We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"The solution is stable."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"It can expand easily."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"VPN load balancing has been particularly essential for my connections to integrate via multiple time zones."
"The ASA has seen significant improvement due to the IPS."
"The Packet Tracer is a really good tool. If someone calls because they're having problems, you can easily create fake traffic without having to do an extended packet capture. You can see, straight away, if there's a firewall rule allowing that traffic in the direction you're trying to troubleshoot."
"Its in-depth monitoring and analysis help us to make better decisions and policies."
"We have been using a 5520 for seven years in our datacenter and we are satisfied by this version."
"It is much better than most of the other firewalls that I have worked with."
"This solution made our organization more secure and gave us better control."
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"I especially like the VPN part. It works like a charm."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"Its price could be better."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"The visibility for VPN is one big part. The policy administration could be improved in terms of customizations and flexibility for changing it to our needs."
"In the past though, colleagues have had issues during the upgrade process. The failover didn't work and production was down."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"Multiple WAN connections: Even though you can implement more than one interface to outside connections, it is lacking on load balances, etc."
"More intuitive support for SIP services are needed. This took a long time to configure properly for the user."
"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded."
"FMC could be improved because management with FMC is quite difficult compared to using Firepower web-based management."
"On the VPN side, Firepower could be better. It needs more monitoring on VPNs. Right now, it's not that good. You can set up a VPN in Firepower, but you can't monitor it."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"The security could be improved."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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