Worried about who’s on your network?
With countless devices and remote users connecting, it’s tough to know if your network is truly secure from any unauthorized access.
The real danger is a single unauthorized device gaining entry, which can expose your entire organization to significant security breaches and compliance failures.
Manually tracking every single connection is nearly impossible. This lack of visibility and control leaves gaping holes for threats to slip through, a constant headache.
A robust Network Access Control (NAC) solution can fix this by automating who gets access and when, without creating extra management work.
In this guide, I’ll show you the best network access control software. These tools provide the visibility and automated policy enforcement that you’re looking for.
You will learn how to secure your network from diverse threats and finally reduce your team’s overwhelming workload with the right tools.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NordLayer → | Mid to large enterprises | |
| 2 | Portnox → | IT security professionals | |
| 3 | Fortinet → | Large enterprises | |
| 4 | Aruba Networks → | IT security administrators | |
| 5 | Forescout → | Complex large networks |
1. NordLayer
Struggling with network security and compliance?
NordLayer offers toggle-ready enterprise-grade security, including a Business VPN and ZTNA, to protect your network. This means you can secure remote employees and grant granular access to only authorized users, addressing critical visibility and enforcement pain points.
The platform provides day-one protection against malware, phishing, and insider risks, helping you to cut bad actors off at the source. Plus, you can deploy it in minutes across your entire IT network with minimal disruption.
It’s time to simplify your network security.
NordLayer makes enterprise-grade security simple, blocking threats right out of the box. You get comprehensive threat protection, proactively stopping malware, ransomware, and unsafe downloads. This ensures your data is safeguarded and you meet regulatory standards.
The platform also includes Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to verify every user, device, and location without disrupting workflows. Additionally, it offers threat intelligence to spot exposed credentials and leaked data early. This allows you to take action before attackers do.
You can also integrate NordLayer with existing IAM and cloud platforms like Entra ID, Okta, AWS, and Google Cloud, ensuring fast, secure, and frictionless setup and a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by up to 65%.
Take control of your network.
Key features:
- Cutting-edge Business VPN: Protect sensitive business and employee data, offering split tunneling, Always On VPN, and site connectors for a modern hybrid workforce.
- Zero Trust Network Access: Apply Zero Trust principles with multi-factor authentication (MFA), Cloud Firewall, and device posture security for granular access control.
- Comprehensive Threat Protection: Proactively block malware, ransomware, and unsafe downloads with Deep Packet Inspection, web protection, and DNS filtering.
Learn more about NordLayer features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: NordLayer is a robust solution for IT security administrators and network managers, protecting over 11,000 businesses. Its cloud-native tools, quick 10-minute average deployment, and granular access controls make it an excellent choice for securing diverse networks and simplifying compliance, earning it a spot among the best network access control software.
2. Portnox
Tired of network access control headaches?
Portnox offers a unified access control platform that delivers total awareness of all endpoints across your enterprise. This means you can effectively manage access for every device on your network. Portnox helps you enforce 24/7 access control and risk mitigation policies.
Portnox simplifies network access, strengthening your security posture and eliminating the complexity of legacy NAC solutions.
Here’s how Portnox can help.
Portnox Cloud helps you address various Zero Trust use cases, offering flexibility to scale your unified access control program effortlessly. You can dynamically segment connected endpoints to control who has access to what, using powerful access control policies. Portnox also provides 24/7 risk monitoring to assess the risk posture of every connected endpoint, ensuring your IT environment stays safe. Additionally, when an endpoint falls outside your organization’s risk threshold, Portnox automatically takes action to reestablish compliance, helping you maintain continuous security. Plus, you can set unique access control policies for guests and contractors across your network, strengthening your data loss prevention program.
Control access, control risk.
Speaking of managing your network, if you’re also looking for robust cloud management software, my detailed guide can assist you further.
Key features:
- Zero Trust Unified Access Control: Gain total visibility and control over all endpoints on your network, enforcing security policies for devices, applications, and infrastructure.
- Passwordless Authentication & Risk Monitoring: Leverage certificate-based authentication to eliminate credential-based attacks, combined with continuous risk assessment for connected devices.
- Automated Compliance & Remediation: Dynamically enforce access policies and automatically remediate non-compliant devices to maintain security posture and meet regulatory requirements.
Learn more about Portnox features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Portnox stands out as a strong contender for the best network access control software due to its cloud-native, unified approach. It simplifies complex security challenges by providing total awareness, automated compliance enforcement, and seamless integration, making it an ideal choice for IT security professionals seeking to strengthen their security posture.
3. Fortinet
Are network security challenges overwhelming your IT team?
Fortinet’s Network Access Control (NAC) provides deep protection, especially against IoT threats. This means you can extend control to third-party network devices, reducing your exposure.
The solution orchestrates automatic responses to a wide range of network events, allowing your team to respond quickly to threats and maintain compliance. This leads to unparalleled security.
How can Fortinet transform your security posture?
Fortinet’s NAC capabilities deliver comprehensive security and simplified management. It secures users and data across your entire modern workspace.
The system offers robust protection by automatically detecting IoT threats, giving you immediate visibility into every connected device. This means your IT security administrators can ensure consistent policy enforcement, even with guest access, reducing your workload and strengthening your security. Additionally, Fortinet provides centralized management, reducing administration time for wireless networks.
Plus, with AI-Powered Security Services and FortiGuard Labs Threat Intelligence, you’re always protected from emerging threats, helping you demonstrate clear ROI by preventing breaches before they occur.
This platform unifies security and networking.
Key features:
- IoT Threat Protection: Protects against various IoT threats and extends control to third-party network devices, improving your overall network visibility and security.
- Automated Response Orchestration: Orchestrates automatic responses to a wide range of network events, empowering your team to react swiftly and efficiently to emerging threats.
- Centralized Management & Unified Agent: Provides centralized management for easy control of your wireless network and security, significantly minimizing administration time for your team.
Learn more about Fortinet features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Fortinet’s NAC provides comprehensive network access control that directly addresses key pain points like IoT threat protection, policy enforcement, and real-time response. Its ability to extend control to third-party devices and offer automated responses makes it a strong contender for the best network access control software, simplifying management and bolstering your security posture.
4. Aruba Networks
Is your network security truly under control?
You might be struggling with device visibility and access control. This is where Aruba Networks offers comprehensive network access control (NAC) solutions.
It helps you gain complete visibility and control over who and what connects to your network, making sure only authorized users and devices are on your system. This allows you to secure your network effectively.
Here’s how.
Aruba Networks simplifies access control across your network. It ensures that every device and user, whether wired or wireless, is identified and authorized.
This means you can consistently enforce security policies and protect your critical data. You can automate policy enforcement, reducing manual effort and human error, which is crucial for modern businesses.
Plus, it provides granular access control, ensuring appropriate access based on user roles and device type. This is vital for managing guest access securely and quickly responding to potential threats, strengthening your overall security posture.
Key features:
- Complete Network Visibility: Gain real-time insight into every device and user connecting to your wired and wireless networks, preventing unauthorized access instantly.
- Automated Policy Enforcement: Automatically apply consistent security policies across all connected devices and users, significantly reducing manual security management efforts and ensuring compliance.
- Seamless Guest Management: Securely manage guest access with customizable portals and policies, maintaining network integrity while providing necessary temporary access.
Learn more about Aruba Networks features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Aruba Networks offers a robust solution for IT security administrators and network managers. Its ability to provide complete visibility, automate policy enforcement, and manage guest access makes it an ideal choice for strengthening your security posture. This functionality positions it as a top contender for the best network access control software, addressing crucial pain points like inadequate visibility and inconsistent security.
5. Forescout
Struggling with network visibility and compliance across diverse devices?
Forescout’s 4D Platform™ offers continuous discovery, assessment, control, and governance for all cyber assets.
This means you can identify, protect, and ensure the compliance of all managed and unmanaged assets. Plus, it tackles issues like risk prioritization and threat containment.
It’s about achieving complete asset intelligence.
Forescout solves your challenges by delivering automated cybersecurity at scale. It offers network security to assess, segment, and enforce controls proactively and reactively, along with risk and exposure management to identify and prioritize cybersecurity risks.
You gain true threat correlation and optimized security operations, ensuring you detect, investigate, and respond to threats efficiently. Additionally, it helps you reach Zero Trust mandates with an adaptive approach, simplifying implementation across complex networks.
With Forescout, you get a vendor and device-agnostic solution that provides real-time and continuous monitoring for IT, IoT, IoMT, and OT assets, proven at scale by protecting over 66 million devices. You’ll gain complete control and visibility.
It’s cybersecurity automated at scale.
Key features:
- Complete Asset Intelligence: Continuously identifies, protects, and ensures compliance of all managed and unmanaged IT, IoT, IoMT, and OT cyber assets, providing total network visibility.
- Automated Cybersecurity: Delivers proactive and reactive network security controls, risk and threat containment, and segmentation management to automate your security posture.
- Threat Detection & Response: Enables true threat correlation, optimized security operations, and SecOps visibility to effectively detect, investigate, and respond to incidents.
Learn more about Forescout features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Forescout offers a comprehensive 4D Platform™ to simplify network access control. Its ability to identify and protect 66M+ devices, coupled with automated policy enforcement and robust threat detection, makes it the best network access control software for organizations seeking to enhance security and streamline compliance across complex, diverse networks.
6. Cisco
Worried about securing your growing network?
Cisco offers AI-ready smart switches that deliver security, scale, and flexibility, purpose-built for the AI enterprise. This means you can future-proof your network architecture.
You’ll gain better enforcement points and smarter segmentation through capabilities like their Hybrid Mesh Firewall, enhancing your overall security posture.
Here’s how to secure your network.
Cisco helps you achieve secure network architecture to accelerate workplace AI transformation, integrating security directly into the network itself. They provide end-to-end visibility across networks, GPUs, and AI tasks.
This allows for proactive issue detection with features like Nexus Dashboard, so you can unify views across application, infrastructure, and networking domains with Splunk + Cisco ThousandEyes. Additionally, their Wi-Fi for the AI Enterprise ensures exceptional wireless performance even in high-density environments.
You can deliver exceptional wireless performance for high-density venues, exploring new integrations for end-to-end digital resilience, making managing diverse devices and cloud resources much simpler for your team. This reduces your workload while strengthening your security posture.
The result is a more secure network.
Before diving deeper, you might find my analysis of best self hosted help desk software helpful for broader IT infrastructure.
Key features:
- AI-Ready Smart Switches: These switches deliver enhanced security, superior scalability, and flexible architecture, preparing your network for future AI integration and robust access control.
- Hybrid Mesh Firewall: This feature provides better enforcement points, smarter network segmentation, and multi-vendor policy support to strengthen your overall security framework.
- Nexus Dashboard for Visibility: Gain end-to-end visibility across your networks, GPUs, and AI tasks, allowing for proactive issue detection and simplified management of complex environments.
Learn more about Cisco features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Cisco’s focus on AI-ready infrastructure, combined with robust security features like Hybrid Mesh Firewall and end-to-end visibility via Nexus Dashboard, makes it an excellent choice for businesses seeking the best network access control software to manage complex, evolving networks efficiently and securely.
7. Ivanti
Struggling to secure your expanding network?
Ivanti provides unified endpoint management and network security solutions. This means you gain intuitive control from a single console.
You’re likely dealing with diverse devices and remote work environments, which exposes your organization to potential security breaches daily. Ivanti helps you manage access across your entire IT estate.
Here’s how Ivanti delivers.
Ivanti makes it easy and secure for your team, whether they’re down the hall or around the globe, to do their best work by finding, healing, and protecting every device automatically.
You can ensure proactive, efficient service so employees can work how they want, securing your everywhere workplace with a comprehensive and scalable security strategy that minimizes risk.
Additionally, Ivanti provides accurate, actionable asset insights, allowing you to build a big-picture view of your IT estate. This helps turn visibility into value, enabling you to know what’s exposed and prioritize what matters most for your network security.
The result is secure everywhere work.
If you’re also looking into other critical business software, my article on best equity management software covers essential solutions for your organization.
Key features:
- Unified Endpoint Management: Gain intuitive control from a single console to manage all your devices effectively, simplifying your security operations and reducing workload.
- Network Security: Ensure easy, secure access for your team from anywhere and everywhere, enforcing consistent security policies across diverse devices.
- Exposure Management: Understand what’s exposed in your network and prioritize critical vulnerabilities, allowing you to strengthen your security posture effectively.
Learn more about Ivanti features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Ivanti’s comprehensive approach to network security and unified endpoint management helps IT security administrators overcome visibility gaps and enforce policies. By automating device protection and enabling secure remote access, Ivanti makes it suitable as a top-tier best network access control software for organizations seeking to strengthen their security posture.
8. OPSWAT
Is your network truly protected from evolving threats?
OPSWAT provides comprehensive solutions to secure your critical infrastructure and data. This means protecting against zero-day attacks and advanced persistent threats.
You gain unparalleled visibility and control over all devices and data access points. This ensures consistent security policy enforcement across your network.
Here’s how to secure your operational technology.
OPSWAT’s MetaDefender platform offers advanced threat prevention, securing critical infrastructure. You get robust defense against malware and vulnerabilities before they enter your network.
This solution leverages multi-scanning with over 35 anti-malware engines and deep content disarm and reconstruction (CDR). This sanitizes files, making them threat-free without blocking legitimate data.
Additionally, its advanced vulnerability detection identifies potential weaknesses in your devices and applications, ensuring your critical infrastructure stays resilient. This holistic approach strengthens your overall security posture.
The result is a safer, more compliant network.
Speaking of network security and compliance, you might find my guide on best authentication software helpful for future-proofing your systems.
Key features:
- Comprehensive Threat Prevention: Multi-scanning with over 35 anti-malware engines and deep CDR ensures files are sanitized, protecting your network from known and unknown threats.
- Advanced Vulnerability Detection: Proactively identifies and mitigates vulnerabilities in devices and applications, enhancing your network’s resilience against potential attacks.
- Critical Infrastructure Protection: Designed to secure operational technology and IT environments, providing unparalleled visibility and control over all network access points.
Learn more about OPSWAT features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: OPSWAT’s focus on deep content disarm and reconstruction, combined with multi-scanning and vulnerability detection, makes it an excellent choice for organizations seeking the best network access control software to secure critical infrastructure and data against sophisticated threats, simplifying management for your team.
9. Twingate
Struggling with network security and user access?
Your team faces the daily headache of securing an expanding network, managing diverse devices, and protecting cloud resources from breaches.
This means you need a solution that goes beyond traditional VPNs to enforce robust access control and simplify management, ensuring network security without constant IT support tickets.
There’s a better way to secure your network.
Twingate offers Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), securing private resources and internet traffic by preventing lateral network traffic, eliminating open inbound ports, and implementing least privilege access across your entire network. This approach replaces older VPN solutions, providing performant and productive access for your team. You can precisely control access based on specific device requirements, such as requiring enabled firewalls or antivirus software, which helps reduce IT support tickets.
Additionally, Twingate provides secure internet access from anywhere, including DNS and content filtering to automatically block malicious web threats and inappropriate content. Plus, leveraging rich DNS log data from its Network Intelligence feature helps you identify trends, reduce risk, and protect your end users. The result is a comprehensive security solution that is both powerful and easy to deploy.
Key features:
- Zero Trust Network Access: Secures your network by preventing unauthorized lateral traffic and eliminating open inbound ports, enhancing overall security posture.
- Intelligent Device Controls: Allows you to define specific device requirements for access, ensuring only verified and compliant devices connect to your resources.
- Automated Security Orchestration: Integrates easily with existing systems like Identity Providers, MDM/EDRs, and SIEMs, automating zero trust deployment for better security.
Learn more about Twingate features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Twingate is a top contender for the best network access control software, offering hardware-free Zero Trust security deployed in minutes. With 99.99% reliability and speeds 86% faster than VPNs, it promises to reduce deployment time by 90% while providing automated, granular control over your network access and internet security.
Conclusion
Still tired of network blind spots?
Finding the right NAC solution is overwhelming. You need total visibility and control over who connects, without adding complexity to your team’s heavy workload.
A single unauthorized device can bypass your defenses, exposing your entire organization to significant breaches and compliance failures. This makes effective access control your most critical line of defense.
Here is my top recommendation.
From my review, NordLayer offers the simplest path to enterprise-grade security. It protects your network without the typical deployment headaches your IT team faces.
Its Zero Trust approach and quick 10-minute deployment truly stand out. I believe it’s the best network access control software because it secures your network today, not next quarter.
I highly recommend you request a free demo of NordLayer to see how it fits your specific security needs.
You’ll secure your network hassle-free.
