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Cisco Secure Firewall vs HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) comparison

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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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
592
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
464
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP)
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Managed Cloud Services (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall7.5%
Fortinet FortiGate15.1%
OPNsense8.5%
Other68.9%
Firewalls
Managed Cloud Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP)8.3%
HPE GreenLake19.7%
Everpure Evergreen One18.5%
Other53.5%
Managed Cloud Services
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Phil Shiflett - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager, Network Engineering at TTi Power Equipment
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.
reviewer2784489 - PeerSpot reviewer
operations Manager at a university with 10,001+ employees
Unified dashboards have streamlined device management and support has resolved issues faster
The best features HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) offers are probably the ease of usability, the observability, and the transparency. When I mention observability and transparency, those features help me in my work by keeping everything in my view; I don't need to juggle between different platforms, as everything serves as a one unified solution. About transparency, things are crystal clear and laid out openly, making it much easier for consumers like us who manage tons of devices all in one unified platform. HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) has positively impacted my organization by making the whole problem-solving process easier, as if there are any ticket issues, things get resolved more easily compared to our previous services. Issues get resolved much more quickly now, with most of these solutions being almost readily available, and if escalated to a support team, we get a quicker response time, as opposed to the previous solution which involved a lot of back and forth and consumed a lot more time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integrated management would probably be the most valuable feature."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"What I appreciate the most about Fortinet FortiGate is that it has a very large integration using Fabric, which they call Fabric Connectors."
"We receive substantial help from Fortinet, which is very valuable as they assist us in choosing the right solutions. If we need configuration assistance, they can send specialists who help design the solution."
"The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The solution protects the environment from internal and external threats."
"The product is easy to configure."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"If you compare the ASA and the FirePOWER, the best feature with FirePOWER is easy to use GUI, as 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, and additionally, this solution is user-friendly."
"Their hardware can handle substantial amounts of data without causing latency."
"The most valuable feature would be the IP blocking. It gets rid of things that you don't need in your environment."
"Regarding the zero-trust security model, Cisco Secure Firewall helps our company. Our students and staff have the ability to do whatever they need to do with their research. It helps them while keeping security top of mind."
"The most valuable feature must be AnyConnect; we have quite a few customers who use it, it is easy to use and the stablest thing that we have, and we have experienced some issues on all our VPN clients, but AnyConnect has been the stablest one."
"Cisco is powerful when it comes to detecting intrusions."
"Basic firewalling is obviously the most valuable. In addition to that, secure access and remote access are also very useful for us."
"The ease of accessing passwords and using Vault has positively impacted my team's workflow and productivity, as it changes the way my team handles sensitive credentials."
"The solution's most valuable feature is infrastructure as code (IaC)."
"I appreciate the consistency that HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) offers because I can create an environment once, add variables, and deploy them to multiple environments in a short span of time."
"HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) has positively impacted my organization by helping us reduce the number of mistakes made in the infrastructure, and we can keep all the standards."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) has positively impacted my organization by bringing efficiency and increasing productivity."
"The tool's documentation is excellent. It's well-organized, easy to use, simple, and easily readable. I can usually find answers to my questions quickly in the docs."
"HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) has positively impacted my organization by making the whole problem-solving process easier, as if there are any ticket issues, things get resolved more easily compared to our previous services."
 

Cons

"Zero trust could be added. Nowadays, solutions like Zscaler, Netskope, and even SecureWorks combine multiple features into a single product."
"They should provide us with a CSV number for patch updates. It will help us block specific signatures as well."
"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."
"There's a limitation wherein you can only have about 30 virtual or secondary IPs on a particular interface."
"We understand that FortiGate cannot be standalone without others, such as FortiManager, so for small businesses, if FortiGate can provide something similar to FortiManager, it will be better."
"In FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), my concern regarding improvements is the licensing model."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"The solution’s stability could be improved."
"While this applies to all vendors, pricing can be always lower. In my opinion, Cisco is the most expensive. The pricing can be reduced."
"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."
"The Sandbox and the Web Censoring in this solution need to be improved."
"In Firepower, there is an ability to search and dig into a search, which is nice. However, I'm not a super fan of the way it scrolls."
"When we're looking at full-stack visibility, it can be difficult to get the right information out of Firepower."
"Cisco should redo their website so it's actually usable in a faster way."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's licensing model can be improved, as I struggle with it in an air-gapped environment."
"License and appliance costs are more expensive as compared to other vendors on the market."
"I think HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) can be improved by creating a module for audit to make access to logs easier and to improve the auditability of who is accessing which vaults at which time and being able to generate that information in a report."
"From an improvement perspective, there is a need to ensure some bug fixes."
"I don't have enough experience with HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) yet to have any recommendations for improvement at this time, but I would suggest speeding up the process."
"I have encountered a problem when updating modules required by policy changes, as the existing infrastructure sometimes gets deleted."
"You need knowledge and experience to use Terraform, Vault, and other HashiCorp tools."
"If HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) could implement a way to configure the machines internally, and not only the cloud infrastructure provisioning and the boxes, and if they also added a way that we can easily configure the package or deploy applications inside the boxes, it would be fantastic."
"It would be good if college or university students could explore HashiCorp Cloud Platform to a certain extent as an open-source solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Other firewalls are more expensive than Fortinet FortiGate, such as the Azure firewall."
"Fortinet FortiGate's price can be reduced."
"The licensing cost is at the intermediate level."
"Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
"Fortinet has more device options that are affordable for small businesses than Palo Alto, and its enterprise-level models are also cheaper. Palo Alto also has a separate license for VPN connections and SD-WAN, but FortiGate offers these features standard."
"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."
"As far as I'm aware, in our case, it's just a yearly pricing arrangement with no additional licensing costs."
"Fortinet FortiGate is expensive."
"The price is fair. It's not the cheapest, but it's not bad."
"Always consider what you might need to reduce your wasted time and invest it in other solutions."
"Cisco is always expensive, but you get what you pay for. It is expensive for a reason. It is a good solution, and good solutions cost money."
"Pretty much everything is included in the price for what we are using."
"You get what you pay for. It's always priced based on what you get and what it can handle. It's acceptable."
"When we purchased the firewall, we had to take the security license for IPS, malware protection, and VPN. If we are using high availability, we have to take a license for that. We also have to pay for hardware support and technical support. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Cisco Firepower is a great solution, but it is expensive compared to others that can provide similar benefits for much less."
"I am not a huge fan of Cisco licensing in general."
"For my side, the tool is not expensive. It is a very flexible product that you can utilize. I think the tool is a little bit expensive for smaller companies, especially startups."
"The solution's pricing is moderate according to industry standard prices."
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Consultant at Webernetz.net - Network Security Consulting
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
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business370
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise195
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise130
Large Enterprise236
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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 Fort...
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 Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP)?
I was not part of the team that handled the pricing, setup cost, and licensing, so I don't handle that.
What needs improvement with HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP)?
I am not entirely sure about how HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) could improve, as I don't have anything on top of my ...
What is your primary use case for HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP)?
My main use case for HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) is that we've been using Azure, and we recently switched to Hashi...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
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
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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.
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