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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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
Skybox Security Suite
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (50th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 4.3%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 7.8%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Skybox Security Suite7.8%
Cisco Security Cloud Control4.3%
Other87.9%
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,…
AnoopBhat - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Firewall policy management has improved access control but still needs simpler setup and upgrades
The features that I appreciated the most in Skybox Security Suite were not comparable with Tufin, as Tufin was far ahead in terms of the technology and the user interface. The effectiveness of the vulnerability management in Skybox Security Suite is an area I have not used that much. The firewall management feature has streamlined rule configuration and compliance in Skybox Security Suite and has evolved over time, but Tufin is far better. In terms of comparison between both tools, only the licensing part of Skybox had an edge. We were not renewing the licenses of Skybox every year, but in the case of other tools, we would have to renew if we wanted to use those tools. The disadvantages and weaknesses of Skybox Security Suite include the interface, complexity with setup, and upgrading. There are some smaller issues as well that would take more time to discuss, but there are ways around them. We use this tool to implement a new policy on the firewall by going to Skybox, creating a flow there, and then using an approval mechanism in place. There are two different levels of approvals which we have to go through, and once both approvers approve the request, we are ready to implement it. A specific challenge is that if we have to create a new object group and place ten different objects in that and use that object group in two different rules, we have to create the object group in the first rule and add the ten new objects. Then if we have to create another rule, we do not get an option to recall or reuse that same group which we created in the previous rule. We have to create a new object group again and then add the objects into it again. If we had created an object group once, we should have gotten an option to recall that or call that object group in the new rule, and that should have made the process easier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"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."
"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."
"There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people."
"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."
"Before CDO, we had to spend hours and hours to update ten devices, but now, with one simple click, we select the devices, set them to update on a given day, save different configurations, and it's pretty simple and a great feature for us."
"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."
"Skybox allows organizations to reprioritize the vulnerability they attempt to patch and mitigate, based on the contextual awareness of the network."
"The solution's most valuable and unique assets are the vulnerability management and change management solutions because they identify mistakes in the network before implementation which reduces risks."
"Understanding the real exposure from vulnerabilities and associated assets can reduce the time and investment needed to mitigate risks."
"I would recommend others to try Skybox Security Suite before purchasing it because it replaces a couple of solutions from different vendors."
"Skybox Security Suite is cost-effective."
"This type of tool does a great job of reaching into those other devices producing risk recommendations, compliance recommendations, and a single plane of glass to do your queries, so you can find where these rules might exist."
"What we have done is found a lot of misconfigured stuff on firewalls."
"The initial setup process was easy."
 

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."
"They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments."
"They should make it more of a one-stop shop for everything. It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
"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."
"The tool does not offer options for customization."
"The features that I appreciated the most in Skybox Security Suite were not comparable with Tufin, as Tufin was far ahead in terms of the technology and the user interface."
"Skybox should improve their UX features by making them easier to use."
"The solution needs improvement in firewall configuration checks. I would also like to see more configuration checks for Forcepoint and for other non-supported firewalls."
"The company made bad business decisions impacting many clients and their own staff. Reporting could have been improved, and feature requests often were not implemented."
"Change Manager can be improved. Currently, this functionality is not there because of which we are sometimes losing customers."
"I've had issues with licensing where, when they were expiring and I asked for the updated licenses, I would the wrong ones. I think their process needs to be straightened out a little bit - I don't know if they fixed it already, it has been awhile. It wasn't as straightforward as it could have been."
"Reporting. A lot of the reports, out of the box, are limited to a certain number of either configuration violations or access rule violations. So when you first set up a new firewall to be monitored by Skybox, you don't get a real full report. You have to really tweak it to get everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"Currently, the licensing costs me about $300 USD for the year. This is a huge amount for my environment."
"The licensing fee is paid yearly and is approximately $100,000."
"I've seen the pricing of every solution on the market. When you compare apples to apples, where Skybox becomes exceedingly expensive is if you look at it compared to something like FireMon that only does a fraction of what Skybox does. But if you include everything that Skybox does, it becomes way more expensive than the competition, but you're also not comparing apples to apples. If you look at FireMon, and you look at like just the firewall assurance piece, they are fairly comparable and, actually, Skybox comes in a little bit cheaper in some cases, depending on which product you're looking at."
"Licensing is normally on a yearly basis. There may also be a perpetual license. Normally, the customers ask for a lower price. If you want to sell more, you have to think about it."
"The price is not expensive."
"I think the price is fair."
"Skybox comes with extra licenses and has a change management license. The licenses are expensive, but they come with extra value."
"With licensing, the number of network nodes becomes very expensive to the point where you have to rationalize if the tools are warranted anymore."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
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 Enterprise4
Large Enterprise21
 

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 Skybox Security Suite?
From a commercial perspective, AlgoSec is more expensive compared to Skybox Security Suite. Skybox Security Suite is cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?
The features that I appreciated the most in Skybox Security Suite were not comparable with Tufin, as Tufin was far ahead in terms of the technology and the user interface. The effectiveness of the ...
What is your primary use case for Skybox Security Suite?
Skybox Security Suite is primarily used for allowing access on firewalls and getting the access to allow some connectivity on the firewall.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. Skybox Security Suite and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.