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."FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The solution is stable."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"The most valuable feature is that the encryption is solid."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"It is easy to create interfaces and routing, which all can be done at the GUI level."
"The features that are most valuable within the firewall are the IPS as well as the Unified Communications. We also really like the dynamic grouping."
"Cisco Secure Firewall improved our organization. We have it in every one of our French offices."
"I think Cisco ASA Firewall is the most stable firewall solution."
"Web filtering is a big improvement for us. The previous version we used, the AC520, did not have that feature included. It was not very easy for us, especially because the environment had to be isolated and we needed to get updates from outside, such as Windows patches. That feature has really helped us when we are going outside to pull those patches."
"The most important feature is its categorization because on the site and social media you are unified in the way they are there."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"Monitoring of network activity is included in the box."
"I like the hostwatch because I can see what traffic uses the most bandwidth and I can block that site."
"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 is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"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."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"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."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"Deploying configurations takes longer than it should."
"The solution needs to have better logging features."
"When we're looking at full-stack visibility, it can be difficult to get the right information out of Firepower."
"The policies module in FMC specifically isn't the most user-friendly. Coming from Cisco ASA, Cisco ASA is a little bit easier to use. When you get into particularly complex deployments where you have a lot of different interfaces and all that kind of stuff, it's a little bit tricky. Some usability improvements there would be nice."
"I would say that in inexperienced hands, the interface can be kind of overwhelming. There are just a lot of options. Too much, if you don't know what you are looking for or trying to do."
"I see room for improvement when it comes to integrating all the devices into a central management system. Cisco doesn't provide this, but there are some good products in the market that can provide it."
"For the new line of FTDs, the performance could be improved. We sometimes have issues with the 41 series, depending what we activate. If we activate too many intrusion policies, it affects the CPU."
"My team tells me that other solutions such as Fortinet and Palo Alto are easier to implement."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"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 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 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."
"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)."
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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