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.
"This solution has helped our organization by having strong functions and a reliable firewall."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"We find all of its features very useful. Its main features are policies and access lists. We use both of them, and we also use routing."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"The IPS (In-plane switching) is the most valuable feature."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"We have not had to deal with stability issues."
"The most important point is the detection engine which is now part of the next-generation firewalls and which is supported by Cisco Talos."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"It's got the capabilities of amassing a lot of throughput with remote access and VPNs."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"Good basic firewall features."
"Stability has been excellent. We have experienced no issues; it never fails."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"The documentation is very good."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"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 license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"With regards to stability, we had a critical bug come out during our evaluation... not good."
"Technical support takes a long time to respond."
"This product is managed using the Firepower Management Center (FMC), but it would be better if it also supported the command-line interface (CLI)."
"I'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"More intuitive support for SIP services are needed. This took a long time to configure properly for the user."
"The Cisco Firewall UI could be improved."
"VPNs are weak as this product still does not support route-based VPNs."
"We found it difficult to publish an antennae sidewalk with the ASDM. I think Cisco should improve this by creating a simpler interface for the firewall."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"The stability could be improved."
"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."
"The security could be improved."
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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