We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Forcepoint Next Generation 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."The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"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 most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"Sourcefire has been a great addition. The visibility and control have been nice."
"The product offers good scalability."
"I like the ASDM for the firewall because it is visual. With the command line, it is harder to visualize what is going on. A picture is worth a thousand words."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"It is a comprehensive suite and complete package."
"The IPS (In-plane switching) is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is excellent for enterprise-level networks."
"So far, it has been very stable."
"I have two offices, and I can route the internet of both offices using the same product. The connectivity is great."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Forcepoint's stability is satisfactory, for the most part."
"The feature that we like the most about Forcepoint is that we know the technology and have confidence in it. We can have several functionalities to simplify operations and management. We can combine functionalities like log ownership to review the number of devices in the infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is SD-WAN."
"Forcepoint is a complete package because it has network and systems applications. Other firewalls are only for the network."
"I like the Firewall and the IPS."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"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."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The product needs real-time logs to be able to monitor our services, so we can know if any our services have been blocked via the firewall or on the application side."
"The ability to better integrate with other tools would be an improvement."
"It's not unexpected, but it's a common scenario where customers request dual layers of security. For instance, when dealing with regulatory compliance, especially in financial sectors regulated by entities like the Central Bank, having two distinct units is often mandated. If a client predominantly uses a solution like Palo Alto, they may need to incorporate another vendor such as Cisco or Forti. Importantly, there's a significant disparity in interfaces and management platforms between these vendors, necessitating careful consideration when integrating them into the overall security architecture"
"I would like to see improvement when you create policies on Snort 3 IPS on Cisco Firepower. On Snort 2, it was more like a UI page where you had some multiple choices where you could tweak your config. On Snort 3, the idea is more to build some rules on the text file or JSON file, then push it. So, I would like to see a lot of improvements here."
"Most of the features don't work well, and some features are missing as well."
"We are still running the original ASAs. The software that you are running for the ASDM software and Java application has never been a lot of fun to operate. It would have been nice to see that change update be redesigned with modern systems, which don't play nicely with Java sometimes. Cybersecurity doesn't seem to love how that operates. For us, a fresher application, taking advantage of the hardware, would have been a better approach."
"We would like to see MS Word BPM as a feature."
"Cisco ASA is starting to get old and Firepower is taking over. All the good things happening are with Firepower."
"The solution needs to build upon its network functionality. It needs to be a bit smarter."
"I would like to see more sizing in the next release, and the roadmap should be clear."
"They need to improve their alerts."
"The company should update the URL filtering database. They need to enhance the URL filtering and make it easier to customize."
"Configuration is not easy because it has an old-fashioned interface. The configuration interface is highly complex, and it's been the same for years. They have to change the interface."
"While they offer a comprehensive bundled solution, some users may prefer on-premise deployments for certain features, such as URL filtering."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of custom reporting."
"They should provide more details on potential cyber threats."
More Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall is ranked 31st in Firewalls with 40 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall is rated 7.6. 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 Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall writes "Good URL filtering with helpful technical support and good scalability". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention, Check Point NGFW, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and Darktrace. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall 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.
