We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet FortiOS 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."Good load balancing feature."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"I like them mostly because they don't break and they have great diagnostics."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"The traffic inspection and the Firepower engine are the most valuable features. It gives you full details, application details, traffic monitoring, and the threats. It gives you all the containers the user is using, especially at the application level. The solution also provides application visibility and control."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is reliable, which is why we opted for it during the pandemic for our remote users."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"Cisco ASA has an okay CLI with a nice GUI."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a scalable solution."
"This is an easy means of setting up high-availabilty firewall protection."
"The technical support is very good and the assistance they gave was very good."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiOS is great."
"Fortinet has optimized the WAN environment for connecting users to the application."
"I like that the firewall gives me a lot of control in terms of outgoing and inbound traffic, and it scores better in deep packet inspections when compared with the Azure Firewall."
"I like its configuration and the various functions it offers."
"The pricing is excellent."
"The product is scalable and easily expands."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"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."
"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."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"A feature that would allow me to load balance among multiple ISPs, especially since we have deployed it as a perimeter firewall, would be a great addition."
"Virtual patching would be helpful for servers that are not able to update patches due to compatibility issues."
"An area for improvement is the graphical user interface. That is something that is coming up now. They could make the product more user-friendly. A better GUI is something that would make life much easier."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"The stability and the product features have to really be worked on."
"I'm not very familiar with the largest Firepower models, but competitors like Palo Alto seem to have a more capable engine to do, for instance, TLS/SSL decryption. As I understand, Firepower doesn't let you export the decrypted traffic so that, for instance, the security department can look at the traffic or inspect traffic. It's all in the box. I've heard rumors that this is something Cisco is working on, but it isn't yet available."
"I would like it if there was a centralized way to manage policies, then sticking with the network functions on the actual devices. That is probably the thing that frustrates me the most. I want a way that you can manage multiple policies at several different locations, all at one site. You then don't have to worry about the connectivity piece, in case you are troubleshooting because connectivity is down."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"Fortinet FortiOS's integration could be improved."
"The support could be improved, Fortinet's response time is very slow. Setting up the VPN could be made much easier, especially when deployed with Azure."
"Right now, all the features meet my requirements."
"There is no flexibility."
"The report and policy optimization tools can be improved in the next release."
"It could more scalable for the lower end users."
"In terms of what needs improvements, the troubleshooting could use improvement. When we work with other products like Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, and Check Point, we see a big difference in the troubleshooting. It's not easy to find a report."
"It would be better if AWS instances were available. If I want to upgrade from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available rather than having a big instance and paying a lot of money for that. The issue is that we had deployed in AWS Cloud, and we were using a very small instance. Recently we wanted to move in-house and deploy it on the big instance because it was struggling with the RAM. If we use T2.small, we cannot upgrade it to the T2.medium. It has predefined instances in the marketplace with a lot of cost differences. If I can increase the RAM, I have to choose the T3.large instance. If I'm paying $270 for the small instance, I have to pay more than double the cost for T3.large. It is about $850, and this is not good. So, it would be better if it was cheaper. I think both AWS and Fortinet should think about that. They should provide it on lower instances as well. If I want to upgrade it from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available, but it's a problem."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiOS 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 FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". 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 FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiOS report.
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