We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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."Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"The solution can scale well."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The technical support is good."
"We are able to filter a lot of traffic especially when a lot of the traffic is in layer 7."
"The Intrusion Firewall is a valuable feature."
"I've found their network routing to be very good."
"The stability of this solution is excellent."
"The product has valuable features for business intelligence."
"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."
"The security is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the security provided by the ATP."
"The configuration is very simple."
"Mechanically, all firewalls work in a similar fashion, but what makes Palo Alto different is that it also has some of the threat hunt capabilities. It is a little bit better than other vendors."
"The most valuable features are the threat prevention and policy-based routing features."
"The strengths of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are application visibility and application awareness. Their strong point is identifying applications for traffic. So all of the policies that are configured are related to the application and not to a port."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a very nice interface for logging and monitoring. I find it easy to navigate and use, and the interface is organized as well. I can find answers within a couple of hours and have seen time savings."
"The structure is much faster and more sophisticated than Cisco."
"I like to install Palo Alto mainly on the data center side to have visibility into all VLANs. That gives full visibility into the core."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"The pricing could always be better."
"I would like to see much more embedded security that works and that isn't a bolt-on."
"Most of their features are meant for Cisco. You cannot integrate them with any other vendor."
"There are the usual bugs that are inherent to some software upgrades. Sometimes this provides some unexpected issues, however, it happens with all brands all the time."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The configuration should be easier in the solution."
"The initial setup is complicated."
"The graphical user interface or the GUI could be better. Beginners can use some devices with the GUI, but some security devices are configured using CLI. It would also be better if it had its own Intrusion Protection Service and Intrusion Detection Service on the server."
"We faced significant challenges related to licensing issues, particularly when licenses expire."
"The solution has normal authentication, but does not have two-factor or multi-factor authentication. There is room for development there."
"The support could be improved. Palo Alto does not have a support team located in Bangladesh, and their support team operates from another location. Therefore, when we raise a ticket, it takes some time for them to respond, which can be problematic for us."
"People sometimes find it more expensive as compared to other solutions. There are also fewer training opportunities for Palo Alto than Cisco and other vendors."
"They can improve the handling and management of User-ID. They should also improve its price. Their technical support can also be improved."
"I think automation and machine learning can be improved to make bulk configurations simpler, easier, and faster"
"There has been a recent change in the graphical interface. For the monitoring part, they could have a better UI."
"The initial configuration is complicated to set up."
"Its software updates can be improved. It sometimes becomes very slow with the software updates for different features. It should have an External Dynamic List of data. The malicious IP is not frequently getting updated in Palo Alto, and this should be done."
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Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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 NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiOS, Meraki MX and Netgate pfSense, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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