We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate comes out on top. Its ease of deployment combined with its solid set of features and excellent service and support ratings make it a more desirable solution than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"For business purposes, it's a very detailed solution, which is it's greatest benefit, as you can get almost any piece of information you need from the solution. It allows for admins to be able to troubleshoot pretty easily."
"The deep packet inspection is useful, but the most useful feature is application awareness. You can filter on the app rather than on a static TCP port."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's security solutions, advanced malware protection, and DDoS communication are very good."
"I love the ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) which is the management suite. It's a GUI and you're able to see everything at a glance without using the command line. There are those who love the CLI, but with ASDM it is easier to see where everything is going and where the problems are."
"The user interface is very easy to manage and find rules. You can do object searches, which are very easy. Also, the logging is very simple to use. So, it is a lot easier to troubleshoot and find items inside the firewall."
"It's got the capabilities of amassing a lot of throughput with remote access and VPNs."
"Simple to deploy, stable."
"The product offers very good security."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"It is hard to collaborate with our filtered environment."
"I would like for them to develop better integration with other security platforms."
"FMC could be improved because management with FMC is quite difficult compared to using Firepower web-based management."
"Cisco Secure Firewall’s customer support could be improved."
"Its user interface is good, but it could be better. Currently, you have to know what to do before you can manage a device. If you don't know what to do, you can mess things up. There are some devices that are easier, such as FortiGate. The user interface of FortiGate is more intuitive. It is very easy to log in and configure things."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"The installation and integration of Cisco ASA with FirePOWER can be improved. The management with Fortigate is easier than Cisco ASA on FirePOWER. The management side of Cisco ASA can be improved so it can be more easily configured and used."
"The Cisco Secure Firewall could benefit from enhancements in its API, documentation, and automation tools."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"Its price could be better."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The logging details need to be improved."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate 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 Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, WatchGuard Firebox and Check Point NGFW. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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