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Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall vs Cisco Secure Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
330
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Arista Edge Threat Manageme...
Ranking in Firewalls
40th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AWS Marketplace (93rd)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 6.0%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
Nitesh Saxena - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides virus protection but needs improvement in the area of policy implementation
The product has a lot to improve in the area of policy implementation. If our company wants to give a separate policy to a particular client, user or system, it is very difficult to manage it. There is no categorization in the web filter option. If you want to search for a particular content to be blocked in the web filter, the search option is not there. You have to manually choose the option in the tool and then check it.
Maharajan S - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances security with precise access control but has integration challenges
Overall, I would rate the product six out of ten. Because of the support and cost, I moved away from Cisco, but otherwise, it is a good product. Recommendation depends on the requirement. If lacking a proper team and being dependent on the OEM and partner, Cisco is not suitable. However, if the team is qualified with Cisco-certified people and the requirement is a big network, it can be considered. In today's hybrid work world, having an expanded gateway is more typical than having a single one. Thus, Cisco is unlikely to be recommended for a hybrid requirement unless in-house skills align. Otherwise, depending on partners and Cisco, it can be a risk. I rate the overall solution six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"This solution has helped our organization by having strong functions and a reliable firewall."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"Fortinet FortiGate is good for helping you secure and protect mission-critical data."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Phish Blocker is a valuable feature."
"One of the best features is the ease of use. It's also easy to teach new engineers to use the ASA CLI."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's security solutions, advanced malware protection, and DDoS communication are very good."
"We feel that we can trust the security, and our assets and business are well protected. We need to have trust in it, but we also see that it works. We have a security company that has tested that it works."
"I like the way Firepower presents the data. It gives you two classifications for the evidence, something based on the priority of the evidence and another classification based on the impact of the evidence in your environment. This makes it very easy to spot the evidence that is most impactful to my environment. Instead of having to go through all the evidence based on that priority, I can focus on the evidence that has the most impact on my environment."
"The features I've found most valuable are the packet captures and packet traces because they help me debug connections. I like the logs because they help me see what's going on."
"The most important feature is the VPN connection."
"We get the Security Intelligence Feeds refreshed every hour from Talos, which from my understanding is that they're the largest intelligence Security Intelligence Group outside of the government."
"Cisco's technical support is the best and that's why everybody implements their products."
 

Cons

"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Its pricing can be better."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"The product has a lot to improve in the area of policy implementation."
"The documentation is not clear."
"We are still running the original ASAs. The software that you are running for the ASDM software and Java application has never been a lot of fun to operate. It would have been nice to see that change update be redesigned with modern systems, which don't play nicely with Java sometimes. Cybersecurity doesn't seem to love how that operates. For us, a fresher application, taking advantage of the hardware, would have been a better approach."
"Cisco ASA should be easier to use. It is a bit tough to navigate and see what is going on."
"The graphical interface should be improved to make the configuration easier, to do things with a single click."
"We had an event recently where we had inbound traffic for SIP and we experienced an attack against our SIP endpoint, such that they were able to successfully make calls out... Both CTR, which is gathering data from multiple solutions that the vendor provides, as well as the FMC events connection, did not show any of those connections because there was not a NAT inbound which said either allow it or deny it."
"It is not the newest, cutting-edge technology"
"You need to have a little bit of knowledge to be able to configure it. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to configure because there is no GUI. The latest software available in the market has a GUI and probably zero-touch provisioning and auto-configuration. All these things are not available in our version. You need to manually go and configure everything in the switch. In terms of new features, we would definitely want to have URL-based filtering, traffic steering, and probably a little bit steering in the bandwidth based on the per-user level and per-user group. We will definitely need some of these features in the near future."
"We are looking for software taxi capabilities."
"Most users do not have awareness of this product's functionality and features. Cisco should do something to make them aware of them. That would be quite excellent and useful to organizations that are still using legacy data-center-security products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the product is alright."
"While Fortinet FortiGate has a higher price point compared to Sophos XG, its user-friendly interface justifies the cost."
"Fortinet FortiGate gives you most of the features in one license."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."
"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."
"The tool is quite cheap."
"I consider it an averagely-priced tool."
"When it comes to Cisco, the price of everything is higher. Cisco firewalls are expensive, but we get support from Cisco, and that support is very active."
"It definitely competes with the other vendors in the market."
"The prices of Cisco Secure Firewall are competitive, especially for us as Cisco partners. We purchase the products directly from Cisco as a gold partner, which allows us to obtain better pricing than we would get from normal distributors or the local market."
"It was pretty good and not expensive on the subscription side. Cisco is doing a good job on this."
"I like its licensing because you buy the license once, and it is yours. We don't have to go for a subscription. So, I liked how they licensed Cisco ASA. Our clients are also very satisfied with its licensing model."
"Cisco's prices are more or less comparable to those of other products."
"We've gone to all smart licensing, so that works well."
"It requires additional licensing to enable 10G ports."
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
No data available
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
4%
University
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall?
I consider it an averagely-priced tool. Adding additional features does not cost extra. My small company pays around ...
What needs improvement with Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall?
The product has a lot to improve in the area of policy implementation. If our company wants to give a separate policy...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fort...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Information Not Available
There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Find out what your peers are saying about Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall vs. Cisco Secure Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.