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."I like how we can achieve total integration."
"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."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"Its ability to discover attacks is a valuable feature. All of the other features that have to do with security are good."
"You do not have to do everything through a command line which makes it a lot easier to apply rules."
"VPN load balancing has been particularly essential for my connections to integrate via multiple time zones."
"Firewall help with cybersecurity resilience. I really like this Cisco product. It's user-friendly. I don't like some other vendors. I've tried those in the past. Cisco is pretty easy. A caveman could do it."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"Once configured to suit your needs, these firewalls are rock solid appliances."
"The feature my customers find the most valuable is the exportability."
"The best features are stability and scalability."
"I like the hostwatch because I can see what traffic uses the most bandwidth and I can block that site."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"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."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"SNMP status monitoring and the Central Management Software."
"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"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."
"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"The content filtering on an application level is not as good as other solutions such as Palo Alto."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"Cisco provides us with application visibility and control, although it's not a complete solution compared to other vendors. Cisco needs to work on the application behavior side of things, in particular when it comes to the behavior of SSL traffic."
"The ease of use needs improvement. It is complex to operate the solution. The user interface is not friendly."
"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."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"The solution is overcomplicated in some senses. Simplifying it would be an improvement."
"The use of it has really bogged down our response time for certain problems, given we have to go through AT&T for everything."
"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."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"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."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"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."
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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