We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"We are a visual effects company, and there have been a number of high profile security issues in our industry. This has brought us to a higher standard of security, which our clients are very keen on these days."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is AMP (Advanced Malware Protection), as this is really needed to protect against cyber threats."
"The technical team is always available when we have problems."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"Stability, high availability of services, and very high MTBU were the most valuable features for me."
"The most valuable feature is the access control list (ACL)."
"The Firepower+ISE+AMP for endpoint integration is something that really stands it out with other vendor solutions. They have something called pxGrid and i think it is already endorsed by IETF. This allows all devices on the network to communicate."
"The primary benefits of using Cisco Secure solutions are time-saving, a robust API, and convenience for the security team."
"The user interface, the UI, is excellent on the solution."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"The solution is very robust."
"Good basic firewall features."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"It is a stable solution."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"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."
"Critical bugs need to be addressed before releasing the version."
"Technical support takes a long time to respond."
"Integration aspects and traffic shaping need improvement."
"The maturity needs to be better."
"I would like to see them update the GUI so that it doesn't look like it was made in 1995."
"In today's world, cyberattacks have become a common occurrence. However, so far, we have not faced any issues with our systems. I hope the situation remains the same in the future. If Cisco introduces even more advanced security measures, it would be beneficial."
"It would be good if Cisco made sure that the solution supports all routing protocols. Sometimes it doesn't."
"Cisco suffers from some integration issues with other products... There is a problem with the Cisco Catalyst Switches in terms of assembling bursts and having them interact properly with the Cisco Firepower."
"The integration should be improved."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. 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 Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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