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.
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"We get the Security Intelligence Feeds refreshed every hour from Talos, which from my understanding is that they're the largest intelligence Security Intelligence Group outside of the government."
"The configuration was kind of straightforward from the command line and also from the ASDM. It was very easy to manage by using their software in Java."
"We moved from a legacy firewall to the ASA with FirePOWER, increasing our Internet Edge defense dramatically."
"It protects our network."
"The most valuable feature we have found to be the VPN because we use it often."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The technical support is great."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The cost is very high. Most organizations cannot afford it."
"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."
"It is not the newest, cutting-edge technology"
"Even on a smaller scale, people are finding you need HA pairs, and there's no way that the ASA can do that, at least in the virtual version."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"I don't have any specific improvements to recommend. However, when you compare the throughput of a Cisco firewall to the competitors, especially Fortinet, what you find is that Cisco has lagged a little bit behind in terms of firewall throughput, especially for the price that you pay for that throughput."
"A memory leakage issue which literally freeze the nodes (we have an HA environment). The issue is still not solved and the only recommendation from Cisco is to reboot the node."
"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 support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
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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