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.
"The most important feature is the VPN connection."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"The technical team is always available when we have problems."
"IPS and Snort are very important because they also differentiate Cisco from other vendors and competitors."
"I am used to the ASA syntax, therefore it is quite easy to make up new rules. I have found that DNS doctoring rules are useful."
"One thing I like about the product is the logging features, the way it logs, the way it forwards the logs in Syslog."
"The Inline Mode configuration works really well, and ASA works very impressively."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"It performs very well."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"We wanted to integrate Firepower with our solution, but it didn't have the capability to accommodate our bandwidth since they only had two 10 gig interfaces on the box. We run way more than that through our network because we are a service provider, providing Internet to our customers."
"The user interface for the Firepower management console is a little bit different from traditional Cisco management tools. If you look at products we already use, like Cisco Prime or other products that are cloud-based, they have a more modern user interface for managing the products. For Firepower, the user interface is not very user-friendly. It's a little bit confusing sometimes."
"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."
"UTM features would be nice or some NextGen features."
"If Cisco could stop rebranding, combine all the CLIs/GUIs, and give a consistent experience, this would be great."
"The most valuable features of the product are the VPN and the NextGen firewall features such as application control, URL filtering, etc."
"They should allow customers to talk to them directly instead of having to go through the reseller."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The support is the main thing that needs to 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.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.