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.
"This solution has good security, and it's a good product. You can trust Cisco, and there's support as well, which is really good."
"The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"The product is quite robust and durable."
"The most important feature is its categorization because on the site and social media you are unified in the way they are there."
"The solution is pretty easy to deploy."
"Filtering is the best feature."
"What I like about Cisco is the security zone. By default when you configure it, it gives you a security zone, which other firewalls don't have."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to integrate vertically."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"Setting firewall network rules should be more straightforward with a clearer graphical representation. The rule-setting method seems old-fashioned. The firewall and network rules are separate from the Firepower and web access rules."
"HTTPs inspection and higher throughput/spec would be good."
"Sometimes my customers say that Cisco Firewalls are a bit more difficult compared to Fortigate or Palo Alto. There is complexity in the configuration and the GUI could be improved."
"There may have been one or two incidences of malicious threats."
"The change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area."
"They need a user-friendly interface that we could easily configure."
"The solution needs to have better logging features."
"It needs more available central management."
"Lacks training for new features."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"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."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
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, Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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