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.
"For us, the most valuable features are the IPX and the Sourcefire Defense Center module. That gives us visibility into the traffic coming in and going out, and gives us the heads-up if there is a potential outbreak or potential malicious user who is trying to access the site. It also helps us see traffic generated by an end device trying to reach out to the world."
"So far, it has been very stable."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is robust and reliable."
"The product offers good scalability."
"Being able to use it as a policy-based VPN is valuable. It's very easy to understand. It's very easy to troubleshoot."
"The configuration support is very good. You can find a lot of configuration samples and troubleshooting tips on the internet, which is very good."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"I have integrated it for incidence response. If there is a security event, the Cisco firewall will automatically block the traffic, which is valuable."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"It performs very well."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"Intrusion prevention, we currently need to apply deep bracket inspection manually to use web filtering."
"When we're looking at full-stack visibility, it can be difficult to get the right information out of Firepower."
"Integration aspects and traffic shaping need improvement."
"We are replacing ASA with FTD which offers many new features not available using ASA."
"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."
"One of my main concerns, an area that could use improvement is in adjusting the need to buy a license to enable features."
"It's lacking one feature: VPN. Also, the 2100 Series lacks a DDoS feature. If they could add that to those platforms, that would be good."
"Some individuals find the setup and configuration challenging."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
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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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.