We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate comes out on top. Its ease of deployment combined with its solid set of features and excellent service and support ratings make it a more desirable solution than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"Sourcefire has been a great addition. The visibility and control have been nice."
"Malicious URLs are being blocked."
"The most valuable features are the provision of internet access, AnyConnect, and VPN capabilities."
"When it comes to the integration among Cisco tools, we find it easy. It's a very practical integration with other components as well."
"The remote access, VPN, and ACL features are valuable. We are using role-based access for individuals."
"It just works for us."
"To be honest, all of the features that are provided, all the other vendor will also have. One feature we did find valuable was the CLI, it is more accurate. Additionally, I was happy with the customization, dashboards, access lists and interface."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The solution is stable."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"It's very easy to set up, it's very easy to make policies and, for an organization, that means you don't need IT expert in firewalls. You just need to have somebody who knows a little bit of IT, and that's it. With other products, you need someone with a "Masters" degree in firewalls."
"The ASA has become a bit old and needs updating."
"I'm not very familiar with the largest Firepower models, but competitors like Palo Alto seem to have a more capable engine to do, for instance, TLS/SSL decryption. As I understand, Firepower doesn't let you export the decrypted traffic so that, for instance, the security department can look at the traffic or inspect traffic. It's all in the box. I've heard rumors that this is something Cisco is working on, but it isn't yet available."
"I don't have to see all the object groups that have been created on that firewall. That's just something that I would really appreciate on the CLA, even though it already exists on the GUI."
"It should have packets, deep level inspections and controls, like the features which other IPS solutions used to have."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"A feature that would allow me to load balance among multiple ISPs, especially since we have deployed it as a perimeter firewall, would be a great addition."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"The one thing that the ASAs don't have is a central management point. We have a lot of our environments on FTD right now. So, we are using a Firewall Management Center (FMC) to manage all those. The ASAs don't really have that, but they are easy to use if you physically go into them and manage them."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. 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 Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, WatchGuard Firebox and Check Point NGFW. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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