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 most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"It is very flexible to use."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"Application inspection, network segmentation, and encrypted traffic detection or encrypted traffic analysis (ETA) are valuable for our customers."
"We moved from a legacy firewall to the ASA with FirePOWER, increasing our Internet Edge defense dramatically."
"I have found the most valuable feature to be the access control and IPsec VPN."
"The most valuable feature that Cisco Firepower NGFW provides for us is the Intrusion policy."
"It is a very stable product. I've not had any issues with it. It is a super product, and I won't need to change it anytime soon."
"Because of the deeper inspection it provides we have better security and sections that allow users broader access."
"I'm a big fan of SecureX, Cisco's platform for tying together all the different security tools. It has a lot of flexibility and even a lot of third-party or non-Cisco integration. I feel like that's a really valuable tool."
"The remote access, VPN, and ACL features are valuable. We are using role-based access for individuals."
"The fact that the Next-Gen firewalls are integrated with identity is the best. It gives us the ability to track what an individual is doing and helps us provide access to only what they need in order to do their job."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The application control portion of the solution is its most valuable aspect."
"Compared to other firewalls from Check Point, Fortinet, and Cisco, for example, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls use the most advanced techniques. They have sandbox integration and others in the orchestrator. Palo Alto's security features are at a higher level than those of the competitors at the moment."
"IoT security is most valuable in the current version. Content IDs, DDoS protection, zone protection, and DLP are the most prominent features in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall. It is easier to configure than other solutions."
"GlobalProtect and App-ID features are very good."
"DNS Security is a good feature because, in the real world with web threats, you can block all web threats and bad sites. DNS Security helps to prevent those threats. It's also very helpful with Zero-day attacks because DNS Security blocks all DNS requests before any antivirus would know that such requests contain a virus or a threat to your PC or your network."
"The interface is very nice. We generally like the UI the product offers."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"The user interface could be improved."
"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."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"MSSP oriented interface: I would like a single console which would allow me to manage settings creating consistency across all customers."
"The product needs real-time logs to be able to monitor our services, so we can know if any our services have been blocked via the firewall or on the application side."
"Make the IPS baked-in."
"One of my colleagues is using the firewall as an IPS, but he is worried about Firepower's performance... With the 10 Gb devices, when it gets to 5 Gbps, the CPU usage goes up a lot and he cannot manage the IPS."
"FlexConfig is there as a bridge for features that are not yet natively integrated into Firepower. It is a way of allowing you to be able to configure things that wouldn't otherwise be possible until the development team can add them into Firepower's native capability. There is still some work that needs to be done around FlexConfig. There are still quite a few complex things, like policy-based routing, that have to be done in FlexConfig, and it doesn't always work perfectly. Sometimes, there are some glitches. It is recommended that you configure FlexConfig policies with Cisco TAC. It would be good to see Cisco accelerate some of those configurations that you can only do in FlexConfig into the platform, so that they are there natively."
"We are Cisco partners, and when we recommend Cisco FirePower to customers, they always think that FirePower is bad. For a single installation of FirePower, if I have to write about 18 tickets to Cisco, it's a big problem. There was an issue was related to Azure. We had Active Directory in Azure. The clients had to connect to FirePower through Azure. We had a lot of group policies. After two group policies, we had to make groups in Azure, and they had to sign in and sign back. It was a triple-layer authentication, and there was a big problem, so we didn't use it."
"The visibility for VPN is one big part. The policy administration could be improved in terms of customizations and flexibility for changing it to our needs."
"One feature I would like to see, that Firepower doesn't have, is email security. Perhaps in the future, Cisco will integrate Cisco Umbrella with Firepower. I don't see why we should have to pay for two separate products when both could be integrated in one box."
"The solution is very expensive. There are cheaper options on the market."
"As things are evolving, we want to make sure that Palo Alto is able to keep up with what is going on outside. They should continue to do more intelligence-related enhancements and integrate with some of the other security tools. We want to have a more intelligent toolset down the road."
"The tool's central management system is complicated, making it challenging to manage multiple devices centrally. Individually, the firewalls are easy to use and manage. I'd like to see better central management features in the next release. They've introduced some, but I haven't tried them yet, so I can't say how effective they are. However, having a single management interface would be a big improvement."
"There has been a recent change in the graphical interface. For the monitoring part, they could have a better UI."
"When it comes to their support, we have to select every single component that we want to include in a particular bundle. That is a very tedious process. T"
"We need better affiliations for profiling the user."
"The pricing of the solution is quite high. It's one of the most expensive firewall solutions on the market."
"The analytics could 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 5th in Firewalls with 164 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 Check Point NGFW, 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