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Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 17.8%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FireMon Security Manager17.8%
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center1.4%
Other80.8%
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.
Ganesh-Khutwad - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid policy insights with robust dashboards and cross-vendor automation
FireMon Security Manager is excellent for real-time compliance management. It allows us to quickly retrieve any policy needed for testing and easily analyze it for loopholes. If a loophole exists, FireMon provides comprehensive details within the policy manager. It alerts us to firewall rule additions or changes that violate compliance policies. It supports various firewall platforms, including Checkpoint, Zscaler, Fortinet, Cisco, and AWS, and provides centralized management for all configured policies through a single console. FireMon Security Manager provides many features, like whether my firewall is compatible with required standards such as NTP and SNMP. Each compliance included in our RFPs is shown in the UI of FireMon. It gives robust and clear dashboards, making it easier to understand risks because the policies have ratings showing usage, and the number of hit attacks. It streamlines our compliance reporting processes by providing comprehensive risk and compliance assessments. It offers a range of features, including verification of firewall compatibility with protocols like NTP and SNMP, and detection of signal charges. FireMon effectively addresses all compliance requirements outlined in our RFPs. For instance, it can determine if firewalls or proxies within a stack are configured in Secure Mode or Active-Active mode. FireMon Security Manager enables us to generate reports on all these aspects, ensuring thorough compliance monitoring and documentation. FireMon Security Manager is robust and can help automate firewall policy changes across large multi-vendor enterprise environments. FireMon Security Manager helps automate firewall policy changes across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, hybrid, SASE, and SD-WAN. It also simplifies cleaning up firewall rules in our environment. The time required to accurately create, approve, and deploy firewall policy rules has been reduced. Tasks that took 30 minutes can now be completed in just five minutes using FireMon. FireMon provides immediate visibility into our policies through a robust and clear dashboard, making it easy to identify errors or misconfigurations based on the policy rating.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My clients have never contacted me with any issues, so I believe the solution is stable."
"The technical support team is responsive and supportive."
"The tool's deployment is not complex."
"One of the most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewalls is their seamless integration with other Cisco products."
"The most valuable features are the Virtual Private Network and the Electronic Control Lists."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Malware detection, URL filtering, and antivirus are the most beneficial features for our security management. The platform has three main components: filters, hardware, and antivirus. We use the standard approach for automation and integration. The person in charge of management follows the rules and policies of the equipment and handles operations. However, we haven't set up any notifications, so it's mostly manual."
"The solution is useful and powerful."
"The most valuable feature is the Firewall reviews for our company compliance."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting capability because everything that we do is a result of our being able to query a report, based on our environment and our PCI compliance efforts."
"For the cleanup of firewall rules, it performs really well for us. We utilize it in our regular rule cleanup tasks, several times a year. FireMon is our primary tool when doing that, either by going through its out-of-the-box compliance rules or using it to search for certain things in our rules that we want to prune from our firewalls."
"The unused objects is another nice feature, where it digs a little bit deeper into comparing the logs that it sees versus the configurations that it sees... The unused objects feature will go through in a pretty detailed way and show us which ones aren't being used. Or, if they are used, it will show us how often they're used."
"Its user-friendly interface allows for easy viewing and searching of network policies, including proxies, all on one console."
"Compared to other applications, it is user-friendly. The appearance of the menus and titles is clear and they are easy to follow. Of course, it requires some experience through using it, to go through everything, but it is not very difficult. It is an easy application to use."
"The most valuable feature of FireMon is its ability to configure multiple devices and consolidate them into a single desktop, which allows us to manage all of our security devices, such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, from one place."
"Firewall auditing is very important. We also use the solution for rule traffic analysis, traffic flow discovery and hidden/shadow rules within over 100 firewalls spanning five different brands."
 

Cons

"The first version had a lot of bugs, but the recent versions have sorted them out."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center's logging functionality could be improved."
"Cisco Firepower has been effective in solving various problems, but it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly like Fortinet."
"The product could be improved by simplifying its user interface and reducing complexity."
"The product's setup could be easier."
"The interface is an area that could be improved."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could improve by being less expensive."
"Improving the product by incorporating SD-WAN functionality would be highly beneficial, especially for remote offices with limited server and Internet availability."
"We're working on implementing FireMon with our ticketing system service now. Having that would be an improvement."
"We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain date. It's just waiting for the storage to get full and then it's cleaned up. It isn't something that creates serious issues for us."
"The training for configuring new users or operators is confusing because the UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"The initial setup can take some time, including connecting it and configuring it. It's not something that is easy for anybody to do. There is time and energy required because of the number of systems you have to configure to get it to work properly."
"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."
"When it comes to real-time compliance management, something that is missing is alerting on certain, predefined controls. It would be good to have a predefined set of controls which, if not complied with in a newly set up rule, would create an alert for us. That is something that is missing, out-of-the-box."
"It comes as a Linux appliance on a server and we're not a Linux shop, we're more of a Windows shop. It would be great if they could automate or integrate the backups into it and other things through their GUI interface, just to make the management of Linux a little more transparent."
"While I like the reporting, I think that has the biggest room for improvement. Right now, as a user of FireMon, if I create a report, I am the only one who can see it inside FireMon. If someone on my team creates a report, they are the only person who can see that report on FireMon. It doesn't matter if you're admin in FireMon or not. The way we have to do it now is that we have created a service account user and that service account user runs all the reports. This way, all the reports, which are running, are just run under a single user so we can always access them. This definitely needs to change so users can see other users' reports or we can share reports within FireMon."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has the best price on the market."
"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive."
"My license offers all the protection, like malware protection, VPN protection, IDS, IPS, and endpoint protection."
"I use the free version of the product."
"It is rather expensive."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"We don't license all of the devices in our network, so it does not provide us with a comprehensive visibility of all devices in a hybrid network at this time."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"We pay for it yearly."
"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"Its pricing is good. Compared to others, it is not so expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Retailer
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Transportation Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise44
 

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 do you like most about FireMon?
I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
Comparatively, FireMon has a very good price and is below the general competition in cost. I have not seen any additional fees beyond the general contract fees for the usage I have. So, I have not ...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
For one company I work with, I use Fortinet, and FireMon is not able to understand the zones that Fortinet uses. Part of that compliance piece does not provide me with the necessary information. An...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. FireMon Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.