We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Perimeter 81 based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall offers strong threat defense capabilities, allows for application visibility, seamlessly integrates with other Cisco products, and provides high throughput. Perimeter 81 excels in offering a convenient single sign-on feature, easy configuration options, the ability to manage multiple networks, and efficient customer service.
Cisco Secure Firewall could enhance its network performance, policy administration, customization options, advanced features, management interface, deployment time, integration with other tools, and logging functionality. Perimeter 81 has room for improvement in defining different locations, login instances, user interface customization, tutorials, session timeouts, login/logout process, dashboards, QoS, traffic shaping, network traffic balancing, redundancy, security capabilities, and speed of upload and download.
Service and Support: Cisco Secure Firewall's customer service has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers have commended the technical support provided, but others have encountered delays and challenges. Perimeter 81's customer service has garnered mostly favorable reviews, as customers have found their support to be prompt and beneficial.
Ease of Deployment: Users had varying experiences with the initial setup of Cisco Secure Firewall, with opinions being divided on its ease of use. Perimeter 81 was widely regarded as user-friendly and straightforward during the initial setup process, offering an intuitive interface and effortless connectivity.
Pricing: Reviewers have different opinions on the setup cost of Cisco Secure Firewall. Some consider it expensive because of additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Users find Perimeter 81 to be reasonably priced and beneficial, offering various pricing options tailored to individual requirements.
ROI: The effectiveness of Cisco Secure Firewall in terms of return on investment depends on the specific use case and architecture of the organization. Some customers have reported positive outcomes while others have expressed dissatisfaction. Perimeter 81 has the capability to deliver a favorable ROI. Reviewers have mentioned the quick implementation process and the potential for cost savings.
Comparison Results: Perimeter 81 is the preferred option when compared to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Perimeter 81 to be easy and user-friendly, in contrast to mixed reviews regarding Cisco Secure Firewall's initial setup, with some users finding it difficult. Perimeter 81 stands out for its single sign-on feature, easy configuration, and user-friendly interface.
"The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"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."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The customization potential is quite impressive."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"It has definitely improved our organization. It gives us remote connectivity, helps workers connect remotely, and also gives us good connectivity to our other branches."
"Clustering architecture which offers zero downtime upgrades, keeping uptime close to 99.999%."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"The most valuable feature would be ASDM. The ability to go in, visualize and see the world base in a clear and consistent manner is very powerful."
"ASA integrates with FirePOWER, IPS functionality, malware filtering, etc. This functionality wasn't there in the past. With its cloud architecture, Cisco can filter traffic at the engine layer. Evasive encryptions can be entered into the application, like BitTorrent or Skype. This wasn't possible to control through a traditional firewall."
"The solution offers very easy configurations."
"I have not contacted technical support. There is a lot of information on the internet for troubleshooting. All you need to do is use a search engine and you will find the information you are looking for easily."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Firewall is its ease of configuration and that it's scalable for firewalls and VPNs."
"The ease of use not only translates to quick adoption rates - it also ensures that our employees remain compliant with our cybersecurity protocols, enhancing the overall security posture of our organization."
"The feature that I have found to be most valuable is the reputation that the company has regarding privacy. Nowadays, this is critical, especially when you do all of your work online."
"Scaling Perimeter 81 was easy to do."
"Logging back into Perimeter 81 is relatively user-friendly as I just need to re-type my Windows credentials in to access the VPN."
"It keeps us all accountable and ensures secure internet connections while we all work remotely."
"It connects quickly and stays connected. The user interface is pretty neat too. The app has in-house support with user guides that give you step-by-step walkthroughs on navigating the app. In addition, there is a live chat feature that offers prompt assistance on the go."
"The setup is really easy...I rate the support team a ten out of ten."
"The solution provides us with an easy way to configure and join the VPN with Perimeter 81."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"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."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"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."
"The reporting and other features are nice, but there is an issue with applying the configuration. That part needs some improvement."
"The usability of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense is an issue. The product is still under development, and the user interface is very difficult to deal with."
"There should be more integration with Microsoft Identity."
"You have to know the ASA command line very well because not all operations are available in the graphical interface"
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"Critical bugs need to be addressed before releasing the version."
"At times the product is sluggish and slow"
"Its interface is sometimes is a little bit slow, and it can be improved. When you need to put your appliance in failover mode, it is a little difficult to do it remotely because you need to turn off the appliance in Cisco mode. In terms of new features, it would be good to have AnyConnect VPN with Firepower. I am not sure if it is available at the moment."
"In order to have to bypass the login using the website, a good feature for Perimeter 81 to have is a login instance in the Perimeter 81 application. I'm using a Mac and we don't have that functionality."
"If I were to be nitpicky, I would ask that Perimeter 81 offer the option for us to change the color of the graphical user interface, like maybe pink or green or so on."
"One of our challenges is ensuring the security of our cloud-based operations."
"There are a few areas where the solution could be improved. For instance, we sometimes encounter connectivity issues, which can be problematic. Recently, I experienced a connectivity issue while trying to move to Azure. Connectivity issues can be quite frustrating."
"There is a very small amount of downtime."
"One of the more negative experiences using Perimeter 81 is the fact that I am logged off after a pre-determined amount of time which cuts off access to some of my company's resources."
"Currently, I am not able to define a different country or location, which can result in negative experiences as the tool is being recognized by websites and this can make it difficult to access them or force me to disable the program temporarily."
"I'd love to learn more about all of the features. Maybe a monthly spotlight of features or having a banner that explains more ways certain features could be used would be helpful."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Perimeter 81 is ranked 11th in Firewalls with 22 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Perimeter 81 is rated 9.2. 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 Perimeter 81 writes "Great SAML and SCIM support with the ability to deploy site-2-site tunnels with specific IP restrictions". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Perimeter 81 is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare Access and Tailscale. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Perimeter 81 report.
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