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.
"Even in very big environments, Cisco comes in handy with configuration and offers reliability when it comes to managing multiple items on one platform."
"The features I have found most valuable are the ASA firewalls. I like to have features like most integrated systems in ACI."
"Feature-wise, we mostly use IPS because it is a security requirement to protect against attacks from outside and inside. This is where IPS helps us out a bunch."
"When I was managing these firewalls, I found them easy to understand, easy to deploy, and easy to maintain as compared to some of the other firewalls I have been involved with earlier. The opinion of my coworkers is that it's easy and quick to establish new zones, expand, and maintain."
"URL filtering is valuable."
"I have access to the web version of Cisco Talos to see the reputation of IP addresses. I find this very helpful. It provides important information for my company to obtain the reputation of IP addresses. The information in Talos is quite complete."
"Cisco tech is always good and helpful. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"The most important feature is its categorization because on the site and social media you are unified in the way they are there."
"The solution is stable."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"If the implementation was easier, it would be a lot better for us."
"One big pain point I have is the ASDM interface because it's Java, and sometimes, it's a bit buggy and has low performance. That's something that probably won't be improved because of backward compatibility."
"In the past though, colleagues have had issues during the upgrade process. The failover didn't work and production was down."
"It is expensive."
"Cisco is still catching up with its Firepower Next-Generation firewalls."
"The product would be improved if the GUI could be brought into the 21st Century."
"The GUI interface could be improved when compared to other solutions."
"We are replacing ASA with FTD which offers many new features not available using ASA."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
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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