We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Cisco Secure Firewall 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."FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The solution is scalable."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The hardware is pretty stable. It's also a very good product performance-wise. Initially, it wasn't mature like a firewall and there were other leaders, but now they have included almost all the features of next-generation security. Basically, it's a good product to work with."
"Cisco products are very secure and integrate easily with other devices."
"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."
"We use the product for firewalls."
"Previously, anyone in the organization would see any data point in the wall. They could just go and connect their machine with that data point and could access the network. But now, even if someone came and tried that, they will not be given access."
"Cisco IOS Security has many good features, but compared to other solutions, it has a more user-friendly interface with steps to apply and manage rules. Another good part of the solution is that it's more straightforward."
"What I have used the most and received the most benefit from is the IPsec technology."
"The solution effectively integrates with Umbrella."
"Cisco Secure Firewall improved our organization. We have it in every one of our French offices."
"Being able to determine our active users vs inactive users has led us to increased productivity through visibility. Also, if an issue was happening with our throughput, then we wouldn't know without research. Now, notifications are more proactively happening."
"So far, it has been very stable."
"Cisco ASA works very nicely from an administration perspective. The management of the device is very nice. The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) is the software that we use and it is very easy to configure using the GUI."
"Among the top features are integrated threat defence and the fact that each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control."
"ASDM provides GUI for configurations. The ASDM has made configuring ASA easy. No need to memorize CLI commands."
"I work with Cisco and other partners, but the Cisco team is the best team in our country. When I call them, they always help us."
"The return on investment is not going to be restricted to just the box... Now, these genres have been expanded to cyber, to third-party integrations, having integrated logging, having integrated micro and macro segmentations. The scope has been widened, so the ROI, eventually, has multiplied."
"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."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"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."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The configuration should be easier in the solution."
"Cisco IOS Security's monitoring is rather rudimentary and could be improved."
"The pricing is the only con for this product."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"Sometimes I find it difficult to manage. Some configurations are difficult for new engineers, for example."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."
"Cisco IOS Security should improve its functionalities."
"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."
"I would like to see improvement when you create policies on Snort 3 IPS on Cisco Firepower. On Snort 2, it was more like a UI page where you had some multiple choices where you could tweak your config. On Snort 3, the idea is more to build some rules on the text file or JSON file, then push it. So, I would like to see a lot of improvements here."
"If you need to reschedule a call with the support team when you face a new issue with the product, then it may get a bit of a problem to get a hold of someone from the support team of Cisco."
"VPNs are weak as this product still does not support route-based VPNs."
"Some of the features, like the stability, need to be improved."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"I would like to see the inclusion of a protocol that can be used to protect databases."
"The one thing that the ASAs don't have is a central management point. We have a lot of our environments on FTD right now. So, we are using a Firewall Management Center (FMC) to manage all those. The ASAs don't really have that, but they are easy to use if you physically go into them and manage them."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. 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 Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering with PAN-DB, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
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