We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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."Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"Cisco Technical Assistance Center works on a follow-the-sun concept and gives real 24x7 customer support, which is a great advantage when you have a service contract with them."
"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."
"The security is very good."
"We are able to filter a lot of traffic especially when a lot of the traffic is in layer 7."
"We use Cisco IOS Security mostly for routers to route off the firewall. It's a next-generation device."
"The most valuable features of Cisco IOS Security are the plenty of functionality it provides, many people are IT certified the usage, and the user interface is good."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
"The main advantage of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series stems from the fact that you can access it with the help of cloud services."
"Using Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we were able to deploy a single point of management and visualization of the firewall infrastructure in cloud, on-premise and integrated with Azure to automate scale up. Its security features, i.e. anti-malware, threat prevention, URL Filtering, VPN, and antivirus are the most valuable. The ID-User integrated with AD and 2FA features are also very useful to provide secure access to servers and some users in the company. "
"You already can scale it if you put it in Auto Scaling groups. If you put it in a load balancer, it should already be able to scale."
"The most valuable feature is the CLI."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"In AWS, Palo Alto provides us a better view than flow logs for network traffic."
"The most valuable features are the User ID, URL filtering, and application filtering."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."
"I wish it would be more like the next generation firewall technology. There should be more selection between the application and filtering."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"There could be a bit more functions on offer that could make it easier to use."
"The pricing is the only con for this product."
"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."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"Cisco IOS Security could improve its security features. There are competitors that have some additional security features, such as Fortinet FortiGate. Additionally, there should be better synchronization with Cisco IOS Security and other vendors, and improved AI features would be beneficial."
"The initial setup is complicated."
"The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration of multi-factor authentication vendors."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution."
"The only minor issue we've faced is with the app's ID configuration, which requires specific matching for application filtering."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
"At the beginning of the implementation, we had some difficulties with the scripts, but Palo Alto Networks support together with a local partner finally fixed it."
"The current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 52 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and OPNsense, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
