We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Network Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, with all other factors being more or less equal, Cisco Secure Firewall comes in a bit ahead of Palo Alto simply because of their stronger support.
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"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."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The feature set is fine and is rarely a problem."
"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"It makes it very easy to have delineated roles and responsibilities between network engineering and network security."
"The command line is the same as it is on the Cisco iOS router."
"A stable, reliable solution used to protect the network's perimeter."
"I like that Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is reliable. Support is also good."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been paramount. Because there is a threat of losing everything if ransomware or another sort of attack were to happen, the cybersecurity resilience has been top-notch."
"I have integrated it for incidence response. If there is a security event, the Cisco firewall will automatically block the traffic, which is valuable."
"The solution is scalable."
"We get support in the free version."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"With this product, we receive the best monitoring and reports."
"WildFire has been instrumental in blocking a number of new threats, before common desktop anti-virus tools were able to detect them."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"It helps us when segmenting and securing the network and all sort of technologies, all sort of next generation needs. It's next generation phases of firewall like anti-virus, sandboxing, wifi, and VPN."
"The most valuable feature is the improved security that it offers."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"The initial setup could be simplified, as it can be complex for new users."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"Cisco makes horrible UIs, so the interface is something that should be improved."
"I think the ASA layer is thin. It's always Layer 3 or Layer 4 source controller and doesn't control the Layer 7 traffic. It's important, and you'll need an additional firewall."
"The ASA has become a bit old and needs updating."
"This product is managed using the Firepower Management Center (FMC), but it would be better if it also supported the command-line interface (CLI)."
"There used to be information displayed about the packets in a module called Packet Flow, but it is no longer there."
"The configuration is an area that needs improvement."
"The product's false positive logs could be more user-friendly to understand. They could provide examples of precious cases to learn."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"The price of WildFire should be reduced in order to make it more affordable for our customers."
"The initial setup was complex."
"As a firewall and 360 degrees of security, there needs to be more maturity."
"The solution can improve its traffic management."
"The automation and responsiveness need improvement."
"The GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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 Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox, Check Point SandBlast Network and Zscaler Internet Access.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.