We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs Juniper SRX based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The two solutions are very comparable. Each of them have a good set of features, and the solution you choose will ultimately be dependent on your company’s specific preferences and requirements.
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The solution is stable."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"You can also put everything into a nice, neat, little package, as far as configuration goes. I was formerly a command-line guy with the ASA, and I was a little nervous about dealing with a GUI interface versus a command line, but after I did my first deployment, I got a lot more comfortable with doing it GUI based."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"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 Firepower IPS, based on Snort technology, has an amazing detection engine and historical analysis capability of files that eases threat investigations a lot."
"The user interface is very easy to manage and find rules. You can do object searches, which are very easy. Also, the logging is very simple to use. So, it is a lot easier to troubleshoot and find items inside the firewall."
"Cisco ASA provides us with very good application visibility and control."
"It is very stable compared to other firewall products."
"I am used to the ASA syntax, therefore it is quite easy to make up new rules. I have found that DNS doctoring rules are useful."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper SRX is that it is plug-and-play. Additionally, it has a lot of capabilities in one device."
"We think they have a good interface, the operating system is good, it's robust. It has plenty of great features, and the relation between the cost and benefits works for our business."
"The command line in Juniper SRX is extremely powerful, in my opinion. It's one of the best command lines I've used in networking products."
"It'sa very secure device, it has good attack prevention capabilities using UTM."
"It integrates well with Fortinet and Palo Alto."
"The user interface is good."
"Great as an inter-segmentation firewall or border or arch-firewall."
"The GUI is simple to use."
"They need faster serviceability and more security features."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"One feature I would like to see, that Firepower doesn't have, is email security. Perhaps in the future, Cisco will integrate Cisco Umbrella with Firepower. I don't see why we should have to pay for two separate products when both could be integrated in one box."
"The maturity needs to be better."
"I would like it if they made the newer generation a bit simpler. You can do ASA code and FXOS. It is just a bit confusing with the newer generational equipment on what it can do."
"It needs more tunneling capabilities."
"Cisco wasn't first-to-market with NGFWs... they should look at what other vendors are doing and try not only to be on the same wavelength but a little bit better."
"There is huge scope for improvement in URL filtering. The database that they have is not accurate. Their content awareness and categorization for URL filtering are not that great. We faced many challenges with their categorization and content awareness. They should improve these categorization issues."
"There used to be information displayed about the packets in a module called Packet Flow, but it is no longer there."
"It needs to provide the next-generation firewall features that other vendors provide, like data analytics, telemetry, and deep packet inspection."
"It could improve areas which need high performance."
"Ongoing costs are something that we need to manage and make sure that we're getting value on."
"The visibility/reporting could be better. To see something, you have to export the log to a syslog and then process with another product."
"I think improvement can be done to the security part, particularly the UDM, and the product should have a user-friendly interface similar to FortiGate. It should have the Azure RBAC in the next release."
"In terms of other features, I'd like to see a web filter, 10 point control, application control and a DNA filter in the next release."
"The user interface is something that Juniper needs to improve."
"There are a lot of features that customers do not know about and I think that better documentation would help when it comes to learning how to use the product."
"The Juniper product has to improve in terms of innovation."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 86 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8. 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 Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Check Point NGFW, whereas Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Juniper SRX Series Firewall report.
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