We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Fortinet FortiManager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"The security on offer is very good."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"The VPN connection portal scan works flawlessly, which was a big plus for us."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"The Intrusion Firewall is a valuable feature."
"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."
"There is a positive impact on security, particularly the intrusion feature, which helps keep the solution concealed and secure."
"Technical support for this solution is very good."
"The solution effectively integrates with Umbrella."
"We are able to filter a lot of traffic especially when a lot of the traffic is in layer 7."
"Technical support is great. When we have sent urgent tickets and they do reply back within fifteen minutes."
"It is easy to manage a huge number of devices with FortiManager."
"The most valuable features are the centralized management of the firewalls."
"I like the rapid deployment feature. I also like that it's easy to troubleshoot. FortiManager is amazing because we can have a centralized policy. All our devices are integrated, and we can also engage in troubleshooting. We can use it for different deployments. One fantastic feature is the ability to create a version and deploy it immediately."
"It has multiple features in one box, which helps to avoid needing a lot of equipment. This is something that makes them unique."
"The central management feature is the most valuable to me."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiManager is the ease of manageability and policy-pushing functionality."
"I pushed templates from FortiManager to our site, and they were deployed successfully."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"Its customer service could be better."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"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."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"The routers, don't have like long-term tendency features, or higher availability features available for the IOS. It could also use a better user interface."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"I think setup could be one area for improvement, because sometimes we don't have people inside so we have to move to the place."
"Cisco very slowly introduces and implements the products, unlike other brands."
"I would like upgrading iOS to be a bit easier."
"While Cisco IOS Security is stable and scalable, I would like to see it improved to be even better."
"We have a very bad experience on the support. They take too much time requesting logs, and they are not coming directly online to resolve the issues."
"For the IPSEC tunnels, Fortimanager doesn't have all of the features that are available on Fortigate."
"The SD-WAN solution is difficult to manage on FortiManager because you need to share some configurations on the firewall side. Sometimes you lose all connectivity with the firewall, so it is challenging to apply the default configuration to the SD-WAN solution."
"The compatibility with legacy products should be better. It would also be nice if the software could manage other devices from Fortinet and third parties."
"I didn't like the connectivity with FortiManager and FortiSwitch, which was buggy and annoying and had fewer features."
"The solution has to be enhanced to manage new switches."
"It would be better if it were easier to run a routing protocol. In the next release, I would like them to enhance some features in the GUI rather than CLI or OSP. For example, whenever a customer generates an ISP directly on the firewall, it's complicated to configure the routing protocol."
"Fortinet FortiManager could improve them by adding more portfolio components."
"Its licensing model should be improved."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Fortinet FortiManager is ranked 3rd in Network Management Applications with 61 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiManager is rated 8.0. 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 FortiManager writes "Easy to set up with good integration capabilities but we've had troubles when moving devices". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and OPNsense, whereas Fortinet FortiManager is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate Cloud, Fortinet FortiOS, Cisco DNA Center, Zabbix and AlgoSec.
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