"It is one of the fastest solutions, if not the fastest, in the security technology space. This gives us peace of mind knowing that as soon as a new attack comes online that we will be protected in short order. From that perspective, no one really comes close now to Firepower, which is hugely valuable to us from an upcoming new attack prevention perspective."
"With Cisco, there are a lot of features such as the network map. Cisco builds the whole network map of the machines you have behind your firewall and gives you insight into the vulnerabilities and attributes that the host has. Checkpoint and Fortinet don't have that functionality directly on the firewall."
"Firepower has reduced our firewall operational costs by about 25 percent."
"Provides good integrations and reporting."
"A good intrusion prevention system and filtering."
"The features I've found most valuable are the packet captures and packet traces because they help me debug connections. I like the logs because they help me see what's going on."
"I like that Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is reliable. Support is also good."
"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."
"It covers everything we need it to without looking to secondary solutions."
"The product is easy to use."
"The capabilities for scalability with this product are huge"
"What I have used the most and received the most benefit from is the IPsec technology."
"Cisco Technical Assistance Center works on a follow-the-sun concept and gives real 24x7 customer support, which is a great advantage when you have a service contract with them."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"It is less expensive than alternative firewalls."
"One of the main features is that the hardware is extremely reliable."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows a full view of all the devices on the network from one location."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very stable."
"The capability of centralized management is valuable. We can configure all firewall boxes with the same configuration."
"Everybody is quite happy with the way that the graphical user interface works."
"The best feature of Fortinet FortiManager is its ease of use. It is easy to manage the firewall from Fortinet FortiManager. Additionally, the interface is very good."
"Central management system for Fortinet devices that's simple, scalable, and stable, with a straightforward setup."
"This solution enables you to centralize the rules and the configuration of all the equipment."
"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."
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"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'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"On the VPN side, Firepower could be better. It needs more monitoring on VPNs. Right now, it's not that good. You can set up a VPN in Firepower, but you can't monitor it."
"FlexConfig is there as a bridge for features that are not yet natively integrated into Firepower. It is a way of allowing you to be able to configure things that wouldn't otherwise be possible until the development team can add them into Firepower's native capability. There is still some work that needs to be done around FlexConfig. There are still quite a few complex things, like policy-based routing, that have to be done in FlexConfig, and it doesn't always work perfectly. Sometimes, there are some glitches. It is recommended that you configure FlexConfig policies with Cisco TAC. It would be good to see Cisco accelerate some of those configurations that you can only do in FlexConfig into the platform, so that they are there natively."
"The performance should be improved."
"Licensing is complex, and I'd like it to be simplified. This is an area for improvement."
"Cisco IOS Security could improve its security features. There are competitors that have some additional security features, such as Fortinet FortiGate. Additionally, there should be better synchronization with Cisco IOS Security and other vendors, and improved AI features would be beneficial."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The pricing is the only con for this product."
"The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it."
"There could be a bit more functions on offer that could make it easier to use."
"Signatures and other critical definitions need to be updated more frequently."
"It would be ideal if the solution had more capacity."
"With respect to user-friendliness, it is a command-line interface and those with such experience will get along just fine, whereas others may struggle."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions other than Fortinet."
"We have some visibility issues with the reporting."
"The compatibility with legacy products should be better. It would also be nice if the software could manage other devices from Fortinet and third parties."
"We have experienced a series of minor bugs that necessitated contacted technical support on several occasions."
"Its licensing model should be improved."
"This solution needs more experienced technical support staff. There's nothing special about it compared to other vendors."
"The FortiManager is more complex and they can make it easier to use the VPN manager. All other features are okay. However, the VPN manager is more difficult and can cause some issues in the environment, if you do not have the experience to use it."
"Within the management of some features on FortiManager, specifically the management of user objects used for VPN service, FortiManager is quite weak."
More Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 13 reviews while Fortinet FortiManager is ranked 2nd in Network Management Applications with 11 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiManager is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "Prevent unauthorized use of network resources and integrate branch offices with reliability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiManager writes "Good centralized management that's stable and easy to scale". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with pfSense, Cisco ASA Firewall, Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, Meraki MX and OPNsense, whereas Fortinet FortiManager is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate Cloud, Cisco DNA Center, Zabbix, Fortinet FortiOS and Micro Focus Network Node Manager.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
