We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Zscaler Internet Access 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.
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"It is very flexible to use."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The management aspect of the product is very straightforward."
"VPN load balancing has been particularly essential for my connections to integrate via multiple time zones."
"This solution is easy to use if you know how to set it up."
"Collaboration with other Cisco products such as ISE and others is the most valuable feature."
"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"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."
"Basic firewalling is obviously the most valuable. In addition to that, secure access and remote access are also very useful for us."
"The firepower sensors have been great; they do a good job of dropping unwanted traffic."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
"The most valuable feature is bandwidth control."
"The cloud proxy and integration are some of the key features. Since there is cloud waste, we can quickly provision it and start working on the configuration. On top of that, they have added a few more features. They have integrated CASB, and file sandboxing is part of it."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is SWG traffic."
"Zscaler Internet Access's best feature is the granular policy controls."
"Whether you are in a hotel somewhere, or in Africa, it does not matter. You will get the Zscaler protection presence anywhere."
"The initial setup was straightforward. The biggest thing for us was to build our own policies. The deployment itself was only a few hours."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"It's mainly the UI and the management parts that need improvement. The most impactful feature when you're using it is the user interface and the user experience."
"This solution could be more granular and user-friendly."
"We only have an issue with time sync with Cisco ASA and NTP. If the time is out of sync, it will be a disaster for the failover."
"In the past though, colleagues have had issues during the upgrade process. The failover didn't work and production was down."
"We see a lot of vendors in the market with a lot of niche products. I understand that it's difficult to cover everything, but making it more open for integration with other vendors would be a value add for Cisco."
"In terms of functionality, there isn't much to improve. There could be more bandwidth and better interface speed."
"The initial setup was complex."
"It is expensive."
"An improvement would be if they could provide an out-of-the-box experience, like 20 to 30 features all ready to go. In comparison, LogRhythm offers out-of-the-box features. With Zscaler Internet Access, there is firewall IPS, multiple security services, filtering, DLP, and CASB browser isolation. These are things that all users are going to be using. However, when an administrator or architect would start building this, I would definitely need to engage professional services to help clients do it."
"In terms of user experience, it could be better."
"The OS capabilities and WSL support could be improved."
"Sometimes, support isn't available."
"The performance needs improvement. Some areas create performance issues and, depending on the use cases, require reconfiguration to perform again."
"Zscaler Internet Access could improve by adding a VPN feature."
"They block Zscaler IPs when the traffic origin is from Zscaler IPs. They've been blocked by certain government organizations so the end users are not able to visit those websites unless we ask them to unblock those IP. This is a bit problematic."
"If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 46 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. 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 Zscaler Internet Access writes "Provides integrated CASB and file sandboxing but could be less expensive ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Appgate SDP. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Zscaler Internet Access report.
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