We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Network Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, with all other factors being more or less equal, Cisco Secure Firewall comes in a bit ahead of Palo Alto simply because of their stronger support.
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The IPS, as well as the malware features, are the two things that we use the most and they're very valuable."
"Previously, our customers had to always utilize hand-to-hand delivery. Now, they are able to move completely to a secure digital method. They use a strictly dark fiber optics connection from a central location to the endpoint."
"Cisco offers a great educational series to train users on their devices."
"Valuable features include DMZ segmentation, and IDS and IPS."
"URL filtering is valuable."
"There are some hiccups here and there, but compared to the technical support from other vendors, I have had the best experience with Cisco's technical support. I would rate them at nine out of ten."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"The management aspect of the product is very straightforward."
"With this product, we receive the best monitoring and reports."
"The most valuable feature is the improved security that it offers."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks WildFire are the good URL and file analysis that uses artificial intelligence. It has different interfaces, such as rest, SMTP protocol, and HTTPS. The Security incidents and event management are very good. Additionally, there are many file types that are supported and there is no limit to the number of files it can handle simultaneously. It integrates well with SIEM solutions."
"It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore."
"The technical support is good."
"The way that the solution quickly updates to adjust to threats is the solution's most valuable aspect. When there's a security attack, within five minutes, all Wildfire subscribers have access to updates so that all systems will be safe. Its threat prevention is way better than other vendor products."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"Application management can be improved."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area."
"An area for improvement is the graphical user interface. That is something that is coming up now. They could make the product more user-friendly. A better GUI is something that would make life much easier."
"The license system is also good but it's not very impressive. It's a very regular licensing system. They call it a smart license which means that your device will connect to the internet. This is a little bit of a headache for some customers. It doesn't make the customer happy because most of the customers prefer not to connect their firewall or system to the internet."
"FlexConfig is there as a bridge for features that are not yet natively integrated into Firepower. It is a way of allowing you to be able to configure things that wouldn't otherwise be possible until the development team can add them into Firepower's native capability. There is still some work that needs to be done around FlexConfig. There are still quite a few complex things, like policy-based routing, that have to be done in FlexConfig, and it doesn't always work perfectly. Sometimes, there are some glitches. It is recommended that you configure FlexConfig policies with Cisco TAC. It would be good to see Cisco accelerate some of those configurations that you can only do in FlexConfig into the platform, so that they are there natively."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"In Firepower, there is an ability to search and dig into a search, which is nice. However, I'm not a super fan of the way it scrolls. If you want to look at something live, it's a lot different. You're almost waiting. With the ASDM, where it just flows, you can really see it. The second someone clicks something or does something, you'll see it. The refresh rate on the events in Firepower is not as smooth."
"They really need support for deployment."
"I would like it to have faster deployment times. A typical deployment could take two to three minutes. Sometimes, it depends on the situation. It is better than it was in the past, but it could always use improvement."
"The deployment model could be better."
"Other vendors have some sort of bandwidth management built into the firewall itself and Palo Alto is missing that."
"In terms of what I'd like to see in the next release of Palo Alto Networks WildFire, each release is based on malware that has been identified. The key problem is an average of six months from the time malware is written to the time it's discovered and a signature is created for it. The only advice that I can give is for them to shorten that timeframe. I don't know how they would do it, but if they shorten that, for example, cut it in half, they'll make themselves more famous."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"As a firewall and 360 degrees of security, there needs to be more maturity."
"Any enhancements should likely be focused on the firewall appliance to further strengthen overall security capabilities, such as refining app and user identity features."
"The automation and responsiveness need improvement."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4. 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 WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox, Check Point SandBlast Network and Zscaler Internet Access.
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