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."This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"It's pretty reliable and allows for isolation capabilities within the network."
"Valuable features include DMZ segmentation, and IDS and IPS."
"I like the ASDM for the firewall because it is visual. With the command line, it is harder to visualize what is going on. A picture is worth a thousand words."
"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion Prevention System."
"The feature my customers find the most valuable is the exportability."
"There are some hiccups here and there, but compared to the technical support from other vendors, I have had the best experience with Cisco's technical support. I would rate them at nine out of ten."
"Monitoring of network activity is included in the box."
"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."
"SNMP status monitoring and the Central Management Software."
"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."
"Reputation Enabled Defense indicates that some websites are so infested that it's not even worth visiting them, and therefore saving the bandwidth of going through the detection process."
"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."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The usability of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense is an issue. The product is still under development, and the user interface is very difficult to deal with."
"The central management tool is not comfortable to use. You need to have a specific skill set. This is an important improvement for management because I would like to log into Firepower, see the dashboard, and generate a real-time report, then I question my team."
"The solution has not had any layer upgrades. It does not have layer five and upwards, it only has up to layer four. This has caused some problems for us."
"There are some limitations with SSL. Regarding the security assessment for the ISO 27000 standard, there are certain features that Cisco needs to scale up. Not all products support it, so you need to be slightly careful, especially on the site track."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"Managing various product integrations, such as Umbrella, is challenging."
"These firewalls are not for beginners."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"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."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"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."
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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