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Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs FireMon Asset Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Network Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (2nd)
FireMon Asset Manager
Ranking in Network Management Applications
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (13th), Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Igor Van Den Ouden - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables secure and flexible branch connectivity with application-aware routing
The valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include its security policies and zone-based firewall that are applied to every site, as well as application-aware routing. Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations. Application-aware routing offers flexibility in using different lines for traffic, depending on the policy implemented.
Chan Lung - PeerSpot reviewer
Works very well as a single platform for policy management and audit compliance
The dashboard clearly shows the policies of a network environment. We can see which policies are critical or are always being used. We can also see which ones are not being used or have not been modified in a long time. We can see all the ports that the applications are using. We have all this information in the dashboard. After deployment, FireMon Asset Manager automatically shows the network topology. However, the dashboard is pretty fixed. It is not flexible. If I need to modify the dashboard, I need the help of their customer support. FireMon has streamlined policy deployment across multiple firewalls, making it easier to quickly implement changes. It has also improved our ability to comply with audits and be compliant with PCI DSS and ISO 27001 standards. The efficiency of deploying policies has increased significantly. The information provided by FireMon Asset Manager is helpful in making an organization's environment secure. It makes customers look into their policies and see if they need to be modified.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Encryption, which is native to the solution, is a valuable feature. Also, central management, onboarding of devices, QS, and routing applications are all okay."
"Cisco SD-WAN is a good product."
"I would rate the overall solution as a ten out of ten."
"From my observations, Cisco has been rolling out new features every other day, so I would say their speed of innovation is one of the most valuable aspects for me."
"Overall, I rate Cisco SD-WAN as nine out of ten."
"We would recommend this solution to customers looking to implement it on a global scale. We recommend the solution, not only because of the functionality or the technical support, but also because of the delivery of the solution, and the docking and upgrading capabilities."
"If one of your ISPs goes down or has latency in your environment, Cisco SD-WAN will detect the issue and explain why the ISP is down."
"It's a complete solution with many security features."
"It offers a single platform for managing firewalls of different brands and simplifies policy deployment and auditing. It helps push policies to different firewalls, and it also helps with policy auditing."
"The most valuable feature is the change modules. Whenever there is a change in the firewall, it automatically reflects on FireMon."
"The most valuable aspects of FireMon Asset Manager are its integrations and its ability to passively monitor the network for unknown assets."
 

Cons

"The initial setup could be a bit less complex."
"The solution could be a bit cheaper."
"The main issue is that not in the technology, but it comes back comparison. When we do a comparison with other SD WAN solutions, they are priced better."
"I would like to see revision cycles to be more stable."
"The solution is a bit complicated."
"The technical support is a bit slow."
"Its license model needs to be improved. They always make the license model too complex. There are too many license models and too many options. They should have a flexible license model. They can improve a lot of things in terms of scalability, templates, and automation, mainly automation for onboarding a number of sites. If you want some new features, it can take quite a long time. If you want a feature and it is not yet developed, you need to have the support of the business units to have the feature developed. If the feature is not on their roadmap, it can take quite some time before you get the feature."
"The platform needs to be updated to be more stable and simple."
"It is not very good at monitoring the Check Point firewall, but it works very well with other firewalls such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco ASA."
"The discovery process could be improved. If incorrect credentials are entered, it should give an error message. That would make our work easy rather than having to troubleshoot why the issue is occurring."
"While passive discovery remains important, active retrieval of asset details would be valuable, and this functionality is starting to be implemented, as I've observed in recent updates but it is not fully there yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's costly. The cost is high compared to competitors."
"80 percent reduction in WAN costs. There are no MPLS or P2P circuits left in the organization."
"There is a monthly subscription to use this solution."
"The pricing for Cisco SD-WAN is more expensive than other brands or solutions, such as Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks, so it's one out of ten."
"For 600 links, the license for Cisco SD-WAN costs us US$250k a year."
"It is expensive."
"The Cisco SD-WAN licensing model needs to be simplified. There are currently three types of licenses: enterprise agreements, individual licenses, and DNA subscriptions. This can confuse customers, requiring a dedicated person to determine which type of license is right for their organization."
"The initial cost is quite significant, but the investment is worthwhile."
"FireMon is more expensive than other brands but justified by its comprehensive feature set. It includes several functions that might require additional subscriptions in other solutions."
"FireMon Asset Manager's pricing has been reasonable and has worked well for us from a licensing standpoint."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
There's nothing I could put my finger on right away for improvements in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. There is definitely nothing that Juniper does that Cisco doesn't do. Cisco will do everything Juniper ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon Asset Manager?
FireMon is more expensive than other brands but justified by its comprehensive feature set. It includes several functions that might require additional subscriptions in other solutions.
What needs improvement with FireMon Asset Manager?
We used FireMon Asset Manager only for the firewalls. It could not always discover, so we had to go in and add it manually. The discovery was not always consistent. At times it worked, and at times...
What is your primary use case for FireMon Asset Manager?
We used FireMon Asset Manager for 12 clients. We used it for firewall audits and rule changes.
 

Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs. FireMon Asset Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.