We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Perimeter 81 based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall offers strong threat defense capabilities, allows for application visibility, seamlessly integrates with other Cisco products, and provides high throughput. Perimeter 81 excels in offering a convenient single sign-on feature, easy configuration options, the ability to manage multiple networks, and efficient customer service.
Cisco Secure Firewall could enhance its network performance, policy administration, customization options, advanced features, management interface, deployment time, integration with other tools, and logging functionality. Perimeter 81 has room for improvement in defining different locations, login instances, user interface customization, tutorials, session timeouts, login/logout process, dashboards, QoS, traffic shaping, network traffic balancing, redundancy, security capabilities, and speed of upload and download.
Service and Support: Cisco Secure Firewall's customer service has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers have commended the technical support provided, but others have encountered delays and challenges. Perimeter 81's customer service has garnered mostly favorable reviews, as customers have found their support to be prompt and beneficial.
Ease of Deployment: Users had varying experiences with the initial setup of Cisco Secure Firewall, with opinions being divided on its ease of use. Perimeter 81 was widely regarded as user-friendly and straightforward during the initial setup process, offering an intuitive interface and effortless connectivity.
Pricing: Reviewers have different opinions on the setup cost of Cisco Secure Firewall. Some consider it expensive because of additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Users find Perimeter 81 to be reasonably priced and beneficial, offering various pricing options tailored to individual requirements.
ROI: The effectiveness of Cisco Secure Firewall in terms of return on investment depends on the specific use case and architecture of the organization. Some customers have reported positive outcomes while others have expressed dissatisfaction. Perimeter 81 has the capability to deliver a favorable ROI. Reviewers have mentioned the quick implementation process and the potential for cost savings.
Comparison Results: Perimeter 81 is the preferred option when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Perimeter 81 to be easy and user-friendly, in contrast to mixed reviews regarding Cisco Secure Firewall's initial setup, with some users finding it difficult. Perimeter 81 stands out for its single sign-on feature, easy configuration, and user-friendly interface.
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The greatest benefit that this has provided to our organization is that we've been able to adjust the time that it takes to implement firewall changes. It's gone from a week to less than half a day to implement a change, which means that our DevOps team can be much more agile, and there is much less overhead on the firewall team."
"The most valuable feature is that it has the ability to divide the network into three parts; internal, external, and DMZ."
"I have not contacted technical support. There is a lot of information on the internet for troubleshooting. All you need to do is use a search engine and you will find the information you are looking for easily."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We can see that it gets even better with every release."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"The most valuable features are the provision of internet access, AnyConnect, and VPN capabilities."
"What I found the most valuable about Cisco Secure Firewall is that if a client is educated about the solution, it can help him or her avoid many problems and mistakes."
"It keeps us all accountable and ensures secure internet connections while we all work remotely."
"SD-WAN is one of the primary solutions offered by Perimeter 81."
"The feature that I have found to be most valuable is the reputation that the company has regarding privacy. Nowadays, this is critical, especially when you do all of your work online."
"The benefits are really built into the underlying protocol, however, Perimeter81 makes these available in a user-friendly way."
"It has provided a seamless gateway to much-needed platforms."
"It connects quickly and stays connected. The user interface is pretty neat too. The app has in-house support with user guides that give you step-by-step walkthroughs on navigating the app. In addition, there is a live chat feature that offers prompt assistance on the go."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The setup is really easy...I rate the support team a ten out of ten."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The reports are very basic."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"They should work on making it a little more intuitive for users and not quite as complex. Still, it's a good product."
"We're getting support but there's a big delay until we get a response from their technical team. They're in the USA and we're in Africa, so that's the difficulty. When they're in the office, they respond."
"The stability is not the best."
"Critical bugs need to be addressed before releasing the version."
"The ability to integrate (as options) all-in-one features -- like anti-spam, anti-virus, etc."
"Migration with other appliances is not easy. It has to be done manually, and this takes a long time."
"Cisco should work on ASDM. One of the biggest drawbacks of Cisco ASA is ASDM GUI. Cisco should improve the ASDM GUI. The configuration through ASDM is really difficult as compared to CLI. Sometimes when you are doing the configuration in ASDM, it suddenly crashes. It also crashes while pushing a policy. Cisco should really work on this."
"The ASA has become a bit old and needs updating."
"Currently, I am not able to define a different country or location, which can result in negative experiences as the tool is being recognized by websites and this can make it difficult to access them or force me to disable the program temporarily."
"Offering in-app explanations detailing what each feature does, its benefits and potential use cases can help users better understand and utilize the tool to its full potential."
"The overall UI could be improved and updated to bring a simpler feel to the application."
"I don't know if it is technically feasible, however, if the Desktop App could be used as a Web App or a Chrome Extension it would be very nice."
"If I were to be nitpicky, I would ask that Perimeter 81 offer the option for us to change the color of the graphical user interface, like maybe pink or green or so on."
"The platform still lacks relevant dashboards and the ability to customize them based on our needs."
"In order to have to bypass the login using the website, a good feature for Perimeter 81 to have is a login instance in the Perimeter 81 application. I'm using a Mac and we don't have that functionality."
"There is a very small amount of downtime."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Perimeter 81 is ranked 11th in Firewalls with 22 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Perimeter 81 is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Perimeter 81 writes "Great SAML and SCIM support with the ability to deploy site-2-site tunnels with specific IP restrictions". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Perimeter 81 is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare Access and Tailscale. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Perimeter 81 report.
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