We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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 provides important functionalities like protection against threats, visibility into applications, efficient problem-solving, compatibility with other Cisco offerings, and impressive data transfer rates. Fortinet FortiGate-VM stands out for its robust security features, geofencing capabilities, user-friendly interface, and ability to adapt to varying needs.
The reviews highlight various areas where both the Cisco Secure Firewall and the Fortinet FortiGate-VM need improvement, including network performance, policy administration, customization options, centralized management, logging functionality, public cloud functionality, cloud management, technical support, MFA offerings, web filtering options, application inspection, GUI features, availability and delivery, setup process, data center clustering, throughput enhancement, web application firewall integration, integration simplicity, policy customization, and web-filtering configuration improvement.
Service and Support: The opinions on customer service for Cisco Secure Firewall are divided, with some customers appreciating their technical support, while others express concerns about delays and difficulties. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives mixed reviews, with some satisfied customers and others suggesting that their support could be improved.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be more complex depending on the user's familiarity and environment, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy initial setup, with assistance provided by Fortinet.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Cisco Secure Firewall can vary, and some reviewers find it pricey due to additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is seen as competitive and more affordable than certain alternatives. It provides flexible pricing options and includes support for entitlement in the licensing fees. However, costs may rise when scaling or adding extra features.
ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall offers different levels of ROI depending on how it is used and the overall system design, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers enhanced security and stability, potentially resulting in ROI.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when comparing it to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate-VM to be straightforward and easy. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly praised for its strong security features, user-friendly interface, and easy deployment.
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"The product offers very good security."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"It is a safe product."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"Its efficiency and security are the most important. We are more efficient and more secure."
"We definitely feel more secure. We have more control over things going in and out of our network."
"The most valuable feature must be AnyConnect. We have quite a few customers who use it. It is easy to use and the stablest thing that we have. We have experienced some issues on all our VPN clients, but AnyConnect has been the stablest one."
"The most important features are the intrusion prevention engine and the application visibility and control. The Snort feature in Firepower is also valuable."
"The integration and configuration were pretty straightforward."
"The dashboard is the most important thing. It provides good visibility and makes management easy. Firepower also provides us with good application visibility and control."
"One of the most valuable features is the GUI front end, which is very easy to use. But I'm also a command-line guy, and being able to access the device via command-line for advanced troubleshooting is quite important."
"Cisco ASA provides us with very good application visibility and control."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"GitDM, like FortiGate VM, provides similar features to FortiGate appliances or cloud solutions. However, FortiGate VM is more suitable for heavy traffic and inspection compared to GitDM. Unfortunately, FortiGate VM lacks a dedicated SPU for inspection, and all features rely on CPU and RAM."
"It offers the same robust features and functionality in virtual, on-premise, and traditional data center environments."
"One top feature is the ability to use the appliance as a WLAN controller for up to 10 access points with the new 5.6 firmware."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the servers, analyzer, and track protection."
"It’s easy to integrate the solution with our network infrastructure."
"It's very easy to set up, even for more junior developers."
"A top feature is the really good web interface and the classic Fortinet features, such as IPS, IDS, AV scanner, and spam filter."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"This solution could be more granular and user-friendly."
"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."
"With regards to stability, we had a critical bug come out during our evaluation... not good."
"HTTPs inspection and higher throughput/spec would be good."
"It will be nice if they had what you traditionally would use a web application scanner for. If the solution could take a deeper look into HTTP and HTTPS traffic, that would be nice."
"The worst part of the entire solution, and this is kind of trivial at times, is that management of the solution is difficult. You manage FireSIGHT through an internet browser. I've had Cisco tell me to manage it through Firefox because that's how they develop it. The problem is, depending on the page you're on, they don't function in the same way. The pages can be very buggy, or you can't resize columns in this one, or you can't do certain things in that one. It causes a headache in managing it."
"Tech support could not answer all of our questions. I had to do research on the web to solve my issues."
"Cisco ASA is starting to get old and Firepower is taking over. All the good things happening are with Firepower."
"Now they do have the ability to pop up a command line, which is nice, however, the fact that you can't do everything within the GUI is probably a problem."
"The price and licensing of the solution can be better."
"The price is problematic."
"The interface of the solution could be improved."
"New versions are complicated with a big configuration."
"his is not a good solution for enterprises. It's better for smaller companies."
"It needs an Application Inspection."
"They should keep us up to date about the latest version. That's the biggest thing. Currently, we have to go looking for the latest version. We should get notified about what's going on with the versions. I would like to see easier dual-factor authentication."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". 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-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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