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.
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"I think Cisco ASA Firewall is the most stable firewall solution."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"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."
"Its VPN and ASN features are very stable."
"Its in-depth monitoring and analysis help us to make better decisions and policies."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"It is easy to create interfaces and routing, which all can be done at the GUI level."
"It is a stable solution."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"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."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"Cisco ASA is starting to get old and Firepower is taking over. All the good things happening are with Firepower."
"The integration between different tools could be improved. For example, with SecureX, I am yet to find out how to forward security events to different tools such as Microsoft Sentinel, which is what we use for log detection."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"Its configuration through GUI as well as CLI can be improved and made easier."
"The price and SD-WAN capabilities are the areas that need improvement."
"When we first got it, we were doing individual configuring. Now, there is a way to manage from one location."
"10Gb interfaces should be available on more models."
"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."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
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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