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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Cisco Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 4.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 13.8%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FireMon Security Manager13.8%
Cisco Security Cloud Control4.2%
Other82.0%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

FS
Security Engineer at Metrobank
Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…
SurajYadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Centralized policy governance has reduced audit effort and continuously improves risk visibility
I wish to see deeper and more customizable reporting and dashboards, as while the standard reports are useful for audits, operational teams sometimes need real-time, flexible views without exporting data. Tighter integrations with ticketing and change management tools would also enhance the workflow from request to implementation. FireMon Security Manager is excellent for policy governance and risk reduction, but better real-time dashboards and stronger workflow integrations would make it even more powerful for daily operations. There are one or two areas where FireMon Security Manager could be improved to make it even stronger. While FireMon Security Manager overall delivers solid governance and risk insight, it would benefit from more flexible dashboards and deeper integrations to reduce manual steps and improve visibility without relying on external tools. I rate FireMon Security Manager an 8 out of 10. It is a strong tool for firewall policy management, risk analysis, and compliance, clearly improving our audit process and policy governance. The reason I do not give it a 9 out of 10 is mainly because the dashboard could be more flexible and integration with the firewalls could be smoother. FireMon Security Manager is a reliable and high-value platform for managing and governing firewall policies, especially in a multi-vendor environment, though a few areas can still be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward; we spun up the VM onsite, generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator, and after that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy."
"We have quite a few Active Stone by pairs. If they fail over... I'll see that there's a change on it and I'll have a look. The only change on it is that now this one is the standby, it took over the active role. I can go into that firewall and find out what happened... and troubleshoot based on that. That's pretty cool too."
"If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time."
"The most valuable feature is being able to do centralized upgrades on the ASAs. We can select all of those ASAs, and say, "Upgrade these ASAs at this scheduled time." It will copy down the ASA image, ASDM image, and then do the upgrade and failovers, and then put it all back into service as required at a scheduled time. It automates that process for us."
"We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."
"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."
"I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement."
"The unused objects is another nice feature, where it digs a little bit deeper into comparing the logs that it sees versus the configurations that it sees... The unused objects feature will go through in a pretty detailed way and show us which ones aren't being used. Or, if they are used, it will show us how often they're used."
"The automation that the platform provides to create tickets reduces human error and more generally, reduces the operational overhead."
"FireMon Security Manager is worth buying and worth its money in terms of return on investment."
"Firewall auditing is very important; we also use the solution for rule traffic analysis, traffic flow discovery, and hidden/shadow rules within over 100 firewalls spanning five different brands."
"It provides us with a single pane of glass for our on-prem environment, to see configuration. We have not implemented into the cloud yet. We can search for an object group and see where it lives on any firewall in the enterprise or find security rules, no matter what firewall they're on."
"FireMon Security Manager delivers ROI through significant time savings, cleaner rule bases, and improved risk visibility, especially for organizations with complex multi-vendor firewalls."
"Going back to the complex rules, it has literally prevented devices from falling over and dying; it's maintained uptime, which is invaluable when you're dealing with millions of customers connecting through one firewall."
 

Cons

"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."
"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."
"I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible."
"If I had to say anything negative it's the price point."
"I'd like CDO to be the one-stop-shop where we could do all the configurations easily. It would be nice, for ASA upgrades, if we could do them from a central repository and not have to reach out to Cisco. That would be a definite plus."
"They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments."
"There could be some slight improvements to navigation."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"The current health and monitoring of the devices is atrocious... Imagine you have a list of 200 devices, and you can grade each of those devices as either green, yellow, or red. However, there might be three different reasons for you to go to red, or eight different reasons to go to yellow, and all of those things could be combined... Out of all those categories, I only find one or two of them that are, perhaps, pertinent."
"Our firewalls have multiple paths through them and FireMon falls short a little bit because it's not Palo Alto-centric. I don't think FireMon has kept up with where Palo Alto is at. They started out being Check Point-centric for years and they've never really fully embraced the nuances others, like Palo Alto or Fortinet, have. They don't handle a lot of the capabilities and attributes that Palo Alto does yet. They're working on it. They're getting there."
"One area for 7.x customers that needs improvement is the migration. It is an involved process so get ready to spend some time getting your environment back to the way it was."
"I can mention a ton of areas with room for improvement, but from a high-level standpoint, I just don't think version 8 was ready for prime time yet."
"We don't quite like the web interface. We enjoy the so-called Fact Client a lot better because it just gives a bit more of the opportunities to work with the software faster."
"Customer support is moderate."
"We are also looking for more integration with SIEM and other tools."
"FireMon Security Manager requires maintenance on my end. We have to pull retrievals, and the retrievals fail many times, and sometimes they succeed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."
"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."
"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"Pricing model seems fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise48
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
It does save time and money both because otherwise you would have to review the firewall configuration by hand or manually, whereas FireMon Security Manager automates it. In terms of money, you wil...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
I think there are some disadvantages and areas for improvement. What is limited or has no capability in FireMon Security Manager is integration with all the cloud-based firewall native vendors. For...
What is your primary use case for FireMon?
FireMon Security Manager is mainly used for analyzing firewall configuration and rules. It is primarily for firewall analysis and configuration analysis of the firewall. We work with FireMon Securi...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.