We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Cisco Secure Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It has improved our security capabilities."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The performance is good."
"Cisco IOS Security has many good features, but compared to other solutions, it has a more user-friendly interface with steps to apply and manage rules. Another good part of the solution is that it's more straightforward."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is its flexibility and it performs great."
"The capabilities for scalability with this product are huge"
"The security is very good."
"Cisco IOS Security is very robust and works very well."
"The product's stability is good."
"The VPN connection portal scan works flawlessly, which was a big plus for us."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"Cisco Firepower NGFW is really easy to use right now to determine when my file requires a shift from primary to secondary status, and it can be done with automation. Earlier we used to do this with patching."
"Even in very big environments, Cisco comes in handy with configuration and offers reliability when it comes to managing multiple items on one platform."
"Since the product is stable, we do not have to spend additional money to buy other firewalls. Once deployed, we can use the product for a long time. Thus, it is cost effective."
"It is scalable and stable."
"Valuable features include AnyConnect, double translations, and an independent IPS module."
"It makes it very easy to have delineated roles and responsibilities between network engineering and network security."
"The ASA 55-x range is a solid and reliable firewall. It secures the traffic for normal purposes."
"Ease of configuration: It has gotten a lot easier to configure compared to the original Cisco Pix."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"With respect to user-friendliness, it is a command-line interface and those with such experience will get along just fine, whereas others may struggle."
"We need to pay for the license and it is expensive."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"The solution is not user friendly and it is hard to manage the GUI interface."
"The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it."
"Cisco is a scalable product, but it is expensive compared to other vendors."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"There is limited data storage on the appliance itself. So, you need to ship it out elsewhere in order for you to store it. The only point of consideration is around that area, basically limited storage on the machine and appliance. Consider logging it elsewhere or pushing it out to a SIEM to get better controls and manipulation over the data to generate additional metrics and visibility."
"It can probably provide a holistic view of different appliances because many customers do not have only one brand, besides the traditional SNMP protocols, to cover all their devices. There are some specific requirements in terms of configurations or actions that sometimes have to be done in a very manual way because of the different versions or brands in a customer's infrastructure. It could also have some additional analytics capabilities. It has some very interesting ways to monitor the traffic and identify false positives from the architecture and the environment. It would be good if there is a way to patch with some other industry-specific solutions and synchronize some of the information, such as what other customers experience in their operations and probably share some additional information that could be leveraged or shared among the industry. Such information would be something interesting to see. It could have AI capabilities related to how the appliances could benefit from learning the current environment and different exposures."
"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."
"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded."
"Its user interface is good, but it could be better. Currently, you have to know what to do before you can manage a device. If you don't know what to do, you can mess things up. There are some devices that are easier, such as FortiGate. The user interface of FortiGate is more intuitive. It is very easy to log in and configure things."
"It should have packets, deep level inspections and controls, like the features which other IPS solutions used to have."
"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."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering with PAN-DB, whereas Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall report.
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