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AWS Firewall Manager vs Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

AWS Firewall Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
 

Featured Reviews

Venda E - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Option Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized security policies have streamlined audits and ensure consistent protection by default
One area for improvement is the reporting and customization option. The compliance reports are helpful, but having more granular insights or export options would make it even easier to use during audits. Also, support for more third-party integration could improve flexibility. Another improvement I need to see is a smoother setup experience. Some of the initial configuration steps, especially around the organization and permissions, can feel complex. A more guided setup or clear UI explanation would make it easier for teams to adopt quickly. One more improvement would be better alerting options. Right now, we mostly rely on AWS Security Hub or CloudWatch for detailed alerts. Having more built-in, real-time notification directly from AWS Firewall Manager would make it easier to monitor policy violations without extra setup.
BC
Sales And Brand Strategist at CrossConnect
Smart switching has transformed data center security and now simplifies stateful segmentation
To improve Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, I think right now awareness is the biggest area for improvement. Cisco should focus on raising awareness about what the firewall on the switch actually is and how policy has changed. That is a massive story that has not been emphasized enough regarding saving time and effort due to the combination of all these tools. From a feature perspective, I am discovering new features as we deploy, so I do not know if there is a good answer yet because we are at the forefront of this technology. I can tell you that whenever we ask for a feature while working with Cisco, within a day, we get the feature added. For instance, understanding flow data is crucial. Within the N9300, to be able to apply the policy as we are discussing, you need to understand your network flow and what communicates with what. We were able to collaborate with the Cisco BU to refine how we consume that data and migrate old policies to the new structure necessary with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and HyperShield.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My advice for anybody who is considering the AWS Firewall Manager is that it is pretty simple to set up and easy to use."
"Once this solution is set up, we hardly have to touch it."
"AWS Firewall Manager isn't a separate solution when you create the virtual private cloud (VPC), so you can control the traffic through that security group."
"Also, the strength of the community is invaluable."
"It has centralized cloud firewall management rules. It provides compliance in tracking and reporting."
"After implementing AWS Firewall Manager, we reduced our manual security configuration effort by around sixty to seventy percent as the policies are now centralized, managed, and automatically enforced."
"The product is highly reliable."
"We work with compliance monitoring in the product, which is helpful for identifying framework-based misconfigurations, as it can tell you where to deploy firewall policies based on the frameworks."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with all of the other Cisco tools that we have, and its platform-first approach."
"I believe there is a return on investment with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall for every company that deploys it, as they typically see returns quickly, often within a few months, and the value measured is reasonable and comes back quickly."
"Specific outcomes that show the positive impact of Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall include that, with a single management environment to perform many different network changes on, we find that we can aggregate different change requests through the change management program without having to split things up."
"A year and a half after working with them, it has paid off tenfold, and we would not have been where we are now if we had gone with the traditional Nexus platform."
"Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup, and it has improved considerably with centralized management enhancements, making the experience much better now."
"What I appreciate most about Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is the visibility that I gain into the network."
 

Cons

"This solution is suitable for a small-scale enterprise and may not scale up to a very high volume of traffic or a large number of servers."
"For AWS WAF, we have seen cases where it allowed suspicious HTTPS headers even if they carried malicious payloads."
"It needs to be more employee-friendly, and the security management could be more efficient."
"AWS Firewall Manager should be open to manage other third-party appliances as well."
"The product could benefit from improvements in the user interface and integration capabilities."
"I would like to see AWS add some UTM features to the firewall. It would also be great if AWS Firewall had native IPS/IDS. They have the separate IPS/IDS, GuardDuty."
"They could consider organizing and enhancing documentation in a more structured and chronological manner"
"The areas of improvement are definitely platform resiliency, as we have seen outages on the AWS backbone, and whenever there is an outage on the AWS backbone, it impacts all the services hosted on that region, so we expect regional resiliency."
"My experience with deploying Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall has been effective, with certain challenges and successes."
"The biggest issue we encountered was a gap between expectations for features relating to the design team versus the coding team."
"For improving Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, licensing is always a pain point and represents the worst aspect of the solution."
"Regarding how Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall can be improved, I would say pricing and discount structures could be enhanced."
"Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall could be improved by refining the documentation around the migration path from Cisco Defense Orchestrator or Farsight Manager because when we were early adopters, the migration path was quite unset and very vague and ambiguous."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've heard from my colleagues, it appears that the pricing is competitive, which influenced our decision to choose this option."
"The licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis and we are billed monthly."
"It is a cost-efficient product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
University
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Firewall Manager?
The pricing is reasonable and follows a pay-as-you-go model, which makes it cost-effective for scaling the environment. There is no significant setup cost since the native AWS services and licensin...
What needs improvement with AWS Firewall Manager?
AWS Firewall Manager could be improved with more granular policy customization for better visibility through enhanced dashboards and reporting. Simplifying the initial setup and providing clearer d...
What is your primary use case for AWS Firewall Manager?
My primary use case for AWS Firewall Manager is to centrally manage and enforce security policies across the multiple AWS accounts and resources within our organization. It helps to streamline the ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is that it was minimal compared to the cost difference between what traditional N9300 would have cost to empo...
What needs improvement with Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall could be improved by refining the documentation around the migration path from Cisco Defense Orchestrator or Farsight Manager because when we were early adopters, the mig...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall?
My main use case for Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall is the consolidation of multiple tools into one management platform.A specific example of how I use Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall for consolidation is t...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
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Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Firewall Manager vs. Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.