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 ASA 55-x range is a solid and reliable firewall. It secures the traffic for normal purposes."
"Cisco has the best documentation. You can easily find multiple documents by searching the web. Even a child can go online and find the required information."
"The most valuable features for my client are the ASDM and monitoring."
"It is very stable compared to other firewall products."
"An eight because it's a good security solution. It's more mature than its competitors."
"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 most valuable features are the provision of internet access, AnyConnect, and VPN capabilities."
"VPN and firewall are good features."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The only drawback of the user interface is when it comes to policies. When you open it and click on the policies, you have to move manually left and right if you want to see the whole field within the cell. Checkpoint has a very detailed user interface."
"The overall licensing structure could improve to make the solution better."
"We would like to see MS Word BPM as a feature."
"The product line does not address the SMB market as it is supposed to do. Cisco already has an on-premises sandbox solution."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"It is a good firewall, though not NextGen."
"This is an older product and has reached end-of-life."
"In general, they can make it easier to manage the solutions. They can make it easier in terms of administration and provide a single tool for different firewalling solutions. They have different tools to manage different firewalls, such as Firepower or ASA. Sometimes, both are on the same thing. You have ASA with Firepower modules, so you manage some of the things via HTML, and then you manage some of the things via another management tool. It's not seamless."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Its customer service could be better."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
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.