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Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Cisco Security Cloud Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center1.3%
Cisco Security Cloud Control1.5%
Other97.2%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Yonas Abebe - PeerSpot reviewer
Great dashboard with extensive visibility and good support
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I remember version 6.4 had an integration with Eddie, allowing me to define a policy according to my users, however, the latest version, lacks this integration. The logging of FMC should be improved as it does not offer real-time solutions like DazaSodo.
Vivek Balaji - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful guides, excellent support, integration could improve
Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components. I have been using Cisco Defense Orchestrator for approximately eight months. The Cisco Defense…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Scalability is not an issue as long as you are able to buy additional licenses. Ten percent of our customers use Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, and we have large accounts with 50% of their end users behind this firewall."
"The solution is quite scalable."
"The tool helps with internet access protection."
"The most valuable aspects are the antivirus and URL filtering."
"The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations."
"The policy management capabilities streamline security tasks by facilitating policy configuration. This ensures the impactful implementation of security policies during product installation, enhancing overall security measures."
"One of the most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewalls is their seamless integration with other Cisco products."
"The solution is useful and powerful."
"This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting."
"When we're looking to the policies, it identifies the shadow rules. It notifies us about anything that will supersede other rules."
"For this product, they are very uncharacteristically interested in resolving whatever issue the customer reports. They're really attentive, and they address whatever we bring up as quickly as they can. That's been a very positive aspect of the product."
"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."
"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"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."
 

Cons

"Some duplicated values and security standards are not working in some high-application protocols with Cisco's next-generation firewalls."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center needs to reduce its price."
"The solution could improve the number of ports available and load balancing."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The interface is an area that could be improved."
"I recommend they work on usability and ensure the solution is more user-friendly."
"Cisco firewalls use old ESR or a Linux system, and there are problems with encryption. When we switch on encryption, the throughput goes down."
"Due to the lack of enough tutorials available online, I face problems with Cisco."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
"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."
"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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"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."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"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."
"It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My license offers all the protection, like malware protection, VPN protection, IDS, IPS, and endpoint protection."
"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing costs are yearly."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has the best price on the market."
"The solution is not expensive."
"One of the advantages of Cisco is its range of flexible licensing options."
"The platform is costly."
"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."
"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."
"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."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
23%
Computer Software Company
15%
Engineering Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
46%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
Licensing has been a challenge with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, and personally, I would consider switching to another solution. We are thinking of taking a Fortinet or another solution...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.