"One of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now."
"If you compare the ASA and the FirePOWER, the best feature with FirePOWER is easy to use GUI. It has most of the same functionality in the Next-Generation FirePOWER, such as IPS, IPS policies, security intelligence, and integration and identification of all the devices or hardware you have in your network. Additionally, this solution is user-friendly."
"Feature-wise, we mostly use IPS because it is a security requirement to protect against attacks from outside and inside. This is where IPS helps us out a bunch."
"The Firepower+ISE+AMP for endpoint integration is something that really stands it out with other vendor solutions. They have something called pxGrid and i think it is already endorsed by IETF. This allows all devices on the network to communicate."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integrations and IPS throughput."
"The solution offers very easy configurations."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features is the AMP. It's very good and very reliable when it comes to malicious activities, websites, and viruses."
"Netting is one of the best features. We can modify it in different ways. Site-to-site VPN is also an awesome feature of Cisco ASA. The biggest advantage of Cisco products is technical support. They provide the best technical support."
"The most valuable features for my client are the ASDM and monitoring."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"We are mostly using it for remote access, so the remote access feature is the most valuable, but all other features are also needed and required. It is also a very straightforward and reliable solution."
"This product is pretty stable."
"The remote access, VPN, and ACL features are valuable. We are using role-based access for individuals."
"The most valuable feature is that the encryption is solid."
"It's pretty reliable and allows for isolation capabilities within the network."
"The filtering is excellent."
"It allows us to block applications, i.e., websites by application type category. It is far more capable than content filtering alone."
"The basic firewall rules of the solution are great."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is its ability to work like any other firewall."
"Support has improved dramatically since their separation from Dell."
"It is a brilliant product. It is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. It has got about 11 security services that take care of your perimeter security. It takes care of any kind of cyber threats that could come in. It takes care of creating VPNs between two SonicWalls instantly and very easily. It has got spyware in it as well as a firewall. It has also got a gateway antivirus and an application firewall that can block things from outside."
"Compared to Cisco, SonicWall NSa is much easier to configure."
"We like the features, but the main thing is from a commercial and cost perspective it is very good."
"FirePOWER does a good job when it comes to providing us with visibility into threats, but I would like to see a more proactive stance to it."
"The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"The performance should be improved."
"The price and SD-WAN capabilities are the areas that need 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."
"This product is managed using the Firepower Management Center (FMC), but it would be better if it also supported the command-line interface (CLI)."
"One issue with Firepower Management Center is deployment time. It takes seven to 10 minutes and that's a long time for deployment. In that amount of time, management or someone else can ask me to change something or to provide permissions, but during that time, doing so is not possible. It's a drawback with Cisco. Other vendors, like Palo Alto or Fortinet do not have this deployment time issue."
"The solution has not had any layer upgrades. It does not have layer five and upwards, it only has up to layer four. This has caused some problems for us."
"It would be nice if you didn't have to configure using a command-line interface. It's a bit technical that way."
"If the implementation was easier, it would be a lot better for us."
"I have worked with the new FTD models and they have more features than the ASA line."
"One area where the ASA could be improved is that it doesn't have AMP. When you get an ASA with the Firepower model, ASA with FTD, then you have advanced malware protection."
"Lacks a good graphical user interface."
"If I want to activate IPS features on it, I have to buy another license. If I want Cisco AnyConnect, I have to buy another license. That's where we have challenges."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"The content ID needs to be improved."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
"We also need to increase the throughput because the other devices are slower. The throughput will become slow. Since we're using VoIP, it tends to affect the voice quality. Even if you're using a quality service, it tends to decrease."
"Initially, it may be difficult for some people to learn and become acquainted with it."
"We have security as a service, and they make recommendations about adding to the denylist and other things. That part could be more accessible and more user-friendly. I'd like to see SonicWall add a user-friendly interface where our internal team can drag and drop everything."
"It would help us a lot of SonicWall sent us more information about the latest updates and things that are changing."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"I would like to have a built-in vulnerability scanner in the firewall. It would be great to have such functionality. Its price could also be better. It would also be good to have a local warehouse. It doesn't get damaged a lot, but if a customer needs a replacement, currently, it has to come from Miami or Mexico, which can take a few days. It would be better if they have a local warehouse from where we can just pick replacements and quickly solve a client's needs in terms of replacing equipment. It would be great to have it locally instead of waiting for it from Mexico or the USA."
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Cisco ASA Firewall is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 62 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 38 reviews. Cisco ASA Firewall is rated 8.0, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco ASA Firewall writes "Robust solution that integrates well with both Cisco products and products from other vendors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "A rugged solution capable of defeating advanced threats". Cisco ASA Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Juniper SRX and Azure Firewall, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard Firebox, SonicWall TZ and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Cisco ASA Firewall vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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