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 most important point is the detection engine which is now part of the next-generation firewalls and which is supported by Cisco Talos."
"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"There are some hiccups here and there, but compared to the technical support from other vendors, I have had the best experience with Cisco's technical support. I would rate them at nine out of ten."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature for the customers is that they can control what communication is allowed and what is not allowed. That is, they can allow or deny client traffic."
"The firewall power that comes with Cisco ASAv is the most valuable asset. They are are very easy to manage."
"It is one of the fastest solutions, if not the fastest, in the security technology space. This gives us peace of mind knowing that as soon as a new attack comes online that we will be protected in short order. From that perspective, no one really comes close now to Firepower, which is hugely valuable to us from an upcoming new attack prevention perspective."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The security on offer is very good."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The GUI is good."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"They should allow customers to talk to them directly instead of having to go through the reseller."
"The cloud does not precisely mimic what is on-premises."
"It would be good if Cisco made sure that the solution supports all routing protocols. Sometimes it doesn't."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"Cisco suffers from some integration issues with other products... There is a problem with the Cisco Catalyst Switches in terms of assembling bursts and having them interact properly with the Cisco Firepower."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"It integrates with other security products from Cisco, but sometimes, there can be glitches or errors."
"The solution's deployment is time-consuming, which should be minimized and made more user-friendly for us."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"The pricing could always be better."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
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.