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.
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The greatest benefit that this has provided to our organization is that we've been able to adjust the time that it takes to implement firewall changes. It's gone from a week to less than half a day to implement a change, which means that our DevOps team can be much more agile, and there is much less overhead on the firewall team."
"The most valuable features of Cisco firewalls are the IPS and IDS items. We find them very helpful. Those are the biggest things because we have some odd, custom-made products in our environment. What we've found through their IPS and IDS is that their vulnerability engines have caught things that are near-Zero-day items, inside of our network."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is AMP (Advanced Malware Protection), as this is really needed to protect against cyber threats."
"On the network side, where you create your rules for allowing traffic — what can come inside and what can go out — that works perfectly, if you know what you want to achieve. It protects you."
"The initial setup is easy."
"What I found the most valuable about Cisco Secure Firewall is that if a client is educated about the solution, it can help him or her avoid many problems and mistakes."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is reliable, which is why we opted for it during the pandemic for our remote users."
"The most valuable Cisco Secure Firewall features are options, features, and ease of deployment because it's an appliance."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness."
"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."
"Scalable ATP solution that's quick to set up. It demonstrates good performance and stability."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"Detailed reporting on analysis of content. The inspections are easily applied to security policy profiles and profile groups, and may be assigned on a per-rule basis."
"The analysis is very fast."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"I'm working on a slightly older version, but what it needs is a better alert management. It's pretty standard, but there's no real advanced features involved around it."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"It lacks management. For me, it still doesn't have a proper management tool or GUI for configuration, logging, and visualization. Its management is not that easy. It is also not very flexible and easy to configure. They used to have a product called CSM, but it is no longer being developed. FortiGate is better than this solution in terms of GUI, flexibility, and user-friendliness."
"Initial setup can be complex. It is complex. We have to set up ASA, SFR module, and FMC separately, which sometimes requires extensive troubleshooting, even for smaller issues."
"This solution could be more granular and user-friendly."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"Most of the time, when I try to run Java, it is not compatible with ASA's current operating systems."
"I would say that in inexperienced hands, the interface can be kind of overwhelming. There are just a lot of options. Too much, if you don't know what you are looking for or trying to do."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire should be more real-time in nature. The signature updates should happen in a minute or less than a minute to be a very good feature for the customer."
"The system performance degrades after the solution has been deployed for some time. The data that it gives us becomes a little bit slow. When you try to get some data for troubleshooting, it seems like it's working hard to extract that data."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex, mainly due to the GUI console and management challenges."
"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."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."
"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
"In the future, I would like to see more automation in the reporting."
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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