Prior to adopting Cisco Secure Firewall, I used solutions such as SonicWall and Juniper firewalls. I didn't prefer Juniper and found Cisco Secure Firewall to be the most stable firewall I've worked with.

My advice for organizations considering Cisco Secure Firewall is to take advantage of Cisco's C-Pot program, where you can actually use their equipment in a practical setting. This allows for firsthand comparisons with other vendors, giving you clear insights into how everything works, making it worthwhile to get demo gear from our Cisco team to test before making any purchases. I rate Cisco Secure Firewall a nine out of ten. It's not perfect, as nothing truly is, however, I don't know of anything that compares to it, with Palo Alto being the closest option, though their layer seven firewalls are not as effective as those of Cisco Secure Firewall.

We were using Palo Alto, but we decided to go with Cisco because of its ease of use. We were a Cisco shop, and there's a micro facility where you can migrate all the ASA to the firewall.

The main difference between Cisco and Fortinet is that Cisco will have more flexibility. It's just a matter of being able to put together the flexibility that we require versus what Cisco can provide at this time.

The factors that led me to consider the change to Cisco Secure Firewall were actually price, as Cisco's was a very competitive price, and we received a very good deal.

Prior to adopting Cisco Secure Firewall, I was also using previous Cisco firewalls, and before that, we had Fortinet and Juniper. The factors that led me to consider the change to Cisco Secure Firewall were actually price, as Cisco's was a very competitive price, and we received a very good deal.

We considered Palo Alto before choosing Cisco Secure Firewall, and we do have some Palo Altos on the network to compare. We're mostly using Cisco products in general. I'm aware Palo Alto is a strong competitor when it comes to firewalls.

Before selecting Cisco Secure Firewall, I considered Fortinet, which was probably one of the bigger competitors, and SonicWall. We thrive in the Meraki policy. What stood out to me in the evaluation process, compared to other options, was the ease of deployment, the dashboard, being able to manage everything in one place, and Meraki support.

What stood out to me about Cisco Secure Firewall that made me choose to use it is that it is intuitive, but I feel it could be improved further in terms of intuitiveness.

I chose Cisco first of all for the partner and then second of all for the pricing. The pricing was good enough to convince me to go ahead with Cisco because Cisco is a well-known brand all over the world, which I couldn't say from other OT vendors such as Moxa or Teltonika. That is why I chose Cisco.

Before implementing Cisco Secure Firewall, we were using another vendor for firewalls in the data center and on the edge, and we encountered issues with efficiency. Sometimes the dashboard or the datasheet is not accurate about the efficiency or the threshold for the throughput, and the datasheet regarding throughput is not accurate in some vendors. But we see that the datasheet for Cisco is near accurate.

Cisco Secure Firewall's use case in our organization is justified because we operate in the financial industry where security best practices require multi-vendor products. We are running other vendors' solutions as well, and since Cisco is a prominent and one of the best vendors in the market, we opted for Cisco Secure Firewall. Both solutions serve our security requirements effectively.

I rate Cisco Secure Firewalls a nine overall. While there are features I think could be added to achieve a perfect ten, I still regard it higher than its competitors. From both a technical and peace of mind perspective, Cisco Secure Firewall is the frontrunner. I would tell someone considering purchasing Cisco Secure Firewalls that they will not be disappointed.

I have briefly looked at some marketing materials for other firewall solutions such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and FortiGate to understand where they are in the market, but I have never really managed or configured those platforms.

The simplicity of using these features is the key point. The URL filtering and threat prevention features in Cisco Secure Firewall are very nice, simple, and easy to configure and apply to our network.

When comparing Sophos, FortiGate, and Cisco in terms of benefits and stability, Cisco is excellent.

Before Cisco Secure Firewall, I used Juniper as a vendor; I have used them with other vendors as well, but where I am using Cisco Secure Firewall, they are sort of a direct competitor with Juniper.