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.
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"I have found the stability of this solution really good. This is why I use it."
"ASA is stable and with a low level of work required on the maintenance side."
"A stable and solid solution for protection from external threats and for VPN connections."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"We have not had to deal with stability issues."
"ASDM provides GUI for configurations. The ASDM has made configuring ASA easy. No need to memorize CLI commands."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"The initial setup is complex."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"I have used Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point previously and I prefer the process of everything working together."
"One big pain point I have is the ASDM interface because it's Java, and sometimes, it's a bit buggy and has low performance. That's something that probably won't be improved because of backward compatibility."
"10Gb interfaces should be available on more models."
"On the VPN side, Firepower could be better. It needs more monitoring on VPNs. Right now, it's not that good. You can set up a VPN in Firepower, but you can't monitor it."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"It has poor performance."
"Cisco ASA is not a next-generation firewall product."
"Cisco makes horrible UIs, so the interface is something that should be improved."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"The usage reports can be better."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
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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