubleshooting aspects; using it as a "source of truth".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco DNA Center is going to help us in security, simplicity and ease of administration. Cisco DNA Center is complete management and control platform that simplifies and streamlines network operations. Cisco DNA Center offers a single dashboard for every core function in your network. With this platform, IT can become more nimble and respond to changes and challenges faster and more intelligently.
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    El soporte de CISCO DNA Center es muy bueno, responden a mis dudas pero no he tenido oportunidad de reportar un incidente o determinar un tiempo de respuesta critico. The support of CISCO DNA Center is very good, they answer my questions, but I have not had the opportunity to report an incident or determine a critical response time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cisco
    It was informative, but the labs were not available long enough for us to get intimately familiar with CCNA before it was closed. The course instructor was well informed and got us as close to ready as she could.
    Incentivized
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    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
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Catalyst Centeris basic zero-touch provisioning out of the box. You just rack and stack the switches, patch 'em in, and the controller pushes the config automatically. No need to console into every single box or spend hours script-running over CLI.The AI-driven assurance and telemetry are top-tier. Instead of getting flooded with useless syslog alerts when a link drops, it correlates the telemetry data to give you proactive health checks. It literally pinpoints wireless anomalies and bandwidth chokepoints before the users even start opening tickets.It handles fabric microsegmentation like a boss through SD-Access and TrustSec. You can easily enforce group-based policies right at the hardware level. It drops IoT gear, guests, and corporate traffic into their own secure buckets dynamically, without you having to manage a trillion messy VLANs and ACLs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
    • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

    Screenshot of AIOpsScreenshot of BaselinesScreenshot of PoliciesScreenshot of HealthScreenshot of Network HierarchyScreenshot of PoE

    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)