We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard XTM [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The IP filter configuration for specific political and Static NAT has been most valuable."
"Very good as a stateful inspection firewall."
"The Adversity Malware Protection (AMP) feature is the most valuable. It is also very easy to use. Every technical user can operate this solution without any difficulty. The dashboard of Cisco Firepower has every tool that a security operator needs. You can find every resource that you need to operate through this dashboard."
"If we look at the Cisco ASA without Firepower, then one of the most valuable features is the URL filtering."
"URL filtering is valuable."
"Among the top features are integrated threat defence and the fact that each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control."
"The information coming from Talos does a good job... I like the fact that Cisco is working with them and getting the information from them and updating the firewall."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and level of security that this solution provides."
"We have used technical support for WatchGuard many times and overall, we are satisfied with it. They are always listening and there is a good reaction time to our findings. When there are issues, they really try to resolve them."
"WatchGuard XTM is fairly basic. We use it as the perimeter firewall. The main point is to protect from attack software and hacking."
"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"Application Control is fantastic with over 2,500 applications and the granularity that we can either allow people to view but not be able to log on to Facebook; or view it and log onto it if they're in the marketing department, but not play Facebook games. There are all sorts of different options like that. So it's highly granular."
"They have a reporting system which can store data over a very long period of time. Not many other firewall vendors provide a reporting system, but if they do, like Fortinet does, then you've got buy that as an additional product and that can be more than twice as expensive as the initial investment in the firewall. And without reporting over a long-term period, you're just about wasting your time."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"SNMP status monitoring and the Central Management Software."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"It needs more available central management."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"Initial setup can be complex. It is complex. We have to set up ASA, SFR module, and FMC separately, which sometimes requires extensive troubleshooting, even for smaller issues."
"I would like to see them add more next-generation features so that you don't need a lot of appliances to do just one task. It should be a single solution."
"If I need to download AnyConnect in a rush, it will prompt me for my Cisco login account. Nobody wants to download a client to a firewall that they don't own."
"It should have an additional “operating mode”, like a “candidate configuration mode”, where you would have the possibility to test the changes you are going to implement and also the possibility to validate these changes."
"We were also not too thrilled when Cisco announced that in the upcoming new-gen ASA, iOS was not going to be supported, or if you install them, they will not be able to be managed through the Sourcefire. However, it seems like Cisco is moving away from the ASA iOS to the Sourcefire FireSIGHT firmware for the ASA. We haven't had a chance to test it out."
"The license system is also good but it's not very impressive. It's a very regular licensing system. They call it a smart license which means that your device will connect to the internet. This is a little bit of a headache for some customers. It doesn't make the customer happy because most of the customers prefer not to connect their firewall or system to the internet."
"They really need support for deployment."
"The solution could offer better control that would allow the ability to restrictions certain features from a website."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"WatchGuard doesn't have a product that allows them to get into the data center. And that's just because there is no hardware to do the job. The software could do it, but there's no hardware that allows that to happen at the moment. So it doesn't scale as well as some other products, that's for sure."
"The initial setup is neither simple nor complex. If you know the base in networking and how the firewall works, you will be able to figure it out."
"One huge issue with WatchGuard XTM is that I'm not getting reports in a readable format. Readable means, I don't want Excel online. We repeat auditing when we trigger the report or setup calendar. That functionality is what we are looking for from WatchGuard XTM here."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"The setting policies need improvement. It needs an easier way to do static NAT and check on what policy is being used for that specific traffic."
Earn 20 points
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while WatchGuard XTM [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Firewalls. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard XTM [EOL] is rated 8.0. 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 WatchGuard XTM [EOL] writes "The multi-layer security of the products are the primary reason we use these appliances, however, the gateway wireless functionality for managing access points leaves much to be desired". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas WatchGuard XTM [EOL] is most compared with .
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