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 Firepower+ISE+AMP for endpoint integration is something that really stands it out with other vendor solutions. They have something called pxGrid and i think it is already endorsed by IETF. This allows all devices on the network to communicate."
"Implementing Cisco Secure Firewall has saved us time because we rely on most of the out-of-the-box signatures. It has reduced the time and effort spent in configuration within the security network."
"What I like about Cisco is the security zone. By default when you configure it, it gives you a security zone, which other firewalls don't have."
"The solution offers very easy configurations."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"On the network side, where you create your rules for allowing traffic — what can come inside and what can go out — that works perfectly, if you know what you want to achieve. It protects you."
"All the features except IPS are valuable. IPS is not a part of my job."
"Because of the deeper inspection it provides we have better security and sections that allow users broader access."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"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."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"I wish the Cisco interface was not so granular. Check Point was easier to create specific rules than with ASAv."
"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."
"The Cisco Secure Firewall could benefit from enhancements in its API, documentation, and automation tools."
"The overall licensing structure could improve to make the solution better."
"It is not the newest, cutting-edge technology"
"Intrusion prevention, we currently need to apply deep bracket inspection manually to use web filtering."
"The interface for monitoring could be improved to allow better views to make troubleshooting easier."
"An area of improvement for this solution is the console visualization."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"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."
"Its price could be better."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
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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