We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiGate-VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall provides important functionalities like protection against threats, visibility into applications, efficient problem-solving, compatibility with other Cisco offerings, and impressive data transfer rates. Fortinet FortiGate-VM stands out for its robust security features, geofencing capabilities, user-friendly interface, and ability to adapt to varying needs.
The reviews highlight various areas where both the Cisco Secure Firewall and the Fortinet FortiGate-VM need improvement, including network performance, policy administration, customization options, centralized management, logging functionality, public cloud functionality, cloud management, technical support, MFA offerings, web filtering options, application inspection, GUI features, availability and delivery, setup process, data center clustering, throughput enhancement, web application firewall integration, integration simplicity, policy customization, and web-filtering configuration improvement.
Service and Support: The opinions on customer service for Cisco Secure Firewall are divided, with some customers appreciating their technical support, while others express concerns about delays and difficulties. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives mixed reviews, with some satisfied customers and others suggesting that their support could be improved.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be more complex depending on the user's familiarity and environment, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy initial setup, with assistance provided by Fortinet.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Cisco Secure Firewall can vary, and some reviewers find it pricey due to additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is seen as competitive and more affordable than certain alternatives. It provides flexible pricing options and includes support for entitlement in the licensing fees. However, costs may rise when scaling or adding extra features.
ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall offers different levels of ROI depending on how it is used and the overall system design, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers enhanced security and stability, potentially resulting in ROI.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when comparing it to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate-VM to be straightforward and easy. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly praised for its strong security features, user-friendly interface, and easy deployment.
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"Cisco Secure Firewall improved our organization. We have it in every one of our French offices."
"Cisco ASA Firewall is a well known product. They're always updating it, and you know what they're doing and that it works."
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"We chose Cisco because it had the full package that we were looking for."
"It's got the capabilities of amassing a lot of throughput with remote access and VPNs."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"All the security features that are built into the product are valuable."
"The pricing of the solution is good."
"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."
"Good for the servers and can stop network attacks, including spam."
"We are able to closely monitor the usages of individual users and see their usage habits and other items, including the data itself, which gives us quite a bit of visibility."
"It is very versatile."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the servers, analyzer, and track protection."
"Technical support is very helpful."
"They need faster serviceability and more security features."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"There was an error in the configuration, related to our uplink switches, that caused us to contact technical support, and it took a very long time to resolve the issue."
"Recently, we have been having an issue with the ASA firewall. We haven't found the root cause yet and are still working on it. We failed over the firewall from active to passive and suddenly that resolved the issue. We are now working to find the root cause."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to integrating all the devices into a central management system. Cisco doesn't provide this, but there are some good products in the market that can provide it."
"The ability to integrate (as options) all-in-one features -- like anti-spam, anti-virus, etc."
"On the VPN side, Firepower could be better. It needs more monitoring on VPNs. Right now, it's not that good. You can set up a VPN in Firepower, but you can't monitor it."
"The intelligence has room for improvement. There are some hackers that we haven't seen before and its ability to detect those types of attacks needs to be improved."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"The technical support is not very responsive and is an area that needs to be improved."
"There should be a bit more automation."
"In terms of improvement, there have been some problems with the bandwidth of the security layer."
"The management tools should be more user-friendly."
"We face some issues with the IPsec connection during replication."
"The product needs to focus on cloud-nativeness and pricing."
"The operating system isn't stable, so it goes to memory counters every night."
"Customization needs improvement."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Netgate pfSense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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