We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox 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. WatchGuard Firebox received slightly better ratings because it is easier to deploy than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"The most valuable feature is that the encryption is solid."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a good solution. In some ways, it is a reactive solution and we have it sitting in a whitelist mode rather than a blacklist mode. It seems to work fairly well for us."
"Cybersecurity resilience has been paramount. Because there is a threat of losing everything if ransomware or another sort of attack were to happen, the cybersecurity resilience has been top-notch."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We can see that it gets even better with every release."
"Cisco ASA provides us with very good application visibility and control."
"The most valuable feature we have found to be the VPN because we use it often."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"It's easy to integrate ASA with other Cisco security products. When you understand the technology, it's not a big deal. It's very simple."
"WebBlocker has the best URL category database ever."
"Two of the functionalities we use most are the traffic monitoring and the full panel dashboard. Those are two things that are very useful for us... In addition, it provides us with layered security. It allows us to determine what types of access, to which networks, we want to allow or deny."
"The most valuable feature is the NAT-ing, the IP addresses... We can direct the traffic where it needs to go. We can control the traffic."
"It's very easy to use, especially compared to similar products. A lot more users use the WatchGuard appliance now than use the SonicWall appliance because of the ease of usability."
"After conducting several tests I found the antivirus is working very well. Additionally, they have a very interesting feature, DNS WatchGuard, which is checking DNS requests for phishing, among other things, and it has caught a lot of unwanted attempts and attacks."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The set up of the VPN is pretty straightforward. Being able to build VPNs on the fly for certain users, if need be, is also valuable."
"Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change."
"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."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"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."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"There's a little bit of a disconnect between Firepower’s management and the rest of the products, like DNA and Prime. The solution should have fewer admin portals for network, security, and firewalls."
"We are replacing ASA with FTD which offers many new features not available using ASA."
"It should have packets, deep level inspections and controls, like the features which other IPS solutions used to have."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex for those unfamiliar with the solution."
"The installation and integration of Cisco ASA with FirePOWER can be improved. The management with Fortigate is easier than Cisco ASA on FirePOWER. The management side of Cisco ASA can be improved so it can be more easily configured and used."
"These firewalls are not for beginners."
"More intuitive support for SIP services are needed. This took a long time to configure properly for the user."
"A feature that would allow me to load balance among multiple ISPs, especially since we have deployed it as a perimeter firewall, would be a great addition."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
"The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier."
"The next release should have better software and configuration systems that can also be used on Linux."
"The way Secure Sign-On authentication is happening needs to be improved. When the Secure Sign-On portal is turned on, anybody who comes into the campus, whether he or she is a staff member or a guest, has to go past the initial portal. One of the shortcomings is the username. It shouldn't allow permutations or combinations with upper or lower cases. For example, when there is a username abc, it shouldn't allow ABC or Abc. It should not allow the same username, but currently, two separate people can go in. Therefore, its authentication or validation should be improved, and the case sensitiveness should be picked up. If I have restricted someone to two devices, they shouldn't be able to use different combinations of the same username and get into the third or fourth device. It shouldn't allow different combinations of alphabets to be used to log in."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The few issues that we have had, such as not knowing where to go, they have been answered quickly."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Sophos UTM, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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