We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall is commended for its threat defense, dashboard visibility, seamless integration with other Cisco products, and ease of use. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are highly regarded for their embedded machine learning, robust security capabilities, and intuitive interface.
Both the Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have numerous areas for improvement. The Cisco Secure Firewall needs enhancement in network performance, policy administration, advanced features, management interface, patching and bug fixing, integration with other tools, and centralized management. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls can improve in terms of customization, next-generation capabilities, rule creation, monitoring interface, bug fixing, configuration simplicity, support processes, ACC tool, IPv6 support, VPN functionality, GUI interface, training materials, SSL inspection, and external dynamic list feature.
Service and Support: Customer opinions on the customer service of Cisco Secure Firewall vary, as some customers appreciate the technical support they receive, while others encounter delays and challenges. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls also receive mixed reviews for their customer service. While some customers commend the expertise of their support team, others express frustration with contacting the team and enduring lengthy wait times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be more or less complex depending on the user's familiarity and environment. The initial setup for Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is described as simple, uncomplicated, and effortless. Users appreciate its user-friendly and efficient design, with readily available training materials for easy comprehension.
Pricing: Reviewers have differing opinions on the setup cost of Cisco Secure Firewall. Some consider it expensive due to additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are generally acknowledged to have higher pricing. Reviewers note that Palo Alto Networks offers competitive hardware prices and discounts for multi-year licenses.
Comparison Results: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the preferred choice when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be straightforward and easy. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls stands out for its embedded machine learning capabilities, strong security features, and user-friendly interface.
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"The most beneficial aspect of the Cisco Secure Firewall is the AnyConnect component within the firewall package, which we selected specifically for VPN usage due to its exceptional integration with various third-party devices and applications."
"I like that Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is reliable. Support is also good."
"I think that the firewall feature is the most valuable to me as it is one of the oldest features for this solution. We also appreciate how stable the VPN is."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"The configuration capabilities and the integration with other tools are the most valuable features. I really like this product. Cisco is one of my favorite brands, and I always think Cisco solutions are very reliable, easy to configure, and very secure."
"I like the ASDM for the firewall because it is visual. With the command line, it is harder to visualize what is going on. A picture is worth a thousand words."
"The clusters in data centers are great."
"I have integrated it for incidence response. If there is a security event, the Cisco firewall will automatically block the traffic, which is valuable."
"There are many valuable features, such as wireless cloud features."
"The best features of this solution are URL filtering and traffic visibility."
"The most valuable features are application inspection and sandboxing. Application inspection decides where traffic is transmitted. If I have a perimeter report for a particular service, then other services or malicious services cannot use an open port. In this way, application inspection is doing a fantastic job. We also have a very good sandbox with almost no rate limit. It will inspect any file that comes in and goes out in a dedicated patch to identify malware. Therefore, these two things help me to protect our organization from any bad actors."
"I can enable the features I want and configure the policies based on the user and not all users and network traffic, making firewall management much easier."
"Innovative, advanced threat protection is the most valuable feature."
"The user experience is good and the configuration is very easy."
"The most valuable features are the power of the threat prevention and the WildFire service. Its strength comes from the huge number of sensors all over the world. The firewalls have a rich library of signatures."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"The reports are very basic."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"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."
"My team tells me that other solutions such as Fortinet and Palo Alto are easier to implement."
"The graphical interface should be improved to make the configuration easier, to do things with a single click."
"They should allow customers to talk to them directly instead of having to go through the reseller."
"When we first got it, we were doing individual configuring. Now, there is a way to manage from one location."
"The usability of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense is an issue. The product is still under development, and the user interface is very difficult to deal with."
"It is expensive."
"I think that the solution can be improved with the integration of application-centric infrastructure. It could be used to have better solutions in one box."
"Need improvement with their logs, especially the command line interface."
"Everything has been great. More machine learning would be something great to see, but I don't know if it's a priority for Palo Alto."
"The initial configuration is complicated to set up."
"I would like a collaboration system and reporting ASA policy needs to be smarter."
"The VPN has room for improvement."
"A major concern is making the licensing more accessible to enable small municipalities to afford and manage their own systems independently."
"Palo Alto needs to provide more support during the design phase and with proposals. They need to be more proactive, try to anticipate issues, and then help us to implement the transformation quickly."
"I think visibility can be improved."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and OPNsense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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Pricewise Cisco. But PA has better rating.
Palo Alto is better.
In my Oppinion, Palo Alto is better than Cisco. You can refer in NSS Lab 2018 & 2019 DCSG-SVM, NSS-labs-NGIPS-Comparative-Report, and some report from Forester about Zero Trust Architecture, and Gartner SASE report to discus more advantages of Palo Alto in the future