We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Fortinet FortiGate based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Cisco IOS Security increases the overall security of our network, performs authentication, and provides level 15 access and privileges."
"The most valuable features are DNS service and shell self-service within a network."
"The product has valuable features for business intelligence."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."
"Completely integrates branch offices with perimeter security."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"The GUI is good."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The configuration and reporting interfaces need a lot of improvement. It needs to be more accessible forsolide without a strong technical background. If you had a simplified dashboard, the lower-level techs could manage the solution and provide services. Cisco IOS Security requires someone who is highly trained to operate it."
"Cisco is a scalable product, but it is expensive compared to other vendors."
"I would love it if it has a link-by-link feature, integration with Unified Threat Management (UTM), and load balancers. They haven't got any link-by-link feature right now, which can be a very attractive option. This link-by-link feature can also be made available for Cisco's UTM firewalls. The link-by-link feature is available in some of the other firewalls. Currently, integration with UTM is missing. Cisco IOS Security also doesn't have the load balancers and a few things that need to be done to get a good UTM firewall. Normally, other firewalls have UTM. As a next-generation firewall, it's good, but as a UTM, it has to do some work."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"While Cisco IOS Security is stable and scalable, I would like to see it improved to be even better."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"Signatures and other critical definitions need to be updated more frequently."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"They need to improve their technical support."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and OPNsense, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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