Cisco IOS Security vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

Cisco and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Cisco is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.4, while Zscaler is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.3. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Cisco IOS Security and Zscaler Cloud Firewall compete in the network security market. Zscaler Cloud Firewall seems to have the upper hand due to its cloud-native approach and advanced threat intelligence.

Features: Cisco IOS Security is noted for advanced routing, secure network protocols, and VPN capabilities. Zscaler Cloud Firewall is recognized for deep SSL inspection, real-time threat detection, and scalability.

Room for Improvement: Cisco IOS Security could benefit from more intuitive management tools, simplified policy configuration, and better integration with modern systems. Zscaler Cloud Firewall needs improvements in reporting capabilities, integration with legacy systems, and enhanced user training resources.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Deployment of Cisco IOS Security is complex, requiring specialized skills and hardware, but it is backed by comprehensive customer support. Zscaler Cloud Firewall offers streamlined deployment thanks to its cloud-based architecture, with responsive customer service, although it may lack the depth of Cisco's support.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco IOS Security involves significant upfront costs for hardware and licensing, offering good ROI but with high initial investment. Zscaler Cloud Firewall's subscription-based pricing model is more flexible and cost-effective long-term, delivering strong ROI through reduced maintenance costs and improved operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco IOS Security vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco IOS Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Binoob John

Partner/Owner and Director of Human Resources at Up arrow Systems

Rrobust network security and device authentication with advanced access control features

This solution should be implemented for most enterprise-level customers. It ensures that users accessing the corporate network or wireless network with their own devices are authenticated and authorized. As a network administrator, I can track who is accessing the network, what devices they are…

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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."

"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."

"Fortinet FortiGate meets all the security demands of my industry. It covers endpoint security, including web interface, DNS security, and ELP. I'm currently using the latest version. The features that have most improved our network security are Web Control, filtering, application control, IDS, IPS policies, and Deep SSL inspection."

"Run Script is the best tool to use in Fortinet FortiGate with multiple environments."

"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."

"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."

"It is quite easy to handle."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"It is less expensive than alternative firewalls."

"Cisco IOS Security has many good features, but compared to other solutions, it has a more user-friendly interface with steps to apply and manage rules. Another good part of the solution is that it's more straightforward."

"The security is very good."

"Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward."

"This solution, called Network Access Controller, handles authentication, authorization, and accounting for devices accessing the network."

"We use the product for firewalls."

"Cisco products are very secure and integrate easily with other devices."

"There is a positive impact on security, particularly the intrusion feature, which helps keep the solution concealed and secure."

More Cisco IOS Security pros

"It is a stable solution."

"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall understands the applications in the current generation and adapts to the present generation cloud applications."

"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."

"Zscaler provides effective protection against various cyber threats ensuring a safe environment"

"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."

"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."

"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"The UTM filtering needs improvement."

"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."

"The cloud features can be improved."

"The user interface of the Fortinet FortiGate management console could be more intuitive and user-friendly, and the log analysis and reporting features could be enhanced to provide more flexibility and customizable insights."

"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."

"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."

"They need to improve their technical support."

"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"I would love it if it has a link-by-link feature, integration with Unified Threat Management (UTM), and load balancers. They haven't got any link-by-link feature right now, which can be a very attractive option. This link-by-link feature can also be made available for Cisco's UTM firewalls. The link-by-link feature is available in some of the other firewalls. Currently, integration with UTM is missing. Cisco IOS Security also doesn't have the load balancers and a few things that need to be done to get a good UTM firewall. Normally, other firewalls have UTM. As a next-generation firewall, it's good, but as a UTM, it has to do some work."

"While Cisco IOS Security is stable and scalable, I would like to see it improved to be even better."

"Cisco IOS Security could improve by having more compatibility with other Cisco solutions."

"The solution is not user friendly and it is hard to manage the GUI interface."

"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."

"There are the usual bugs that are inherent to some software upgrades. Sometimes this provides some unexpected issues, however, it happens with all brands all the time."

"Cisco is a scalable product, but it is expensive compared to other vendors."

"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."

More Cisco IOS Security cons

"The issue right now is probably that Zscaler is not providing web browser isolation. Another solution, Menlo, offers this. For one customer, we had to send traffic to Menlo to do the isolation for us. It was requested by the customer so that they could integrate any iframe. Zscaler needs to add this type of feature in their next release."

"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."

"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."

"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."

"Apart from the issues associated with the product in areas like the DC performance issues and DC failover, Zscaler Cloud Firewall's IP should not have a proxy IP."

"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."

"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."

"Certain criteria need to be met if you want to scale this solution."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is fine. It is on a yearly basis. Other than the licensing fee, there is no extra fee."

"The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate is average, not cheap or overly expensive compared to other firewall solutions in the market. It's effective and affordable for customers."

"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."

"Compared to other firewall products, it's a little cheaper in terms of pricing."

"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."

"Price-wise, it's at a good price point for our market."

"Pricing is lower than Cisco."

"It is cheaper and more competitive compared to other options. For example, when comparing Palo Alto products to others, Palo Alto tends to be more expensive. If you compare Cisco's platform, including Cisco Meraki, with Fortinet products, you'll notice that Cisco's offerings are generally higher priced than Fortinet's firewall solutions."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."

"The product is expensive."

"The licenses for this solution are expensive."

"Palo Alto networks are more expensive than this solution and this is why you will see more products like this one in Mexico."

"It is an expensive solution."

"You can get a better price if you commit to a longer-term license. Three years, five years, or even seven or ten years will be cheaper than a three-month or one-year term."

"We can purchase its licenses as per specific business requirements."

"The pricing is expensive."

More Cisco IOS Security pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"There are different subscription models available."

"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Cisco IOS Security?

Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It off...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco IOS Security?

Pricing can be reduced. I rate the current price for the product a four out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco IOS Security?

While I do not have specific recommendations for improvement, pricing can be reduced.

See all answers

Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?

Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

Zscaler Cloud Firewall is quite expensive compared to competitors. However, it offered moderate value for money.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 21% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 26% of the time

OPNsense vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 16% of the time

Meraki MX vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 11% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 8% of the time

More Cisco IOS Security Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security

June 2025

Download Cisco IOS Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

May 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

IOS Security

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Cisco IOS Software delivers a sophisticated set of security capabilities for a comprehensive, layered security approach throughout your network infrastructure. Cisco IOS security technologies help to defend critical business processes against attack and disruption, protect privacy, and support policy and regulatory compliance controls.

Cisco

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Arup Group, Brunel University London, City of Biel, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates , New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Offshore Northern Seas, Transplace

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 2025

Free Report: Cisco IOS Security vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

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