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 high-availability and remote VPN features are most valuable."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"One of the most valuable features is the GUI front end, which is very easy to use. But I'm also a command-line guy, and being able to access the device via command-line for advanced troubleshooting is quite important."
"Beats sophisticated cyber attacks with a superior security appliance."
"It provides security for our company and users."
"Their performance is most valuable."
"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."
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"I was just trying to learn how this product actually operates and one thing that I see from internal processing is it does fire-walling and then sends it to the IPS model and any other model that needs to be performed. For example, content checking or filtering will be done in a field processing manner. That is something that causes delays in the network, from a security perspective. That is something that can be improved upon. Palo Alto already has implemented this as a pilot passed processing. So they put the same stream of data across multiple modules at the same time and see if it is giving a positive result by using an XR function. So, something similar can be done in the Cisco Firepower. Instead of single processing or in a sequential manner, they can do something similar to pile processing. Internal function that is something that they can improve upon."
"I would like for them to develop better integration with other security platforms."
"It is not easy to configure."
"We are looking for software taxi capabilities."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"It is expensive."
"The Firepower FTD code is missing some old ASA firewalls codes. It's a small thing. But Firepower software isn't missing things that are essential, anymore."
"It would be good if Cisco made sure that the solution supports all routing protocols. Sometimes it doesn't."
"Application management can be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"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."
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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