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.
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) which is the graphical user interface, works out, and Cisco keeps it current."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integrations and IPS throughput."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"For business purposes, it's a very detailed solution, which is it's greatest benefit, as you can get almost any piece of information you need from the solution. It allows for admins to be able to troubleshoot pretty easily."
"Network segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"The VPN is our most widely used feature for Cisco Secure Firewall. Since we were forced into a hybrid working situation by COVID a few years back, VPN is the widely used feature because everybody is working remotely for our agency. So it came in very handy."
"We can easily track unauthorized users and see where traffic is going."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"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."
"HTTPs inspection and higher throughput/spec would be good."
"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."
"The software was very buggy, to the point it had to be removed."
"It needs to provide the next-generation firewall features that other vendors provide, like data analytics, telemetry, and deep packet inspection."
"We found it difficult to publish an antennae sidewalk with the ASDM. I think Cisco should improve this by creating a simpler interface for the firewall."
"We would like to see MS Word BPM as a feature."
"One area that could be improved is its logging functionality. Your logs are usually displayed on the screen, but if you want to go back one or two days, then you need another solution in place because those logs are overwritten within minutes."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."
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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