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.
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The feature that I found most valuable is the overall stability of the product."
"It is easy to create interfaces and routing, which all can be done at the GUI level."
"Beats sophisticated cyber attacks with a superior security appliance."
"The architecture of FTD is great because it has an in-depth coverage and because it uses the AVC, (Application, Visibility, and Control) and also rate limits. Also, the architecture of fast paths is great."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The primary benefits of using Cisco Secure solutions are time-saving, a robust API, and convenience for the security team."
"The IP filter configuration for specific political and Static NAT has been most valuable."
"The configuration was kind of straightforward from the command line and also from the ASDM. It was very easy to manage by using their software in Java."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"Its customer service could be better."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"Backup can be improved."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"They should allow customers to talk to them directly instead of having to go through the reseller."
"It can be improved when it comes to monitoring. Today, the logs from the firewalls could be improved a bit more without integrating with other devices."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"They could improve by having more skilled, high-level engineers that are available around the clock. I know that's an easy thing to say and a hard thing to do."
"One thing that we really would have loved to have was policy-based routing. We had a lot of connections, and sometimes, we would have liked to change the routing depending on the policies, but it was lacking this capability. We also wanted application filtering and DNS filtering."
"When we talk about data centers, we are talking about 100 gig capacity or 400 gig capacity. When it comes to active-active solution clustering and resilience and performance, Cisco should look into these a little bit more."
"The access layer of this solution could be improved in terms of the way the devices interconnect with our network. We need to be able to analyze the traffic between the different interconnection in these areas."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
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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