We performed a comparison between Cisco ASA Firewall vs Juniper SRX based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The two solutions are very comparable. Each of them have a good set of features, and the solution you choose will ultimately be dependent on your company’s specific preferences and requirements.
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integrations and IPS throughput."
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"I like that Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is reliable. Support is also good."
"The most important feature is the intensive way you can troubleshoot Cisco Firepower Firewalls. You can go to the bit level to see why traffic is not handled in the correct way, and the majority of the time it's a networking issue and not a firewall issue. You can solve any problem without Cisco TAC help, because you can go very deeply under the hood to find out how traffic is flowing and whether it is not flowing as expected. That is something I have never seen with other brands."
"I have integrated it for incidence response. If there is a security event, the Cisco firewall will automatically block the traffic, which is valuable."
"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"I like the firewall features, Snort, and the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)."
"If configured, Firepower provides us with application visibility and control."
"It is pretty stable. I haven't seen many issues during the past four years."
"It's pretty reliable and allows for isolation capabilities within the network."
"The most valuable feature is the anti-malware protection. It protects the endpoints on my network."
"The initial setup is easy."
"I think Cisco ASA Firewall is the most stable firewall solution."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"The management aspect of the product is very straightforward."
"It helped us a lot with our VPNs for the home office during COVID. There has been more security and flexibility for VPNs and other applications."
"I have used technical support quite a bit, and they are really good."
"Technical support is good. They quickly respond, and they even have local help here. They can actually give you an answer very quickly."
"We did not have problems with scaling, as we have less than 500 users in our organization."
"The features that I have found valuable are the ones for the main purpose we are using Juniper - its firewall to protect our network for our internet access."
"Juniper SRX is a very powerful firewall and sometimes can be used as a router."
"It is a part of the infrastructure when we're selling Juniper. That's what clients are familiar with and that's what they rely on."
"It is very fast and very easy to maintain. Another nice part of it is that you can easily extract the logs and move them over to a security operations center."
"The CLI works perfectly."
"I believe that the current feature set of the device is very good and the only thing that Cisco should work on is improving the user experience with the device."
"I would like to see improvement when you create policies on Snort 3 IPS on Cisco Firepower. On Snort 2, it was more like a UI page where you had some multiple choices where you could tweak your config. On Snort 3, the idea is more to build some rules on the text file or JSON file, then push it. So, I would like to see a lot of improvements here."
"It's mainly the UI and the management parts that need improvement. The most impactful feature when you're using it is the user interface and the user experience."
"We only have an issue with time sync with Cisco ASA and NTP. If the time is out of sync, it will be a disaster for the failover."
"When you make any changes, irrespective of whether they are big or small, Firepower takes too much time. It is very time-consuming. Even for small changes, you have to wait for 60 seconds or maybe more, which is not good. Similarly, when you have many IPS rules and policies, it slows down, and there is an impact on its performance."
"There is limited data storage on the appliance itself. So, you need to ship it out elsewhere in order for you to store it. The only point of consideration is around that area, basically limited storage on the machine and appliance. Consider logging it elsewhere or pushing it out to a SIEM to get better controls and manipulation over the data to generate additional metrics and visibility."
"The reporting and other features are nice, but there is an issue with applying the configuration. That part needs some improvement."
"The Firepower FTD code is missing some old ASA firewalls codes. It's a small thing. But Firepower software isn't missing things that are essential, anymore."
"I think the ASA layer is thin. It's always Layer 3 or Layer 4 source controller and doesn't control the Layer 7 traffic. It's important, and you'll need an additional firewall."
"Other products are becoming easier to access and configure. They are providing UI interfaces to configure, take backup, synchronize redundant machines, and so on. It is very easy to take backup and upgrade the images in those products. Cisco ASA should have such features. If one redundant machine is getting upgraded, the technology and support should be there to upgrade other redundant machines. In a single window, we should be able to do more in terms of backups, restores, and upgrades."
"One area that could be improved is its logging functionality. Your logs are usually displayed on the screen, but if you want to go back one or two days, then you need another solution in place because those logs are overwritten within minutes."
"Sometimes my customers say that Cisco Firewalls are a bit more difficult compared to Fortigate or Palo Alto. There is complexity in the configuration and the GUI could be improved."
"There is huge scope for improvement in URL filtering. The database that they have is not accurate. Their content awareness and categorization for URL filtering are not that great. We faced many challenges with their categorization and content awareness. They should improve these categorization issues."
"The user interface is a little clunky and difficult to work with. Some things aren't as easy as they should be."
"On firewall features, Fortinet is better. Cisco needs to become more competitive and add more features or meet Fortinet's offering."
"They should improve their interface."
"The range of devices should be expanded to include those suitable for a small implementation. Juniper does not have any lower-priced SRX models, useful perhaps for a single ATM or a single bank branch."
"J-Web, Juniper Web, is sometimes not working great when users are increasing their internet use. Additionally, they need to improve the GUI, graphical user interface, and the firewall management needs to improve. Their CLI is good, but sometimes the GUI is very slow."
"In the next release, I would like to have a better web interface. It needs to be more user-friendly. Right now, you can only access many features through the console."
"It must be 5G ready. The 5G network is rolling out soon in India, and Juniper must upgrade their firewall slot to the 5G network, or they must manufacture a 5G dongle card for the Juniper firewall. I want Juniper to upgrade their dongle from 4G to 5G. Presently, they have an expansion slot in the SRX 322 series and higher firewalls. In that expansion slot, they can put a 4G mobility SIM card so that whenever our primary link is down, it will automatically connect through this GSM network and form a tunnel."
"The solution could cost less. It's a bit expensive right now."
"The user interface is something that Juniper needs to improve."
"Both the web management and the graphical user interface are inadequate and should be improved."
"The configuration is difficult and it should be easier."
More Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco ASA Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 87 reviews while Juniper SRX is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 38 reviews. Cisco ASA Firewall is rated 8.4, while Juniper SRX is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco ASA Firewall writes "Includes multiple tools that help manage and troubleshoot, but needs SD-WAN for load balancing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Juniper SRX writes "Scalable with good technical support and works well for larger organizations". Cisco ASA Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, pfSense and Sophos XG, whereas Juniper SRX is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, pfSense, Meraki MX and Sophos XG. See our Cisco ASA Firewall vs. Juniper SRX report.
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