Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
405
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (4th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 8.2%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 14.3%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio
Unique Categories:
Firewalls
6.2%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
22.7%
Internet Security
41.0%
 

Featured Reviews

IK
Jun 15, 2023
The monitoring dashboard lets us see if the packets get from the source to the destination correctly
I don't use the product for application visibility and control. I tend to worry more about blocking or allowing certain things versus looking deep into the servers and applications and how they work. The product is great for securing our infrastructure from end to end. I'd like to be able to test out some of the other products, like dashboards and IPS/IDS, that work with it. For the most part, I set up a firewall, and I set up the rules. If things don't work, I monitor it through the monitoring dashboard and try to figure it out. Cisco Secure Firewall has helped free up a lot of time for our IT staff. Apart from monitoring, unless somebody needs a firewall rule change or anything like that, there's no need to mess with it. Once we set it up, it just runs. The solution has helped our organization to improve its cybersecurity resilience. Being a firewall, by definition of the term, the product has improved our organization’s security. People should always evaluate other products. If you’re looking for a solid firewall, Cisco makes the choice so much simpler, especially now with FMC. We are able to apply policies easily and control different firewalls at the same time. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
GH
Jun 15, 2023
Very easy to accomplish content filtering, we don't need to do a lot of customization for it
We hope that Cisco will help us consolidate tools more than it is now by incorporating more IPS and IDS functionality. My advice to someone considering Cisco Umbrella would be to focus on how easy is to use the GUI and how easy it is to navigate. You pretty much just click a box and the content categories work. I would rate Cisco Umbrella a ten out of ten. If your needs vary by department, I would advise making different groups for different departments. It's easier to do it that way than to set it up and go back to tie it to different AV groups.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"I would say the Firepower module is most valuable. I'm trying more to transition to this kind firewall. I had to study a little on Palo Alto Networks equipment. There is a lot I have to learn about the difference."
"It's the VPN side of things that has been most useful for us. It allows us to secure our users even when they're working from home. They are able to access all of our resources, no matter where they are in the world."
"The stability is very good; there's no vagueness. Either it works or it doesn't, and it's also very easy to find out why."
"Sourcefire has been a great addition. The visibility and control have been nice."
"The Adversity Malware Protection (AMP) feature is the most valuable. It is also very easy to use. Every technical user can operate this solution without any difficulty. The dashboard of Cisco Firepower has every tool that a security operator needs. You can find every resource that you need to operate through this dashboard."
"We have not had to deal with stability issues."
"All the features except IPS are valuable. IPS is not a part of my job."
"It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
"By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature."
"The integration features within, for example, the Cisco VPN product and the Umbrella module are valuable."
"We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."
"It offers good visibility for the Administrator. The administrator has full visibility of what is blocked or has the knowledge of where users go when they are surfing the internet."
"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."
"There is much differentiation within the licensing so if anyone wants DNS security from the DNS security log, we are there already, and if anyone wants to go to a secure internet gateway, that is also available. We can get the integrated cloud DLP license keys. That is a good benefit with Cisco Umbrella. You can get a complete solution in a single licensing."
"Cisco Umbrella is absolutely stable."
 

Cons

"It integrates with other security products from Cisco, but sometimes, there can be glitches or errors."
"They could improve by having more skilled, high-level engineers that are available around the clock. I know that's an easy thing to say and a hard thing to do."
"It can probably provide a holistic view of different appliances because many customers do not have only one brand, besides the traditional SNMP protocols, to cover all their devices. There are some specific requirements in terms of configurations or actions that sometimes have to be done in a very manual way because of the different versions or brands in a customer's infrastructure. It could also have some additional analytics capabilities. It has some very interesting ways to monitor the traffic and identify false positives from the architecture and the environment. It would be good if there is a way to patch with some other industry-specific solutions and synchronize some of the information, such as what other customers experience in their operations and probably share some additional information that could be leveraged or shared among the industry. Such information would be something interesting to see. It could have AI capabilities related to how the appliances could benefit from learning the current environment and different exposures."
"They should improve their interface."
"In my experience, a number of engineers get tunnel vision with devices. This is exacerbated by vendors fostering a silo mentality in disciplines."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"Our latest experience with a code upgrade included a number of bugs and issues that we ran into. So more testing with their code, before it hits us, would help."
"I wish the Cisco interface was not so granular. Check Point was easier to create specific rules than with ASAv."
"The rule-making process for blocking sites or for blocking characteristics can use some simplification."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"I would like to see more integrability with other products."
"For us, as an MSP, the initial licensing changes were a roadblock, and they still could be a lot clearer. Specifically, it's an honor-based licensing system. We'd like it to be more specific to our traffic or our users so that we can make sure that the customer is paying for all their licensing."
"I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing was pretty comparable to other solutions when we purchased it."
"It requires additional licensing to enable 10G ports."
"It was initially heavy on my pocket, but it soon actualised its worth."
"Be sure of what features you are ​going to utilize to add/remove some from new bundles."
"I like the Smart Licensing, because it is more dynamic and easier to keep track of where you are at. If we have a high availability firewall pair and they are deployed in active/standby rather than active/active, I would expect that we would only pay for one set of licenses because you are using only one firewall at any one time. The other is there just for resiliency. The licensing, from a Firepower perspective, still requires you to have two licenses, even if the firewalls are in active/standby, which means that you pay for the two licenses, even though you might only be using one firewall any one time. This is probably not the best way to do it and doesn't represent the best value for money. This could be looked at to see if it could be done in a fairer way."
"That'd be more for my leadership, but I give them the quotes, and if they approve, they're happy. They've never wavered, so I wouldn't say it's out of the realm where they're considering another product. It must be in the direct price range for our leadership to not blink an eye when we give it to them."
"The product cost is a little high. It is a little bit on the high side, and it should be a little bit cost-friendly."
"The ROI is good. Using ASA, we have saved 10% to 20% on our costs."
"The price is quite good."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"The price could be lower."
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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
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
19%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ASA Firewall, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Cisco ASA, Adaptive Security Appliance, ASA, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
OpenDNS
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.