We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Fortinet FortiOS 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."The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"The solution is scalable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward."
"The solution is very user-friendly and easy to deal with."
"It covers everything we need it to without looking to secondary solutions."
"I've found their network routing to be very good."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are DNS service and shell self-service within a network."
"You can scale it when you need to."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"I like its configuration and the various functions it offers."
"The information security features are the most valuable."
"It's very easy to use."
"It's simple to use in terms of inbound and outbound traffic management."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"The solution is very user friendly."
"A good network security system for medium-sized businesses with an excellent GUI interface that gives a graphic view of network status."
"I find filtering traffic, filtering web traffic, session traffic, and managing the network as valuable features."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"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."
"Sometimes I find it difficult to manage. Some configurations are difficult for new engineers, for example."
"With respect to user-friendliness, it is a command-line interface and those with such experience will get along just fine, whereas others may struggle."
"While Cisco IOS Security is stable and scalable, I would like to see it improved to be even better."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"An area for improvement in Cisco IOS Security is the performance because it's not as stable sometimes. There's also some latency in the solution, which could be improved. Cisco IOS Security integrates with other solutions, but you'll encounter many errors after integration, so this is another area for improvement. I'd like to see enhanced performance and a simplified setup in the next version of Cisco IOS Security."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"I would like to see much more embedded security that works and that isn't a bolt-on."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing models. With the way they are structured, everything is very disparate and sold separately, and, depending on the solution, it can get quite pricey."
"The complexity of the VPNs should be improved."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance."
"The technical support is good. However, during the holidays they can get a little slow to respond."
"I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support."
"I can only compare it with SonicWall, and it is missing many advanced features that SonicWall has."
"The pricing of the product is too high."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4. 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 FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Netgate pfSense, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering with PAN-DB, whereas Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Fortinet FortiWeb, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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