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.
"REST API offering with rich capabilities which makes the product very robust."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"The most important features are the intrusion prevention engine and the application visibility and control. The Snort feature in Firepower is also valuable."
"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."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"The CLI is the most valuable feature. This solution is very flexible and offers different functionality including firewalls and VPN connectivity."
"Cisco Secure Firewall improved our organization. We have it in every one of our French offices."
"The most valuable feature is the access control list (ACL)."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex for those unfamiliar with the solution."
"The configuration is an area that needs improvement."
"Managing various product integrations, such as Umbrella, is challenging."
"Integration aspects and traffic shaping need improvement."
"We would like to see MS Word BPM as a feature."
"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"In NGFW, Cisco should be aligned with the new technology and inspection intelligence because Cisco is far behind in this pipeline."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
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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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.