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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    Tenable Nessus

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/ATenable headquartered in Columbia offers Nessus, a vulnerability scanning and security assessment solution used to analyze an entity's security posture, vulnerability testing, and provide configuration assessments.

    $2,790

    Pricing
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    1 Year
    $2,790.00
    1 Year + Advanced Support
    $3,190.00
    2 Years
    $5,440.00
    2 Years + Advanced Support
    $6,240.00
    3 Years
    $7,951.00
    3 Years + Advanced Support
    $9,151.00
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    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 Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Tenable
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    144 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    128 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    142 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    99 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    115 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Threat Intelligence
    Comparison of Threat Intelligence features of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Tenable Nessus
    Feature
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    -
    Ratings
    Tenable Nessus
    6.3
    4 Ratings
    25% below category average
    Network Analytics00 Ratings1.02 Ratings
    Threat Recognition00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
    Vulnerability Classification00 Ratings9.53 Ratings
    Automated Alerts and Reporting00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
    Threat Analysis00 Ratings5.63 Ratings
    Threat Intelligence Reporting00 Ratings5.13 Ratings
    Automated Threat Identification00 Ratings5.63 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management Tools
    Comparison of Vulnerability Management Tools features of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Tenable Nessus
    Feature
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
    -
    Ratings
    Tenable Nessus
    7.5
    4 Ratings
    10% below category average
    IT Asset Realization00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
    Authentication00 Ratings7.63 Ratings
    Configuration Monitoring00 Ratings8.14 Ratings
    Web Scanning00 Ratings5.63 Ratings
    Vulnerability Intelligence00 Ratings9.34 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    FireMon
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Qualys TruRisk Platform
    Score6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco IOS Security
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Tenable Vulnerability Management
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (146 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (6 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    9.4
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    7.1
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.2
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Tenable Nessus
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Tenable
    It is an excellent tool for scanning servers, workstations, and network devices to identify missing patches and misconfiguration; we regularly use it to confirm patch effectiveness after the update; it also helps us for preparing audits such as iso 27001, and regulatory requirements, it also helps us to identify open ports and services that violate security.
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Tenable
    • Nessus is best at performing vulnerability scans, in fact, it gives findings and moreover accurate findings of the assessments. It does not do penetration testing or exploit the vulnerabilities because it is concerned about scanning the systems/applications.
    • In fact, Nessus has multiple profiles/policies to perform different types of scans such as, scans oriented for PCI-DSS, malware scans, web application scans, bad shell shock detection scan to name a few.
    • Nessus has the ability to classify the vulnerabilities into risk-based categories from critical to even informational which I think is one of the things that separates Nessus from other vulnerability scanners.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Tenable
    • The tool has lots of options for setting up before scanning any device, this methodology could be simplified further with default configuration for various devices predefined, anyhow we can use this technique by making use of policies.
    • For advanced users we cannot disable the plugins inside the plugin groups, we can enable the whole set of plugins at a time, for few hundreds its ok, but thousands of plugins are of waste of resource and time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Tenable
    Nessus is best and easy to use application for Vulnerabilities finding and reporting, it has multiple platforms and wide scope covering almost all devices for security improvement so far, thus we are very likely to continue its services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    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
    Tenable
    Tenable Nessus is a great product and provides a lot of value, but it is difficult to set up and use and the amount of data it generates can be overwhelming. It does help us prioritize based on the severity of the detection, however there are sometimes mitigating factors that we have implemented that Nessus does not account for, which causes lots of noise in the reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    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
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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
    Tenable
    I haven't needed to contact support yet. But issues are easily solved with a quick internet search which means support and by extension, the larger community are involved and knowledgeable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    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
    Read full review
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    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
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Tenable
    Sometimes when we identify a vulnerability with Nessus that has an exploit, we made a proof of concept with Metasploit in order to show to the IT managers the importance of the software/hardware hardening.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    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
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    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
    Tenable
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    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
    Tenable
    • Nessus certainly has a positive impact while me while performing my job, either as security research, or performing vulnerability assessments for clients. It gives a lot of information about the system/application after performing scans. The number of false positives is also less compared to other vulnerability scanners.
    • The professional edition is very useful as policy templates available in this edition are very handy and useful even to perform compliance scan like PCI DSS scan.
    • Also, the ability to export the scan results into reports in formats like HTML, PDF is very useful which could be for performing system/application reviews.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Screenshots

    Screenshot of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)