Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Cisco Security Cloud Control comparison

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control

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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

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

12th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 3.9%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center	2.8%
Cisco Security Cloud Control	3.9%
Other	93.3%

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

SurajYadav

Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

Centralized firewall control has improved visibility and policy management but needs faster UI performance

The best features of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center are the centralized management and strong security visibility. The most useful feature for me is centralized policy management, where I can create and enforce access control policies across multiple firewalls from a single console. It saves a lot of time and ensures consistency. Another key feature is IPS visibility. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center provides detailed intrusion events and signatures, which help in quickly identifying and responding to threats. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has had a positive impact mainly by improving centralized control and visibility across our firewall environment. Earlier, managing multiple firewalls individually was time-consuming and inconsistent. With Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, we can manage policies from a single console, which has improved efficiency and reduced configuration errors. It has also enhanced our security posture with better visibility into traffic and IPS events. We are able to detect and respond to threats more quickly, which helps in reducing risk and improving overall incident response time.

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Francisco Delos Santos

Security Engineer at Metrobank

Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention

Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…

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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 technical support team is responsive and supportive."

"It's a fine solution in terms of scalability."

"The stability is great."

"The product's user interface is very easy to use and convenient."

"My clients have never contacted me with any issues, so I believe the solution is stable."

"The solution is easy to use."

"The applied policy inside the firewall is good."

"All companies are looking to protect their data centers from unapproved access or server misuse and this product works."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center pros

"For one particular client, we had almost a 20 percent remediation on some of their equipment as a result of all kinds of attacks from the desktop department, and we got them down to a zero percent remediation."

"We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple."

"If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified."

"If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time."

"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution, and it provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."

"Its ability to make bulk changes makes it much easier, that's for sure, when I have to upgrade multiple clients."

"When we're looking to the policies, it identifies the shadow rules. It notifies us about anything that will supersede other rules."

"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control pros

Cons

"We use the suggested standard policies that come with the equipment. We don't put much effort into customizing these policies, which we know is a risk. We're moving to a more advanced IT area that will change how we manage the firewall policies. Cisco offers many ways to manage the equipment, but our team lacks extensive knowledge. We're moving these responsibilities to a specialized security team."

"Cisco firewalls use old ESR or a Linux system, and there are problems with encryption. When we switch on encryption, the throughput goes down."

"It takes five to seven minutes to push one policy."

"The first version had a lot of bugs, but the recent versions have sorted them out."

"It's not very user-friendly and can be somewhat disorganized."

"The product could be improved by simplifying its user interface and reducing complexity."

"Due to the lack of enough tutorials available online, I face problems with Cisco."

"The solution should improve the user interface."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center cons

"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."

"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."

"They should make it more of a one-stop shop for everything. It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."

"They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments."

"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."

"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."

"When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up."

"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One of the advantages of Cisco is its range of flexible licensing options."

"The solution is expensive. We have a multi-license, and we pay extra for support."

"When you are using a Cisco solution you know it will be expensive. Cisco makes you pay for everything individually. We pay for the licenses that we need."

"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing costs are yearly."

"I use the free version of the product."

"The product pricing is reasonable and falls in the mid-range."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"The platform is costly."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center 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 covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Marketing Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?

My experience with pricing and licensing for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is that it is generally on the higher side compared to some alternatives. The initial setup cost can be signific...

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?

One area where Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center can be improved is the user interface. At times, it can feel complex, especially for new users, and navigation between different sections coul...

What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center serves as my primary tool for centralized firewall policy management and monitoring security events across multiple devices. On a daily basis, I use it to ma...

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 ...

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Firewall Manager vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Download Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center product report

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center report

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Download Cisco Security Cloud Control product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Cisco

Overview

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is a robust platform with features like intrusion prevention and centralized management, enhancing security with compatibility across Cisco's ecosystem.

Designed for enterprises, Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center provides advanced features like application visibility and seamless policy deployment. Its user-friendly design and extensive monitoring capabilities enable effective network management. While it excels in threat intelligence and automation, challenges remain in interface complexity, pricing, and performance. Improved API integration and enhanced user support would bolster its functionality, especially in policy management and monitoring.

What are the key features?

Intrusion Prevention: Provides strong protection against threats.
Centralized Management: Simplifies policy management across networks.
Application Visibility: Offers detailed insights into network applications.
Advanced Threat Detection: Uses Talos intelligence to detect threats.
Seamless Policy Deployment: Facilitates efficient policy application.

What benefits should users expect?

Integration Ease: Compatible with Cisco tools for effective data center protection.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Supports extensive network oversight for better management.
Efficient Threat Response: Leverages threat intelligence for proactive defense.
Effective Network Segmentation: Ensures secure traffic management between zones.

In financial and healthcare industries, Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center optimizes security operations by managing firewalls and ensuring network protection. Its deployment aids in advanced malware detection, supporting compliance with industry regulations and securing sensitive data efficiently.

Cisco

Cisco Security Cloud Control offers centralized management, real-time visibility, and AI-driven automation for on-premises and cloud environments, simplifying scalability and deployment.

With a unified approach, Cisco Security Cloud Control enhances security posture by providing cross-platform insights across Cisco's ecosystem. It accelerates threat detection and optimizes policy enforcement through a blend of AI automation and natural language querying capabilities. The intuitive platform serves multiple devices, enabling comprehensive management of Secure Firewall, Secure Access, and other services with guidance from the Cisco AI Assistant. It also includes an AI Operations feature that identifies critical issues and provides real-time insights, enhancing response times while a policy analyzer improves security hygiene by detecting and closing security gaps. Its automation minimizes manual tasks, secures cloud-stored configurations, and supports two-factor authentication. However, it could benefit from improvements in navigation clarity, bulk change handling, and expanded third-party integrations.

What are the key features of Cisco Security Cloud Control?

Centralized Device Control: Streamlines management with bulk policy upgrades and automation.
AI-Driven Automation: Reduces manual tasks and enhances threat detection.
Network Visibility: Provides insights with valuable reporting and intrusion prevention.
Intuitive Configuration: Enables easy policy adjustments and restoration of secure connections.

What benefits can users anticipate?

Increased Efficiency: Reduces operational overhead with centralized management.
Improved Security: Enhances protection through automated policy enforcement and AI insights.
Time Savings: Simplifies management of multiple devices in cloud and on-premises environments.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease of deployment and policy consistency.

Industries implementing Cisco Security Cloud Control leverage its capabilities for tasks ranging from firewall management to intrusion prevention. Enterprises use it to streamline policy management, automate configurations, and integrate Cisco devices with cloud strategies, benefiting from simplified security orchestration and network segmentation.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control