We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiGate-VM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall provides important functionalities like protection against threats, visibility into applications, efficient problem-solving, compatibility with other Cisco offerings, and impressive data transfer rates. Fortinet FortiGate-VM stands out for its robust security features, geofencing capabilities, user-friendly interface, and ability to adapt to varying needs.
The reviews highlight various areas where both the Cisco Secure Firewall and the Fortinet FortiGate-VM need improvement, including network performance, policy administration, customization options, centralized management, logging functionality, public cloud functionality, cloud management, technical support, MFA offerings, web filtering options, application inspection, GUI features, availability and delivery, setup process, data center clustering, throughput enhancement, web application firewall integration, integration simplicity, policy customization, and web-filtering configuration improvement.
Service and Support: The opinions on customer service for Cisco Secure Firewall are divided, with some customers appreciating their technical support, while others express concerns about delays and difficulties. Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives mixed reviews, with some satisfied customers and others suggesting that their support could be improved.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be more complex depending on the user's familiarity and environment, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers a generally straightforward and easy initial setup, with assistance provided by Fortinet.
Pricing: The cost of setting up Cisco Secure Firewall can vary, and some reviewers find it pricey due to additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is seen as competitive and more affordable than certain alternatives. It provides flexible pricing options and includes support for entitlement in the licensing fees. However, costs may rise when scaling or adding extra features.
ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall offers different levels of ROI depending on how it is used and the overall system design, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers enhanced security and stability, potentially resulting in ROI.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when comparing it to Cisco Secure Firewall. Users find the initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate-VM to be straightforward and easy. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly praised for its strong security features, user-friendly interface, and easy deployment.
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"It is very flexible to use."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"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."
"A powerful enterprise security solution that is dependible."
"The features I found most valuable in this solution, are the overall security features."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"We have been using a 5520 for seven years in our datacenter and we are satisfied by this version."
"Firewall help with cybersecurity resilience. I really like this Cisco product. It's user-friendly. I don't like some other vendors. I've tried those in the past. Cisco is pretty easy. A caveman could do it."
"FMC is very good in terms of giving a lot of visibility into what the firewall is seeing, what it's stopping, and what it's letting through. It lets the administrator have a little bit of knowledge of what's coming in or out of the device. It's excellent."
"You can also put everything into a nice, neat, little package, as far as configuration goes. I was formerly a command-line guy with the ASA, and I was a little nervous about dealing with a GUI interface versus a command line, but after I did my first deployment, I got a lot more comfortable with doing it GUI based."
"This solution is easy to use if you know how to set it up."
"FortiGate-VM has many valuable features: it's easy to use, it's intuitive, it's got very good traffic inspection features, it's got comprehensive filtering categories, and it has an extensive threat database, using FortiGuard."
"The solution can scale well."
"The most valuable features we have found to be the VPN, ease of use, and overall simplicity."
"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is purpose-built as a next-generation firewall, excelling in its performance of this specific function."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The most valuable features are site-to-site connections and UTM."
"The interface is decent."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"It is hard to control the bandwidth of end-users with a Cisco Firewall. That is the main issue I've faced. I used Mikrotik for many years for this very reason. Mikrotik has the option to set a bandwidth restriction for a single IP or complete segments. Cisco should add this option to their firewall."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"Cisco wasn't first-to-market with NGFWs... they should look at what other vendors are doing and try not only to be on the same wavelength but a little bit better."
"Cisco still has a lot of work to do. You can convert an ASA over to a Firepower, but the competitors, like Palo Alto and Juniper, are coming in. And believe it or not, they are a little bit more intuitive. Cisco has a little bit more work to do. They're playing catch up."
"The ASA needs to incorporate the different modules you have to integrate to achieve UTM functions, especially for small businesses."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"If the implementation was easier, it would be a lot better for us."
"For what we use it for, it ends up being the perfect product for us, but it would help if they could expand it into some of the other areas and other use cases working with speeding up and the reliability of the pushes from the policy manager."
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
"The one thing that could be improved is the integration with the exchange. The gateway level controls can be enhanced a bit more. For example, it's still little here and there. You do get malicious attacks and suspicious emails like spam. It's not like Sophos where we got a lot of spam email, and yet, it's still relatively vulnerable. It can be upgraded, maybe with a fifth-generation firmware that it is ready for unknown threats."
"FortiGate's application load balancing has to be improved. They need to improve a lot on the load balancing and RAF side. They are far behind Citrix in that regard."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"The product has issues with integration. I would like to see better integration in future releases of the product."
"They should keep us up to date about the latest version. That's the biggest thing. Currently, we have to go looking for the latest version. We should get notified about what's going on with the versions. I would like to see easier dual-factor authentication."
"The product's initial setup phase is a bit complex."
"The solution is fairly complex."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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 Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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