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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Hillstone CloudEdge comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 2026

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
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
591
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), 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
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
459
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Ranking in Firewalls
50th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 16.0%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 7.6%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone CloudEdge is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate16.0%
Cisco Secure Firewall7.6%
Hillstone CloudEdge0.3%
Other76.1%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
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.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In almost every case, I've experienced (or had customers experience) an ROI within 12 months, based on better performance for the same price or increased functionality for the same (or less) price."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"The ease of use, concise reports, and threat identification are very user-friendly and valuable."
"It provides security purposes, and it makes our network safe from outside attacks."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"SSL VPN, Site to Site VPN, UTM features and web override are nice features."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The deep packet inspection is useful, but the most useful feature is application awareness. You can filter on the app rather than on a static TCP port."
"We found the initial setup to be easy."
"We calculated for the entire year, but the ROI seemed very decent from the first six months."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"It improved our security; it keeps the outsiders on the outside and enables us to monitor the content that's going out from within the organization."
"Cisco products are on the pricier side; that said, they're worth it."
"It is a security device, and it is useful for securing our environment."
"It has improved our organization's security posture dramatically and has definitely given us modern protection and peace of mind in terms of attacks against our infrastructure from known or emerging threats, so we can be protected against them."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling."
"There's always something new that can be added or fixed."
"At the moment, if you don't integrate any third-party solution with a simple Fortinet FortiGate box, the box would not function as expected for superb protection."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"It takes a long time to install the solution."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"A memory leakage issue which literally freeze the nodes (we have an HA environment). The issue is still not solved and the only recommendation from Cisco is to reboot the node."
"Sometimes my customers say that Cisco Firewalls are a bit more difficult compared to Fortigate or Palo Alto. There is complexity in the configuration and the GUI could be improved."
"Other products are becoming easier to access and configure. They are providing UI interfaces to configure, take backup, synchronize redundant machines, and so on. It is very easy to take backup and upgrade the images in those products. Cisco ASA should have such features. If one redundant machine is getting upgraded, the technology and support should be there to upgrade other redundant machines. In a single window, we should be able to do more in terms of backups, restores, and upgrades."
"It just doesn't have any. It's just a box which does firewalling."
"On firewall features, Fortinet is better. Cisco needs to become more competitive and add more features or meet Fortinet's offering."
"The most valuable features of the product are the VPN and the NextGen firewall features such as application control, URL filtering, etc."
"Basic setup is easy, but if you need to do some advanced stuff, it can be intuitive, but some things require some kind of tutorial to understand how it can be done."
"The security features in the URL category need more improvement."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is around $50,000 per month."
"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."
"They are very competitive, but we like to have the factory warranty taken care of."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."
"I think that the pricing is fair."
"We pay $500 per year for the license."
"The solution is cheap."
"Cisco is cheaper than Check Point although it is not as cheap as Fortigate. But with the latest improvements in hardware and speed, the pricing is okay."
"Their pricing is very aggressive and good. Even a small company can afford it. I am happy with its pricing. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is very good for us, especially since we have a partnership with Cisco. The challenge is the licensing. There are competitors that offer more flexible licensing, such as daily licensing, some offer hourly, but Cisco is locked in for one, three, and five years. We don't have much flexibility, especially if we want to shift applications or shift users at any time. Hopefully, licensing becomes more flexible."
"It would be nice if pricing could do more to reflect the economy of the country where the product is being implemented."
"Cisco is not really cheap, but there is great technology behind it."
"Cisco's prices are more or less comparable to those of other products."
"We sell Cisco ASA Firewall as a bundle — the price is very cheap. If a customer were to go for renewal direct from Cisco, then the price would be quite high."
"The pricing is fair compared to competitors."
Information not available
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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%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business367
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business191
Midsize Enterprise129
Large Enterprise232
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 a...
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 needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
 

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.
LinkTime
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Hillstone CloudEdge and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.