We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Network Wildfire based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, with all other factors being more or less equal, Cisco Secure Firewall comes in a bit ahead of Palo Alto simply because of their stronger support.
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The remote VPN and IPsec VPN or site-to-site VPN features are valuable. The clustering feature is also valuable. We have two ISP links. Whenever there is a failover, users don't even get to know. The transition is very smooth, and the users don't notice any latency. So, remote VPN, site-to-site VPN, and failover are three very powerful features of Cisco ASA."
"I have found the most valuable feature to be the access control and IPsec VPN."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a scalable solution."
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"Its VPN and ASN features are very stable."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"I like the IPS feature, it is the most valuable."
"This solution has good security, and it's a good product. You can trust Cisco, and there's support as well, which is really good."
"High availability with active-active and active-passive modes."
"The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not."
"Remote access is excellent."
"Intuitive threat prevention and analysis solution, with a machine learning feature. Scalable, stable, and protects against zero-day threats."
"The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good."
"Scalable ATP solution that's quick to set up. It demonstrates good performance and stability."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten since we never faced any issues."
"A good tool for file scanning and email threat detection, especially when it comes to attachments and communications."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"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."
"The UI could be improved."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"One area where the ASA could be improved is that it doesn't have AMP. When you get an ASA with the Firepower model, ASA with FTD, then you have advanced malware protection."
"Other firewalls, upgrading is a very easy task; from the graphical user interface, you just need to import the firmware versions into it and install it. In this firewall, you need to have a third-party solution in both. It's a process. It's a procedure, a hard procedure, actually, so there is no straightforward procedure for upgrading."
"It is a good firewall, though not NextGen."
"The ASA needs to incorporate the different modules you have to integrate to achieve UTM functions, especially for small businesses."
"They need a user-friendly interface that we could easily configure."
"Firepower's user experience should be a little bit better."
"In terms of next-generation capabilities, Cisco is a little behind, and it is way behind the market leaders."
"It would be good if Cisco made sure that the solution supports all routing protocols. Sometimes it doesn't."
"The initial setup was complex."
"I would like to see them continue on their developmental roadmap for the product."
"The product fails to offer protection when dealing with high-severity vulnerabilities, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The global product feature needs improvement, the VPN, and we need some enhanced features."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"It's not really their problem, it's a problem across the board. There will always be problems with interrupted traffic. We have to set it up where we're playing a middle man game where we're stripping it out, looking at it, and then putting it back together and sending it on its way. That requires CPU cycles. And there's some overhead with that."
"The configuration should be made a little bit easier. I understand why it is as it is, but there should be a way to make it easier from the user side."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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 Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox, Check Point SandBlast Network and Zscaler Internet Access.
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