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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
429
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (7th)
Cisco Vulnerability Managem...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 6.9%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall6.9%
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)1.8%
Other91.3%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers contextual prioritization and risk-based remediation of vulnerability
An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite. There are a lot of GRC suites available, like Archer, MetricStream, Rsam, Protiviti, for example. So how would a solution like this work if my company has already invested thousands or maybe millions in a GRC solution? Do I still need it and how does it fit into an existing SAP environment? There could be interoperability, having more data sources, integrating Splunk, Qualys, FireEye, Rapid7, Carbon Black. I'm sure all that can be done to an extent, with a little more insight and a little more accuracy on the industry numbers and trends. I'd like the solution to offer any sort of assistance in any way with the remediation part, not just identification of vulnerability risk, and that is second.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best features is the ease of use. It's also easy to teach new engineers to use the ASA CLI."
"The high-availability and remote VPN features are most valuable."
"Its VPN and ASN features are very stable."
"All the rules are secure and we haven't had a significant malware attack in the five years that we've been using ASA Firewall. It has been a tremendous improvement for our network. However, I can't quantify the benefits in monetary terms."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"We can shift traffic, block certain content, or redirect policies."
"The dashboard is the most important thing. It provides good visibility and makes management easy. Firepower also provides us with good application visibility and control."
"The IPS, as well as the malware features, are the two things that we use the most and they're very valuable."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
 

Cons

"It will be nice if they had what you traditionally would use a web application scanner for. If the solution could take a deeper look into HTTP and HTTPS traffic, that would be nice."
"The change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area."
"It would be great if some of the load times were faster."
"The IPS module is combined with the main operating system."
"The Cisco Firewall UI could be improved."
"It should be easier for the IT management or the admin to configure products. For example, the firewall products are not very straightforward for many users. They should be easier to configure and should be more straightforward."
"I would like to see more configurable feature parity with Cisco ASA, which is the legacy product that Cisco is moving away from. When configuring remote access VPN, not all of the options are there. You have to download another tool, which means that the configuration takes a little bit longer with Cisco Secure Firewall. Though it's getting there, there are still some features lagging behind."
"It doesn't have Layer 7 security."
"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All our requirements which we need performed by the firewall (e.g. VPN, URL white-listing, or IP based white-listing, etc.) have separate licenses and costs."
"This product is expensive."
"The cost is a big factor for us. This is why we are using it only in our restricted area. They are very much higher than their competitors in the market."
"We are happy with its price. Licensing is on a yearly basis for technical support. There is one license for technical support. There is another license for IP Version 2 VPN and IPS."
"The solution’s pricing could be lower."
"The pricing and licensing structure of the firewall is fair and reasonable."
"The pricing is fair."
"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."
"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
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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
19%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Retailer
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business181
Midsize Enterprise126
Large Enterprise212
No data available
 

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 ...
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Also Known As

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall, Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Virtual - BYOL
Kenna.VM, Kenna Security, Kenna, Kenna Security Platform
 

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.
TransUnion
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco and others in Cisco Security Portfolio. Updated: September 2025.
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