Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Nmap

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
The 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
Nmap
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Nmap is a free, open source network discovery, mapper, and security auditing software. Its core features include port scanning identifying unknown devices, testing for security vulnerabilities, and identifying network issues.
$7,980
Every Three Months per license
Pricing
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$7,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$11,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Enterprise Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$13,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - Annual Maintenance Fee
$14,980
per year per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - Annual Maintenance Fee
$19,980
per year per license
Nmap OEM Enterprise Redistribution License - Annual Maintenance Fee
$23,980
per year per license
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - Perpetual License
$49,980
one-time fee per license
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - 5 year prepay Maintenance Fee
$59,920
Every Five Years per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - 5 year prepay Maintenance Fee
$79,920
Every Five Years per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - Perpetual License
$79,980
one-time fee per license
Nmap OEM Enterprise Redistribution License - 5 year prepay Maintenance Fee
$95,920
Every Five Years per license
Nmap OEM Enterprise Redistribution License - Perpetual License
$98,980
one-time fee per license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll perpetual licenses include a six-month trial period during which you can cancel for any reason and receive a full refund of all money paid (including maintenance). The term license is only a 3-month commitment and cal also be terminated with full refund during the first 30 days of the initial quarter.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Features
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
-
Ratings
Nmap
5.3
Ratings
43% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings2.00 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings2.00 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings5.00 Ratings
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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
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User Ratings
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)Nmap
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco ISE integrates will with a Cisco solution such as firewalls, network switches and routers. It does an incredible job of granting access based on the role that an individual or groups have, and the ability to remove access to that individual or group is also east. In our environment ISE is used to authenticate external users that have access by vpn, and also to manage access to the large network infrastructure
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Nmap is the ideal solution if you are working alot in network environments. If you come to grips with the syntax and the most-used features (the online community helps alot), you will be able to much more quickly and thoroughly troubleshoot networks or check for security vulnerabilities, for instance. It is free to use and is available for Windows and Linux, so I would say it is very much warrented for any network administrator or sysadmin to take it out for a spin.
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Pros
  • The most beneficial thing that I love about it, there are tons of things that I love about ISE and that it does well, but the most fascinating that I feel about is its integration with DNA center or Catalyst Center using PX Grid as the protocol wherein ISE acts as a policy server for the entire campus hand in hand with Catalyst Center to make sure that the policy policy follows the user and also in the background hand in hand with DNA Center or Catalyst Center makes sure microsegmentation is implemented so that east west traffic is blocked and takes care of the campus.
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  • Nmap is very good at discovering systems on your network.
  • Nmap is very good at guessing a systems operating system with a high degree of accuracy.
  • Nmap is good at validating externally facing systems to make sure that unauthorized access is not allowed.
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Cons
  • I guess the user experience itself, it's sometimes a little bit slow, but this is also dependent on the platform and the scale of the deployment of course. But actually functionality-wise it's really, really good. But yeah, it could sometimes be a little quicker to react on the good front.
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  • exporting, There's a serious lack of ability to export the information in a readable format to present to VPs and such. I always find myself doing a lot of data massaging to get it in a pretty format
  • some scans can trigger sensitive IDS/IPS
  • SYN scans can be particularly aggressive and cause problems on remote systems.
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Likelihood to Renew
We are so very reliant on Cisco Identity Services Engine at this point that finding another solution would be a big hassle for us.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
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Nmap uses are very practical and I don't think there is a better tools for what Nmap does. It is open-sources that therefore there is no cost to use it. It offers a number of benefits, including but not limited to network mapping, port scanning and more. It is very reliable as a network scanning tool.
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
yes it does. depending on where you coming from. Logs are pretty busy same as report. it also depending on devices count and design.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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There is a very large support community and a robust selection of add-ons and scripts. Once you get the use down this is one of the most powerful tools and you can find anything you are looking for as far as examples on the web. While not having official support its not lacking by any means.
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Online Training
Training can only cover certain areas, there are a lot of areas training just can't cover. You have to learn by doing it.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
I did participate in the implementation of Cisco ISE and while there were times when it was confusing and we had a lot of trial and error, overall the experience was fine.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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A similar but more basic alternative is available on Android, called Fing. It's very useful for diagnosing issues on networks when you only have your mobile device to hand.
A graphical user interface alternative to Nmap, is Zenmap. It's the official GUI for Nmap and does use Nmap under the hood. It makes things a bit more 'point and click'.
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Scalability
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 .
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • 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.
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  • NMap being free of charge has a positive impact on our budget. It is an enterprise-class tool that anyone can download and use.
  • NMap, both command line and GUI, is a very advanced tool that is easy to use, so there's very little learning curve involved, which has a positive impact on productivity and security.
  • A valuable feature that is a huge time saver is that you can compare scans. This saves hours of searching manually for differences in scan results. Faster results means faster mitigation of problems, which can be a real money saver.
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ScreenShots

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Screenshots

Screenshot of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)