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Cisco Secure Firewall vs GajShield Next Generation 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
370
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
428
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
GajShield Next Generation F...
Ranking in Firewalls
37th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 6.2%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GajShield Next Generation Firewall is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Phil Shiflett - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified policies streamline network management but complex licensing requires attention
Cisco Secure Firewall has some growth opportunities in terms of visibility and control capabilities regarding managing encrypted traffic. It has the ability to analyze encrypted traffic, and there is potential for more integration with APIs and AI to enhance these capabilities. Cisco Secure Firewall needs improvement in deployment time and the capability to access the CLI during support calls. I often encounter issues when technical support uses a CLI that is not familiar to me while troubleshooting through the GUI. My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time. For the next release, they should look at the features offered by competitors such as Fortinet, including the ability to perform packet capture directly from the interface. If they enhanced their troubleshooting efficiency related to packet capture for each specific rule, it would simplify the process significantly.
Nazish Sameer Shaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifies the management of complex data networks, but its technical support could be improved
Sometimes, we have to use SD-WAN support for the solution, which can be improved by adapting some features that will help our approach to network services. The solution can adapt some of the tools where we, as network engineers, can adjust to the changing application needs. Also, the solution can provide us with multiple support, allowing us to create a network segment. The solution’s technical support could be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include its easy configuration and user interface."
"The feature of Cisco Secure Firewall that I appreciate the most is its ability to be used via the cloud, so we don't have to deploy service engineers on-site at any time."
"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."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"The web interface was easy for me. The configuration is logical, so it's easy to use and easy to understand how to protect, how to open a port, how to manage and how to route a device. That's why I prefer Cisco. It's robust and I never have issues with the hardware. That's why I choose Cisco and not another vendor."
"The features I appreciate the most about Cisco Secure Firewall are the policies, ACLs, and traffic behavior analytics."
"IPS and Snort are very important because they also differentiate Cisco from other vendors and competitors."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"Its efficiency and security are the most important. We are more efficient and more secure."
"The most valuable feature of the GajShield Next Generation Firewall is the user-friendly settings, dashboards, and anti-threat protection. Additionally, the solution upgrades frequently which is good because we receive new features."
"GajShield has improved our mobile device-based connectivity."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall's best feature is the network DLP."
"Gajshiled's enterprise cloud and DLP-level features give it an advantage over other products."
"The solution's outcome is very high, and we often use it in a very high-traffic environment."
"It is a stable solution."
"It is an easily scalable solution...The initial setup was very easy."
 

Cons

"The firmware updates are sometimes not stable. The stability issues can vary, sometimes happening once a month or quarterly. New firmware updates can occasionally introduce bugs, causing some policies to fail. We then have to raise a ticket, and Fortinet usually provides a fix within a few days."
"Fortinet FortiGate could be improved in terms of user friendliness at the policy level and assigning URL based and keyword based features."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"In the past six months, they took quite a long time to respond to the support tickets. I don't know if they are overwhelmed with too much activity, but for the last six months, the support has not been very good."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"I would say that in inexperienced hands, the interface can be kind of overwhelming. There are just a lot of options. Too much, if you don't know what you are looking for or trying to do."
"It should have an additional “operating mode”, like a “candidate configuration mode”, where you would have the possibility to test the changes you are going to implement and also the possibility to validate these changes."
"I was just trying to learn how this product actually operates and one thing that I see from internal processing is it does fire-walling and then sends it to the IPS model and any other model that needs to be performed. For example, content checking or filtering will be done in a field processing manner. That is something that causes delays in the network, from a security perspective. That is something that can be improved upon. Palo Alto already has implemented this as a pilot passed processing. So they put the same stream of data across multiple modules at the same time and see if it is giving a positive result by using an XR function. So, something similar can be done in the Cisco Firepower. Instead of single processing or in a sequential manner, they can do something similar to pile processing. Internal function that is something that they can improve upon."
"Cisco Secure Firewall could improve in areas like user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness, as it is very costly and difficult to manage. I would rate it seven out of ten, but I would recommend other firewalls due to its high cost and complexity."
"A feature that would allow me to load balance among multiple ISPs, especially since we have deployed it as a perimeter firewall, would be a great addition."
"Sometimes the ID is nice around Cisco, but another area they need to improve is the capability to manage multiple devices. The FMC manages many devices, but if I put too many, around 300 devices, it becomes very slow, and the system becomes heavy."
"An area for improvement is the graphical user interface. That is something that is coming up now. They could make the product more user-friendly. A better GUI is something that would make life much easier."
"FMC could be improved because management with FMC is quite difficult compared to using Firepower web-based management."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall could improve the flow of the settings. If somebody's using a Cisco firewall or any other brand and they want to use GajShield Next Generation Firewall the platform's UI is a bit different. If it was more similar to the others it would be better."
"We raised a support ticket, and the project didn't get a proper response. There was a skill issue in TAC support."
"Sometimes, we have to use SD-WAN support for the solution, which can be improved by adapting some features that will help our approach to network services."
"Gajshield can improve SD-WAN compatibility at an enterprise cloud level."
"The firewall configuration and administration screens could use some improvement."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall would be improved with the addition of a load-balancing feature."
"We face issues with some configuration parts that we don't understand in the solution, and sometimes we face issues with the VPN connection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"By default, they give SD-WAN along with the firewall. They don't have separate licensing for the SD-WAN functionality. However, they have security licenses that are sold separately on a subscription basis. Customers can consume these security features to protect their users from internet traffic."
"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."
"Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay."
"There is a subscription-based model to use Fortinet FortiGate. We pay annually for the solution along with the support. If you want to have all the updates, and security patches you will need to renew your support."
"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."
"When I look around at other products, such as Sophos, Fortinet FortiGate is 20% to 30% more expensive with our current cost."
"We pay for the solution annually."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"Cisco is not for a small mom-and-pop shop because of the cost, but if you're in a regulated industry where a breach could cost you a million dollars, it's a bargain."
"For me, personally, as an individual, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is expensive."
"I have to admit that the price is high. But I think it's worth it if the stability of your solution counts for you."
"It is extremely expensive compared to its competitors and I would rate it 2 out of 10."
"We paid about $7,000 for the Cisco firewall, plus another small Cisco router and the lead switch. It was under the combined license. It's a final agreement."
"I'd say it's probably well-priced."
"The product is very expensive."
"I am not a huge fan of Cisco licensing in general."
"The price of the GajShield Next Generation Firewall is very attractive when compared to other solutions."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is reasonably priced."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is cheaper than the other products in the market. The licensing costs for the solution are on a yearly basis."
"It was about 15% cheaper compared to Sophos."
"GajShield is a cheaper solution as of now. The subscription is yearly."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is not that expensive, and its pricing is better than Palo Alto."
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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
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
16%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Media Company
24%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
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...
What do you like most about GajShield Next Generation Firewall?
The solution's outcome is very high, and we often use it in a very high-traffic environment.
What needs improvement with GajShield Next Generation Firewall?
Sometimes, we have to use SD-WAN support for the solution, which can be improved by adapting some features that will ...
What is your primary use case for GajShield Next Generation Firewall?
GajShield Next Generation Firewall helps us with security solutions and platforms. It helps us configure the network....
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
GajShield NGFW
 

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
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.
Zodiac Clothing
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. GajShield Next Generation Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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