We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Fortinet FortiOS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"The solution is stable."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"Completely integrates branch offices with perimeter security."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
"The product's stability is good."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"Cisco IOS Security is very robust and works very well."
"The most valuable features of Cisco IOS Security are the plenty of functionality it provides, many people are IT certified the usage, and the user interface is good."
"The product has valuable features for business intelligence."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability. The nice thing with the bigger vendors is that they're very good at scale."
"FortiGate as a product is very easy to configure."
"Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper."
"The fact that is it has a UTM, a Unified Threat Management feature is the most valuable aspect for us. It's an all in one product. It's like our one-stop-shop to the internet."
"The solution is extremely scalable."
"I have found the most valuable features to be the policies, cache, and the SD-WAN."
"The solution is very user friendly."
"The VDOM (Virtual DOM) is a virtualized firewall that has some opportunities for flexibility that are an advantage in certain configurations."
"I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"We have a very bad experience on the support. They take too much time requesting logs, and they are not coming directly online to resolve the issues."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"The initial setup is complicated."
"We faced significant challenges related to licensing issues, particularly when licenses expire."
"Cisco very slowly introduces and implements the products, unlike other brands."
"The configuration and reporting interfaces need a lot of improvement. It needs to be more accessible forsolide without a strong technical background. If you had a simplified dashboard, the lower-level techs could manage the solution and provide services. Cisco IOS Security requires someone who is highly trained to operate it."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"It would be great if they can push the Microsoft updates through Fortinet OS and provide a centralized patch management system. They should also include the data loss prevention (DLP) and data leakage prevention features. They could also add network monitoring more effectively."
"The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices."
"The reporting and monitoring could improve, they have a lot of limitations. The monitoring is not easy compared to the other firewall."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"Fortinet FortiOS's integration could be improved."
"Their first-level support is often poorly trained."
"The reporting for this solution could be improved. It could also be more stable and offer better pricing."
"Right now, all the features meet my requirements."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Netgate pfSense, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering with PAN-DB, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Huawei NGFW. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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