We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Network Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, with all other factors being more or less equal, Cisco Secure Firewall comes in a bit ahead of Palo Alto simply because of their stronger support.
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"We definitely feel more secure. We have more control over things going in and out of our network."
"FMC is very good in terms of giving a lot of visibility into what the firewall is seeing, what it's stopping, and what it's letting through. It lets the administrator have a little bit of knowledge of what's coming in or out of the device. It's excellent."
"One of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now."
"It helped us a lot with our VPNs for the home office during COVID. There has been more security and flexibility for VPNs and other applications."
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"We feel that we can trust the security, and our assets and business are well protected. We need to have trust in it, but we also see that it works. We have a security company that has tested that it works."
"The Packet Tracer is a really good tool. If someone calls because they're having problems, you can easily create fake traffic without having to do an extended packet capture. You can see, straight away, if there's a firewall rule allowing that traffic in the direction you're trying to troubleshoot."
"The graphic user interface of Palo Alto is good and it's easy to configure."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"A good tool for file scanning and email threat detection, especially when it comes to attachments and communications."
"The analysis is very fast."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good."
"I love the idea of Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It's more geared toward preventing malware. If someone's laptop or phone is malware-infected, the tool prevents it from uploading valuable corporate data outside the corporate network. That's what I love about Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It stops malware in its tracks."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Lacks training for new features."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"Cisco ASDM is a problem because it is old."
"Maybe the dashboard could be a bit better."
"The only improvement that we could make is maybe [regarding] the roadmap, to have better visibility as to what we are targeting ahead in the next few quarters."
"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."
"Cisco is still catching up with its Firepower Next-Generation firewalls."
"I would like to see them update the GUI so that it doesn't look like it was made in 1995."
"When we're looking at full-stack visibility, it can be difficult to get the right information out of Firepower."
"For what we use it for, it ends up being the perfect product for us, but it would help if they could expand it into some of the other areas and other use cases working with speeding up and the reliability of the pushes from the policy manager."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"I don't think it needs to improve anything, except maybe the speed to deploy the changes."
"The configuration should be made a little bit easier. I understand why it is as it is, but there should be a way to make it easier from the user side."
"The solution can improve its traffic management."
"In terms of what I'd like to see in the next release of Palo Alto Networks WildFire, each release is based on malware that has been identified. The key problem is an average of six months from the time malware is written to the time it's discovered and a signature is created for it. The only advice that I can give is for them to shorten that timeframe. I don't know how they would do it, but if they shorten that, for example, cut it in half, they'll make themselves more famous."
"The cost of this solution could still be improved, in particular, giving product discounts for charitable causes."
"The system performance degrades after the solution has been deployed for some time. The data that it gives us becomes a little bit slow. When you try to get some data for troubleshooting, it seems like it's working hard to extract that data."
"High availability features are lacking."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 118 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 21 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "The ability to implement dynamic policies for dynamic environments is important, given the fluidity in the world of security". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Intuitive, stable, and scalable zero-day threat prevention solution with a machine learning feature". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Meraki MX, Netgate pfSense, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Sophos XG and Check Point NGFW, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox, Zscaler Internet Access and Check Point SandBlast Network.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.