We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The two solutions are very comparable. WatchGuard Firebox received slightly better ratings because it is easier to deploy than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"The high-availability features, the VPN and the IPSec, are our top three features."
"The most valuable feature is zone segmentation, which we utilize through the Firepower management console."
"To be honest, all of the features that are provided, all the other vendor will also have. One feature we did find valuable was the CLI, it is more accurate. Additionally, I was happy with the customization, dashboards, access lists and interface."
"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."
"The solution's dashboard is fine, and in terms of support, Cisco is better than other OEMs in the market."
"Cisco ASA provides us with very good application visibility and control."
"The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"It's hard to pick one feature over another. But if I had to pick one, the UTM would be the most valuable because of the notification. I get notified via email if there is any type of threat detection or alert, telling me something is wrong."
"The most valuable features of the WatchGuard Firebox are all the security and updated features. You are able to configure the solution from the cloud platform and the application and web interface are very nice."
"WebBlocker has the best URL category database ever."
"There are many fantastic features."
"WatchGuard Firebox is the most powerful firewall for Wi-Fi security."
"Easy to change the model if you need more performance, with good cohesion in the whole lineup of devices."
"What I found most valuable in WatchGuard Firebox is that it's a functional platform that works, and each of its features works well. The solution also has good reporting and dashboard capabilities. I also find the overall performance of WatchGuard Firebox great."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"Make the IPS baked-in."
"Other products are becoming easier to access and configure. They are providing UI interfaces to configure, take backup, synchronize redundant machines, and so on. It is very easy to take backup and upgrade the images in those products. Cisco ASA should have such features. If one redundant machine is getting upgraded, the technology and support should be there to upgrade other redundant machines. In a single window, we should be able to do more in terms of backups, restores, and upgrades."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"It is confusing to have two management interfaces, e.g., ASDM and Firepower Management Center."
"Firewalls, in general, were not really designed for normal IT personnel, but for firewall and network experts. Therefore, they missed a lot of options and did not provide any good reporting or improvement options."
"Some of the features, like the stability, need to be improved."
"The product crashes. We have a cluster of firewalls and we regularly get failovers."
"One of my colleagues is using the firewall as an IPS, but he is worried about Firepower's performance... With the 10 Gb devices, when it gets to 5 Gbps, the CPU usage goes up a lot and he cannot manage the IPS."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"It would be wonderful if the WatchGuard team develops nice products for threat intelligence."
"Websense is an application that monitors and filters internet traffic. Websense was derived from WatchGuard. But when you go to WatchGuard to actually implement that particular feature, you have to use some type of additional feature and you have to pay for it, unfortunately. I think it should be free or free in the WatchGuard box itself, as an option. It would be nice if they didn't charge us for that."
"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."
"There are a couple of things I wished that it would do, but I can't think of those off the top of my head."
"The solution is lacking a professional website, they should be updated more often."
"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."
"The performance of the solution's processor needs to be faster."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.6. 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Sophos UTM, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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