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.
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The product offers very good security."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"It is very flexible to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The features I found most valuable in this solution, are the overall security features."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is AMP (Advanced Malware Protection), as this is really needed to protect against cyber threats."
"All the features except IPS are valuable. IPS is not a part of my job."
"I like the ASDM for the firewall because it is visual. With the command line, it is harder to visualize what is going on. A picture is worth a thousand words."
"The initial setup was completely straightforward."
"Implementing Cisco Secure Firewall has saved us time because we rely on most of the out-of-the-box signatures. It has reduced the time and effort spent in configuration within the security network."
"The most valuable feature is zone segmentation, which we utilize through the Firepower management console."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The documentation is very good."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"Its customer service could be better."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"We are looking for software taxi capabilities."
"The worst part of the entire solution, and this is kind of trivial at times, is that management of the solution is difficult. You manage FireSIGHT through an internet browser. I've had Cisco tell me to manage it through Firefox because that's how they develop it. The problem is, depending on the page you're on, they don't function in the same way. The pages can be very buggy, or you can't resize columns in this one, or you can't do certain things in that one. It causes a headache in managing it."
"The one thing that the ASAs don't have is a central management point. We have a lot of our environments on FTD right now. So, we are using a Firewall Management Center (FMC) to manage all those. The ASAs don't really have that, but they are easy to use if you physically go into them and manage them."
"One of my colleagues is using the firewall as an IPS, but he is worried about Firepower's performance... With the 10 Gb devices, when it gets to 5 Gbps, the CPU usage goes up a lot and he cannot manage the IPS."
"They should allow customers to talk to them directly instead of having to go through the reseller."
"If I need to download AnyConnect in a rush, it will prompt me for my Cisco login account. Nobody wants to download a client to a firewall that they don't own."
"Cisco ASA should be easier to use. It is a bit tough to navigate and see what is going on."
"Migration with other appliances is not easy. It has to be done manually, and this takes a long time."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
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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