We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"The solution is scalable."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"The GUI is among the most valuable features,"
"I think Cisco ASA Firewall is the most stable firewall solution."
"The initial setup is easy."
"When it comes to the integration among Cisco tools, we find it easy. It's a very practical integration with other components as well."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"FMC is very good in terms of giving a lot of visibility into what the firewall is seeing, what it's stopping, and what it's letting through. It lets the administrator have a little bit of knowledge of what's coming in or out of the device. It's excellent."
"I would say the Firepower module is most valuable. I'm trying more to transition to this kind firewall. I had to study a little on Palo Alto Networks equipment. There is a lot I have to learn about the difference."
"The user interface, the UI, is excellent on the solution."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"The installation and integration of Cisco ASA with FirePOWER can be improved. The management with Fortigate is easier than Cisco ASA on FirePOWER. The management side of Cisco ASA can be improved so it can be more easily configured and used."
"The performance should be improved."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to integrating all the devices into a central management system. Cisco doesn't provide this, but there are some good products in the market that can provide it."
"Firewalls, in general, were not really designed for normal IT personnel, but for firewall and network experts. Therefore, they missed a lot of options and did not provide any good reporting or improvement options."
"We are looking for software taxi capabilities."
"The central management tool is not comfortable to use. You need to have a specific skill set. This is an important improvement for management because I would like to log into Firepower, see the dashboard, and generate a real-time report, then I question my team."
"We cannot have virtual domains, which we can create with FortiGate. This is something they should add in the future. Additionally, there is a connection limit and the FMC could improve."
"Cisco is not cheap, however, it is worth investing in these technologies."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"It needs to be more secure."
"The solution could improve by having centralized management and API support online."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"We have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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