Portnox Cloud vs Cisco ISE
Six of fourteen models named Portnox Cloud first on the direct prompt; zero named Cisco ISE. Portnox Cloud was named by thirteen of the fourteen models and Cisco ISE by thirteen and Portnox Cloud carries 45 labels and Cisco ISE 35, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in one category this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the network access control page.
By framing
Portnox CloudFirst choices, of fourteen modelsCisco ISE
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Portnox Cloud and Cisco ISE were named in the same answer sixty-eight times, of the 140 answers naming Portnox Cloud and the 104 naming Cisco ISE. In those answers Cisco ISE took the first choice ten times and Portnox Cloud forty-three.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | |||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | ||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | ||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | ||
| Mistral Small | | | | |||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | ||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | |||||
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | ||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | | ||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | ||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | | |
Portnox Cloud Cisco ISE first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Portnox Cloud on the left and Cisco ISE on the right.The direct prompt
Portnox Cloud first, Cisco ISE an alternative
6 of 14 modelsCisco ISE was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
5 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Portnox Cloud45%#1 of 9Cisco ISE0%#9 of 9Portnox Cloud35%#1 of 10Cisco ISE2%#5 of 10Cisco ISE20%#2 of 7Portnox Cloud18%#3 of 7What the models said about Portnox Cloud
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Users experience performance issues with Portnox, finding it misrepresented and encountering frequent authentication problems.” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“Performance issues, misrepresented capabilities, frequent authentication failures, poor UI, non‑intuitive workflows.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“Caution if you need rock-solid RADIUS or have complex identity federation.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Best budget-friendly dedicated NAC: Portnox Cloud, because it is cloud-native and emphasizes continuous access control without heavy deployment burden.” Perplexity Sonar · budget prompt · first choice
“Portnox Cloud or OPSWAT MetaAccess give you device profiling, posture enforcement and guest/BYOD without standing up dedicated appliances.” Muse Glimmer 30B · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Modern Alternatives: Agentless, cloud-native, or microsegmentation-focused (e.g., Portnox, Elisity for quick deploys without 802.1X pain)” Grok 4.1 Fast · negative prompt · first choice
What the models said about Cisco ISE
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“Avoid Cisco ISE unless you're already deeply committed to Cisco and have the operational maturity to manage its complexity.” Kimi K2 · paraphrase prompt · hard negative
“What to Avoid - Cisco ISE and Aruba ClearPass – While excellent solutions, they are typically expensive and complex” Kimi K2 · budget prompt · hard negative
“Avoid Cisco/Aruba/Forescout – these are enterprise-priced” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · hard negative
“Cisco ISE is the enterprise standard for organizations that want policy depth, identity‑based segmentation, and tight Cisco ecosystem integration.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · comparative prompt · first choice
“Best low-budget enterprise option: Cisco ISE Essentials if you already use Cisco gear or want a mainstream enterprise NAC.” GPT-5.4 mini · budget prompt · first choice
“Choose Cisco ISE if you're deeply invested in Cisco and need the most feature-rich enterprise solution” Kimi K2 · comparative prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.