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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 22, 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 Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 7.1%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Balaji - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful guides, excellent support, integration could improve
Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components. I have been using Cisco Defense Orchestrator for approximately eight months. The Cisco Defense…
Waleed Aboda - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring enhances control while seeking greater flexibility and rapid response
I am still working for Lotus. We work with Palo Alto three series, Panorama, and Firewall Banu, specifically Firewall three series and five series I find this solution valuable for full monitoring, centralized control for reporting, and centralized management. These features are instrumental in…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple."
"We have quite a few Active Stone by pairs. If they fail over... I'll see that there's a change on it and I'll have a look. The only change on it is that now this one is the standby, it took over the active role. I can go into that firewall and find out what happened... and troubleshoot based on that. That's pretty cool too."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The ability to do operations on multiple firewalls at once is valuable because it saves time and mental effort. The solution's ability to make bulk changes makes it very convenient to manage things at once on multiple targets."
"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion prevention."
"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"The initial setup was straightforward. We spun up the VM onsite. We generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator. After that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy."
"Panorama is very easy, easy to administrate, and easy to control."
"Palo Alto technical support is excellent."
"Especially for big, worldwide clients, one of the most valuable features is being able to create some rules to place on the security groups."
"The product was great, and whenever there was a bug or issue, they released updates quickly. Additionally, their support was very good."
"It provides a quicker response time to vulnerabilities and more visibility into traffic flows."
"Templates and the possibility to apply a configuration to many devices at the same time are the most valuable features. We are able to create templates, and we don't need to go to each firewall to make changes. We can make changes in Panorama, and it automatically applies those changes to all those firewalls on which we want to apply the changes. It provides centralized management."
"It's a reliable solution."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has good stability. I didn't see any instability from it, and its initial setup was straightforward."
 

Cons

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up."
"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."
"We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue."
"If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has some bugs that could be fixed."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface (GUI), which is becoming outdated, especially the NAT section."
"It should have more connection with Threat Intelligence Cloud. They can also include features related to SecOps and automation API."
"Its UI and usability could be improved. The way the UI looks could be improved to make it a little bit more intuitive. Other than that, it is a pretty simple product."
"We found a vulnerability where when we have a low flow, like 2.7K, it is not getting fired by the threat prevention. That's something important to improve on. They should have a proxy or some solution to solve the issue. We also found some issues around decrypting the flow. When we have more flow than expected to decrypt, the performance goes down."
"When creating remote access for users, it would be beneficial to be able to base the object on on-premises or the cloud."
"Aside from pricing, I don't have any issues with Panorama."
"The solution could improve by having a true single pane of glass environment for unified management. At the present time, you still have to use three or four different solutions to bring everything together."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."
"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama is a more expensive solution than competitors. They should lower the price to stay competitive."
"You only pay for the license and there are no additional costs."
"We pay approximately $3,000 a year in order to use the product."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has so many licenses. For example, it has threat protection and group protection licenses. One license depends on another. I find it more expensive than Cisco."
"The pricing is considered a little bit expensive, but depending on the client, it's worth it."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"My company pays for the licensing cost of Palo Alto Networks Panorama yearly, and it's all-inclusive, so there's no need to pay extra for some features."
"Pricing for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is always high. If you're going to sell the product, you always have to talk about the technology because it should be about the solution rather than the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
49%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Transportation Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...
What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
Palo Alto Networks Panorama is expensive but provides good value for money. For the higher end, the cost is justified. However, for the lower end, a reduction in cost could improve competitiveness.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
From the reporting side, naming the reports properly so that they can be easily identified would be an improvement. Other than that, it works well. There was a bug causing us to not get the latest ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.