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.
"Basic firewalling is obviously the most valuable. In addition to that, secure access and remote access are also very useful for us."
"Cisco Secure Firewall made it easier so that more than one person can handle things. We are able to have a bigger team that can handle simple tasks and have a smaller team focus on the deep-dive needs."
"Provides good integrations and reporting."
"The most valuable feature is zone segmentation, which we utilize through the Firepower management console."
"It protects our network."
"We moved from a legacy firewall to the ASA with FirePOWER, increasing our Internet Edge defense dramatically."
"They wanted to leverage something which is equivalent that can give them the next gen features like application awareness and intrusion protection. So that is a major reason they were looking forward to this. The original ASA firewall did not have these features. This was the major reason the customer moved on to Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD). Now they can go ahead and leverage those functionalities."
"There are no issues that we are aware of. It does its job silently in the background."
"It is very flexible to use."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"We are a visual effects company, and there have been a number of high profile security issues in our industry. This has brought us to a higher standard of security, which our clients are very keen on these days."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"I would like to see them release a patch for ASAv with cross-platform FirePower integration."
"It is my understanding that they are in the process of discontinuing this device."
"The scalability is a bit limiting, to be honest. In terms of when you look to changing landscape in terms of threats, I think to me, my personal it's a bit limiting."
"The policies module in FMC specifically isn't the most user-friendly. Coming from Cisco ASA, Cisco ASA is a little bit easier to use. When you get into particularly complex deployments where you have a lot of different interfaces and all that kind of stuff, it's a little bit tricky. Some usability improvements there would be nice."
"We are still running the original ASAs. The software that you are running for the ASDM software and Java application has never been a lot of fun to operate. It would have been nice to see that change update be redesigned with modern systems, which don't play nicely with Java sometimes. Cybersecurity doesn't seem to love how that operates. For us, a fresher application, taking advantage of the hardware, would have been a better approach."
"I have a lot of difficulties with the solution's Firewall Management Center (FMC) and the GUI. Neither is responsive enough and should be improved."
"The SSL VPN is, and always has been, painful to configure and the Java plugin does not guarantee a uniform deployment."
"The ASA has become a bit old and needs updating."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
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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