We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiOS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The technical support is great."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The solution is stable."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The most valuable feature is the anti-malware protection. It protects the endpoints on my network."
"It's a flexible solution and is well-known in the community."
"If you compare the ASA and the FirePOWER, the best feature with FirePOWER is easy to use GUI. It has most of the same functionality in the Next-Generation FirePOWER, such as IPS, IPS policies, security intelligence, and integration and identification of all the devices or hardware you have in your network. Additionally, this solution is user-friendly."
"Stability, high availability of services, and very high MTBU were the most valuable features for me."
"This solution made our organization more secure and gave us better control."
"I like them mostly because they don't break and they have great diagnostics."
"The main thing that I love the most is its policy and objects. Whenever I try to give access to a user, I can create an object via group creation in the object fields. This way, I am not able to enter a user in the policy repeatedly."
"If configured, Firepower provides us with application visibility and control."
"Compared to other firewalls, the segmentation is much easier in FortiGate."
"Fortinet has optimized the WAN environment for connecting users to the application."
"We've been happy with the pricing."
"I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance."
"All networks are security-driven, we get throughputs and security. We feel that the people at Fortinet are easy to deal with from a support standpoint. If they need to jump in and help us, they're very willing to do that. Their email filtering, their data loss prevention, their intrusion prevention, type of products in the newest OSs has been outstanding."
"FortiOS allows us to set up alarms for blocked websites and SSL verifications. When someone tries to access a blocked site, the solution sends a notification to the IT manager's mailbox."
"A good network security system for medium-sized businesses with an excellent GUI interface that gives a graphic view of network status."
"The technical support on offer has always been quite good."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"I would like for them to develop better integration with other security platforms."
"The stability could be better because we have a lot of issues with the stability of Cisco Firepower."
"I have found that Cisco reporting capabilities are not as rich as other products, so the reporting could be improved."
"The user interface isn't as good as it could be. They should work to improve it. It would make it easier for customer management if it was easier to use."
"I wouldn't give them a ten. Nobody is perfect. I'll give them a nine because they help me with any issues I've had."
"It is confusing to have two management interfaces, e.g., ASDM and Firepower Management Center."
"Antivirus features must be integrated for end user security."
"An area of improvement for this solution is the console visualization."
"FortiOS's bandwidth and interface could be improved."
"The support is not very good, but the product is stable so it is not so much of a problem."
"Could be improved by supporting an allocation of quota base management regarding user data."
"I would like to see the features of FortiAnalyzer included in Fortinet FortiOS. Right now, you're required to have an additional license and a different device for features such as processing the log, reporting, and analyzing traffic."
"FortiOS's interface and monitoring could be improved."
"I would like to see smaller and more frequent updates."
"FortiOS doesn't work well with all browsers. I think they need to do a better job of making it compatible with the various browsers that are out there."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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