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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
Skybox Security Suite
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (47th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 9.4%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Skybox Security Suite9.4%
Cisco Security Cloud Control1.5%
Other89.1%
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…
NenadMijatovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use
Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting."
"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."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"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."
"For this product, they are very uncharacteristically interested in resolving whatever issue the customer reports. They're really attentive, and they address whatever we bring up as quickly as they can. That's been a very positive aspect of the product."
"There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people."
"Key features for us include the firewall change audit every week. Also, being able to track firewall ACL usage, so that we can produce semiannual reports on ACL usage and shadowed and redundant rules on the firewall."
"The features that I have found most valuable with Skybox Security Suite, and this is because I work on the security side, are the firewall assurance, the change manager and the vulnerability control. These three features are the most impressive from Skybox Security."
"I am impressed with the tool's change management, firewall and network assurance."
"Skybox deployment is simple, and it's very useful."
"Robust modules can be used for different parts of network security."
"The solution's most valuable and unique assets are the vulnerability management and change management solutions because they identify mistakes in the network before implementation which reduces risks."
"Skybox Security Suite is cost-effective."
"The solution offers very nice dashboards and they've recently added a very good Java-based web interface."
 

Cons

"There could be some slight improvements to navigation. In some of the navigation you've got to go back to be able to get into where you need to be once you've made a change. If I make a change, I've then got to go back to submit and send the change."
"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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"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."
"I've found dozens of bugs over the year we've been using it. The more I use it for different things, the more problems I find... Most of the problems have to do with the user interface. A lot of thought and work has gone into the back-end component to make the product do what it's intended to do, but the way it is presented for use hasn't gotten nearly as much thought to make it smart and bug-free."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
"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."
"The Network Assurance, which helps to create the network model, is not so rich."
"I've had issues with licensing where, when they were expiring and I asked for the updated licenses, I would the wrong ones. I think their process needs to be straightened out a little bit - I don't know if they fixed it already, it has been awhile. It wasn't as straightforward as it could have been."
"Skybox should improve their UX features by making them easier to use."
"The initial setup with Skybox Security is hard. You need one or two strong security engineers on your team."
"There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly."
"The tool does not offer options for customization."
"Modifications and the deletion of existing policies are currently unavailable."
"It's expensive."
 

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 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."
"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."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"The software is expensive. I rate its pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is based on a subscription model for annual licenses."
"When compared with other companies, the license is more costly."
"The pricing has increased exorbitantly in the last few years, so now it is questionable. Now, it makes me want to review other products."
"I think the price is fair."
"I think for the cost, what we got definitely is worth it. The only caution I would give is that whenever you license for Firewall Assurance at the same time, for some weird reason, you have to get one Network Assurance license, just to manage one firewall. That's a little bit of overkill. But otherwise, in general, the pricing is fairly okay."
"It's expensive."
"Licensing is normally on a yearly basis. There may also be a perpetual license. Normally, the customers ask for a lower price. If you want to sell more, you have to think about it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
47%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Performing Arts
4%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise20
 

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 Skybox Security Suite?
Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integrat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?
From a commercial perspective, AlgoSec is more expensive compared to Skybox Security Suite. Skybox Security Suite is cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?
The dashboard's UI is not interesting; it is quite normal. It would be better if something more attractive or similar useful information found in AlgoSec was available.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. Skybox Security Suite and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,358 professionals have used our research since 2012.