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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
11th
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
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (46th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 4.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 7.4%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Skybox Security Suite7.4%
Cisco Security Cloud Control4.7%
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

"It is saving us at least a week's worth of work because we can log in and instantly see what version all the ASAs are at and which ones need to be upgraded."
"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution, and it provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."
"For one particular client, we had almost a 20 percent remediation on some of their equipment as a result of all kinds of attacks from the desktop department, and we got them down to a zero percent remediation."
"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."
"Once it was up and running, I could see value from it straight away, in the first minute."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion prevention."
"We are using this solution for filtering and blocking some websites, as a firewall, and as the main tool for network segmentation and intrusion prevention, blocking malware and malicious activity."
"Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integration is easy, and I have integrated it with Fortinet firewalls."
"Skybox allows organizations to reprioritize the vulnerability they attempt to patch and mitigate, based on the contextual awareness of the network."
"The solution offers very nice dashboards and they've recently added a very good Java-based web interface."
"I would definitely recommend this solution; if you have a complex network with more than 20 firewalls, or you are managing a data center with a lot of security challenges, it is better to go with this solution."
"We use Network Assurance for network visualisation and troubleshooting."
"Skybox Security is one of greatest solutions for this because you can see the firewall and the network infrastructure and you understand what's happening and how it could impact your cybersecurity."
"Skybox Security Suite was a very good tool for my organization."
"It's given us more visibility in terms of what are the kinds of configurations that are on these devices, and how many of these are stale rules. So it's helped greatly in terms of cleaning up of rules, for sure. And it has definitely given us a more secure way of backing up the configuration on these devices."
 

Cons

"If I had to say anything negative it's the price point."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"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."
"We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue."
"Right now, there's no benefit to doing changes through CDO; it doesn't save me time."
"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 should make it more of a one-stop shop for everything. It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."
"There could be some slight improvements to navigation."
"There is room for improvement in pricing. It would be better, especially if a customer bought all four modules."
"The vendor's support is terrible."
"If anything could be improved it would be staying on top of the collector scripts, but I understand that's a very tough challenge."
"Firewall Change Management has to be improved with rules provisioning on firewalls because that is where the competition is going and is what customers need."
"Skybox should improve their UX features by making them easier to use."
"Skybox Security Suite can improve the change management module. It is the one part of the tool that is used with the firewall devices and you have a change management module that is used to record changes of all firewalls in the company. It's not compatible with all brands, this is where they can improve the solution."
"The solution does not support certain devices or vendors in some regions or countries due to regulations."
"The solution was quite technical. It would be easier to manage if the solution was more specific about aspects of the solution and provided more advisory around how to use it effectively. It would help users a lot if they were more clear about everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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 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."
"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."
"The pricing is high, and the licensing model needs more flexibility."
"I rate the pricing two on a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is cost-effective."
"Fully understand the total cost of ownership. They have gone to a new model where you have to replace the hardware every X amount of years at a very substantial cost and fully understand your intended number of nodes. To operate a firewall, you have to pay two licenses, a firewall node and a network node. If you are a reasonable-sized organization, this gets expensive very quickly."
"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."
"Pricing is on the higher side. In terms of licensing, you should buy the complete suite rather than buying only the Change Manager. I think Change Manager with Vulnerability Control is something that would be interesting to look at."
"I think the price is fair."
"It's expensive."
"The licensing fee is paid yearly and is approximately $100,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
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 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.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.