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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Cisco Secure Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Secure Firewall offers improved security and efficiency, but cost and ROI vary based on deployment and usage.
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is that there's no waste in any infrastructure cost and licensing costs for us.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is the single pane of glass, which is a huge plus for us.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Cisco Secure Firewall is reliability and robust network design.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Secure Firewall support is highly rated for knowledgeable assistance, though response times and access vary based on contracts.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
I have to provide many logs, yet problems remain unresolved, often requiring workarounds rather than solutions.
I have been working with them on firewalls, wireless, switching, and routing, and the support is the best.
They have expertise and provide solutions for the most difficult problems.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Secure Firewall offers scalability and integration, though licensing complexity and scalability challenges in growth may concern some users.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
Scalability presents a challenge.
Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, it lags in configuration and other aspects.
Even with the highest one, the 4600, we still face issues, particularly when transitioning between screens; it becomes very slow.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Secure Firewall is highly reliable with minimal outages, though occasional upgrade issues are typically fixed with updates.
We have not encountered any problems.
We have often encountered split-brain scenarios during failover processes and code upgrades, which have been persistent problems for us.
We work with a cluster with high availability, so if something goes wrong, we have it functioning.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional performance and stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Cisco Secure Firewall faces criticism for its complex GUI, high costs, and demands better features, integration, and performance improvements.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time.
Firepower Management Center is quite out of date compared to other vendors.
The integration between Cisco products themselves presents difficulties, such as SD-WAN configuration.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Cisco Secure Firewall is costly but offers robust support and reliability; licensing complexity can be mitigated by smart licensing.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
It's good to have them, however, it costs us a lot.
It's considered a premium, but people pay that price for Cisco.
There are a lot of in-place contracts for us that provide the benefit of discounts.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Cisco Secure Firewall provides robust security, scalability, and central management, with intuitive tools for efficient threat protection and network monitoring.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
What stands out positively about Cisco is their training and support, which has effectively prepared engineers to work with their products.
This is very important to my organization, as we work extensively with security because we are a bank, so we can keep the data safe.
Cisco Secure Firewall allows me to safeguard Layer 7 or Layer 3 and manage the security rules with the business needs of my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (25th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (21st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
428
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 11.9%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 7.0%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Broughton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tighter integration with Umbrella and Firepower gave us eye-opening information
We were using a third-party help desk. One of the ways that they were fixing problems was to delete the client and then add the client back if there was an issue where the client had stopped communicating. Any improvement in the client communicating back to the server would be good, particularly for machines that are offline for a couple of weeks. A lot of our guys were working on a rotation where the machine might be offline for that long. They were also terrible about rebooting their machines, so those network connections didn't necessarily get refreshed. So, anything that could improve that communication would be good. Also, an easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful. If you could say, "Okay, we've got these two machines. This one says it's not reporting and this one says it's been reporting. Obviously, somebody did a reinstall," it would help. That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number. Not that Cisco was going to come down on you and say, "Oh, you're using too many licenses," right away. But to have a much more accurate license usage count by being able to better dedupe the records would be good. I also sent over a couple of other ideas to our technical rep. A lot of that had to do with the reporting options. It would be really nice to be able to do a lot more in the reporting. You can't really drill down into the reports that are there. The reporting and the need for the documentation to be updated and current would be my two biggest areas of complaint. Also, there was one section when I was playing with the automation where it was asking for the endpoint type rather than the machine name. If I could have just put in the machine name, that would have been great. So there are some opportunities, when it comes to searching, to have more options. If I wanted to search, for example, by a Mac address because, for some reason, I thought there was a duplication and I didn't have the machine name, how could I pull it up with the Mac address? When you're getting to that level, you're really starting to get into the ticky tacky. I would definitely put the reporting and documentation way ahead of that.
Phil Shiflett - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified policies streamline network management but complex licensing requires attention
Cisco Secure Firewall has some growth opportunities in terms of visibility and control capabilities regarding managing encrypted traffic. It has the ability to analyze encrypted traffic, and there is potential for more integration with APIs and AI to enhance these capabilities. Cisco Secure Firewall needs improvement in deployment time and the capability to access the CLI during support calls. I often encounter issues when technical support uses a CLI that is not familiar to me while troubleshooting through the GUI. My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time. For the next release, they should look at the features offered by competitors such as Fortinet, including the ability to perform packet capture directly from the interface. If they enhanced their troubleshooting efficiency related to packet capture for each specific rule, it would simplify the process significantly.
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
21%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with third-party tools need improvement. The forensic capabilities need enhancement,...
Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fortigate is very stable, reliable, and consistent. We like that we can manage the e...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cisco ecosystem, it is very simple to handle. This solution has traffic inspection ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Cisco Secure Firewall and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.