We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and McAfee StoneGate [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The deep packet inspection is useful, but the most useful feature is application awareness. You can filter on the app rather than on a static TCP port."
"Cisco ASA works very nicely from an administration perspective. The management of the device is very nice. The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) is the software that we use and it is very easy to configure using the GUI."
"Even in very big environments, Cisco comes in handy with configuration and offers reliability when it comes to managing multiple items on one platform."
"The ASA 55-x range is a solid and reliable firewall. It secures the traffic for normal purposes."
"Manageability of Cisco ASA. It has a GUI interface, unlike the most of Cisco IOS. For beginners they can "sneak in" and apply the command and see the actual commands that the GUI launches. In addition, Cisco has the reputation regarding security."
"One of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now."
"We are using the Cisco AnyConnect for our end-user VPN with the ASA."
"It helped us a lot with our VPNs for the home office during COVID. There has been more security and flexibility for VPNs and other applications."
"It works well with a highly-active cluster."
"We did not have issues with scalabiliy."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"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."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could 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."
"The scalability could be better."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"Report generation is an area that should be improved."
"I would like to see them release a patch for ASAv with cross-platform FirePower integration."
"You need to have a little bit of knowledge to be able to configure it. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to configure because there is no GUI. The latest software available in the market has a GUI and probably zero-touch provisioning and auto-configuration. All these things are not available in our version. You need to manually go and configure everything in the switch. In terms of new features, we would definitely want to have URL-based filtering, traffic steering, and probably a little bit steering in the bandwidth based on the per-user level and per-user group. We will definitely need some of these features in the near future."
"The user interface isn't as good as it could be. They should work to improve it. It would make it easier for customer management if it was easier to use."
"While this applies to all vendors, pricing can be always lower. In my opinion, Cisco is the most expensive. The pricing can be reduced."
"Cisco ASA should be easier to use. It is a bit tough to navigate and see what is going on."
"The solution is overcomplicated in some senses. Simplifying it would be an improvement."
"The user interface is too complex for people who are not trained to or certified to engage with the product. The interface should be easier to use."
"After some experience with the solution, we had to do some redesign, but generally, we were happy with the product."
Earn 20 points
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while McAfee StoneGate [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Firewalls. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while McAfee StoneGate [EOL] is rated 7.0. 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 McAfee StoneGate [EOL] writes "The HA cluster had issues during deployment, but the solution gives us better application control than with our previous solution". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas McAfee StoneGate [EOL] is most compared with .
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