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.
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"The technical support is great."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"It is a comprehensive suite and complete package."
"The most important feature is the VPN connection."
"Cisco ASA Firewall is a well known product. They're always updating it, and you know what they're doing and that it works."
"It is a secure product."
"Simple to deploy, stable."
"It protects our network."
"The return on investment is not going to be restricted to just the box... Now, these genres have been expanded to cyber, to third-party integrations, having integrated logging, having integrated micro and macro segmentations. The scope has been widened, so the ROI, eventually, has multiplied."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"Routing, load balancing, Traffic Limiter and queues. Since this company relies on an Internet connection, having these features is a must."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"The solution is very robust."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are."
"Lacks a good graphical user interface."
"Antivirus features must be integrated for end user security."
"We don't have any serious problems. The firewall models that we have are quite legacy, and they have slower performance. We are currently investigating the possibility of migrating to next-generation firewalls."
"The maturity needs to be better."
"It will be nice if they had what you traditionally would use a web application scanner for. If the solution could take a deeper look into HTTP and HTTPS traffic, that would be nice."
"Cisco missed the mark with all the configuration steps. They are a pain and, when doing them, it looks as if we're using a very old technology — yet the technology itself is not old, it's very good. But the front-end configuration is very tough."
"There is limited data storage on the appliance itself. So, you need to ship it out elsewhere in order for you to store it. The only point of consideration is around that area, basically limited storage on the machine and appliance. Consider logging it elsewhere or pushing it out to a SIEM to get better controls and manipulation over the data to generate additional metrics and visibility."
"The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
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, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Untangle NG Firewall. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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