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 feature that I found most valuable is the overall stability of the product."
"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."
"The most important features are the intrusion prevention engine and the application visibility and control. The Snort feature in Firepower is also valuable."
"They provide DDoS protection and multi-factor authentication. That is a good option as it enables work-from-home functionality."
"We are using the Cisco AnyConnect for our end-user VPN with the ASA."
"It's protecting the organization against the impact of cyber threats and cybersecurity. We run manufacturing plants that have hazardous material, and we don't want that manufacturing process to be impacted by break-in exposure, cyber threats, or any other similar thing."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a good solution. In some ways, it is a reactive solution and we have it sitting in a whitelist mode rather than a blacklist mode. It seems to work fairly well for us."
"To be honest, all of the features that are provided, all the other vendor will also have. One feature we did find valuable was the CLI, it is more accurate. Additionally, I was happy with the customization, dashboards, access lists and interface."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"I needed to be well-versed with all the command lines for Cisco ASA in order to fully utilize it. I missed this info and wasted some operational costs."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"The ability to better integrate with other tools would be an improvement."
"There should be more integration with Microsoft Identity."
"Security generally requires integration with many devices, and the management side of that process could be enhanced somewhat. It would help if there was a clear view of the integrations and what the easiest way to do them is."
"The stability and the product features have to really be worked on."
"The phishing emails could be improved."
"<p>If there is old hardware, or appliances, it does not necessarily work with the new Cisco generation firewalls."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
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, WatchGuard Firebox and Check Point NGFW. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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