We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall is commended for its threat defense, dashboard visibility, seamless integration with other Cisco products, and ease of use. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are highly regarded for their embedded machine learning, robust security capabilities, and intuitive interface.
Both the Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have numerous areas for improvement. The Cisco Secure Firewall needs enhancement in network performance, policy administration, advanced features, management interface, patching and bug fixing, integration with other tools, and centralized management. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls can improve in terms of customization, next-generation capabilities, rule creation, monitoring interface, bug fixing, configuration simplicity, support processes, ACC tool, IPv6 support, VPN functionality, GUI interface, training materials, SSL inspection, and external dynamic list feature.
Service and Support: Customer opinions on the customer service of Cisco Secure Firewall vary, as some customers appreciate the technical support they receive, while others encounter delays and challenges. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls also receive mixed reviews for their customer service. While some customers commend the expertise of their support team, others express frustration with contacting the team and enduring lengthy wait times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be more or less complex depending on the user's familiarity and environment. The initial setup for Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is described as simple, uncomplicated, and effortless. Users appreciate its user-friendly and efficient design, with readily available training materials for easy comprehension.
Pricing: Reviewers have differing opinions on the setup cost of Cisco Secure Firewall. Some consider it expensive due to additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are generally acknowledged to have higher pricing. Reviewers note that Palo Alto Networks offers competitive hardware prices and discounts for multi-year licenses.
Comparison Results: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the preferred choice when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be straightforward and easy. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls stands out for its embedded machine learning capabilities, strong security features, and user-friendly interface.
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The solution can scale well."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"The Inline Mode configuration works really well, and ASA works very impressively."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"The most important feature is its categorization because on the site and social media you are unified in the way they are there."
"Very good as a stateful inspection firewall."
"Application inspection, network segmentation, and encrypted traffic detection or encrypted traffic analysis (ETA) are valuable for our customers."
"Their performance is most valuable."
"Its Snort 3 IPS has better flexibility as far as being able to write rules. This gives me better granularity."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is AMP (Advanced Malware Protection), as this is really needed to protect against cyber threats."
"The user experience is good and the configuration is very easy."
"The machine learning in the core of the firewalls, for inline, real-time attack prevention, is very important to us. With the malware and ransomware threats that are out there, to keep abreast of and ahead of those types of attacks, it's important for our devices to be able to use AI to distinguish when there is malicious traffic or abnormal traffic within our environment, and then notify us."
"Some of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' valuable features are their powerful capabilities and user-friendliness."
"It has the typical features of a next-generation firewall. It can do application control, antivirus, content filtering, etc."
"Comments have some delay, but overall, it's a good product."
"The graphical interface is easy to troubleshoot because it has a drill-down sequence. It is easy to monitor traffic."
"The most valuable feature is WildFire, which blocks sophisticated attacks and distinguishes it from other traditional firewall functions."
"I have found it to be reliable and very easy to use. I haven't really encountered many problems with it because its documentation is clear and readily available on their website."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Changes you make in the GUI sometimes do not reflect in the command line and vice versa."
"At times the product is sluggish and slow"
"One of the problems that we have had is the solution requires Java to work. This has caused some problems with the application visibility and control. When the Java works, it is good, but Java wasn't a good choice. I don't like the Java implementation. It can be difficult to work with sometimes."
"My team tells me that other solutions such as Fortinet and Palo Alto are easier to implement."
"We found it difficult to publish an antennae sidewalk with the ASDM. I think Cisco should improve this by creating a simpler interface for the firewall."
"The ASA has become a bit old and needs updating."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's integration with cloud providers has room for improvement. We could do more in terms of integration, for example, if we had a tag on an instance."
"I am in GCC in the Middle East. The support that we are getting from Palo Alto is disastrous. The problem is that the support ticket is opened through the distributor channel. Before opening a ticket, we already do a lot of troubleshooting, and when we open a ticket, it goes to a distributor channel. They end up wasting our time again doing what we have already done. They execute the same things and waste time. The distributor channel's engineer tries to troubleshoot, and after spending hours, they forward the ticket to Palo Alto. It is a very time-consuming process. The distributor channels also do not operate 24/7, and they are very lazy in responding to the calls."
"I would like to see it provide us with intelligent information from the data that it captures, within the same cost."
"The biggest thing that needs to be improved with them is their training. I took a training class for the 8.0 build, then I took it again for the 9.0 and 10 builds. They add new features every time that they do a new major release, but the training doesn't keep up. It is the same basic training that probably was with the 3.0 build, and they just change the screenshots. I would love to see them do some more work since they have all these bells and whistles, but we don't know how to use those features on a large scale."
"Its stability can be better. Their technical response from the support side can also be better."
"Palo Alto can do a little bit better when it comes to the User-ID part. I've been facing problems related to double authentication. You have a computer user, but you also have a VPN user, and when you do a single sign-on to another page, these logs can sometimes generate a problem notification. It doesn't happen a lot, but in some networks, it could be a problem. It would be very helpful to have the ability to restrict the connections that you can have in your VPN. For example, if you have the credentials, you can connect with the same user account from different computers or devices. If you have the domain information, you can connect from different devices. That's a problem that they need to address and resolve. They should ensure that at any moment, only one person is connected through a specific user account."
"Currently, they don't have email protection. They can maybe add it in the future. Currently, if you want to do so, you need to go with another solution."
"The VPN connectors should be better. We had some challenges in terms of the VPN with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall, and that's one of the main reasons why we moved to Sophos. Its load handling can also be improved. There were challenges when traffic was high. During peak business hours, it did not function very well. There was a lot of slowness, and the users used to complain, especially when they were connecting from outside. We even reported this to the support team. Their support should also be improved. Technical support was a bit of a concern while using this solution. We didn't get very good support from the Palo Alto team."
"The built-in machine learning features provide some automation, but I think there should be an option for manual review because nothing replaces the human eye."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 161 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and OPNsense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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Pricewise Cisco. But PA has better rating.
Palo Alto is better.
In my Oppinion, Palo Alto is better than Cisco. You can refer in NSS Lab 2018 & 2019 DCSG-SVM, NSS-labs-NGIPS-Comparative-Report, and some report from Forester about Zero Trust Architecture, and Gartner SASE report to discus more advantages of Palo Alto in the future