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 important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The firewall and policy side are easy to use."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"We can easily track unauthorized users and see where traffic is going."
"URL filtering is valuable."
"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."
"It is one of the fastest solutions, if not the fastest, in the security technology space. This gives us peace of mind knowing that as soon as a new attack comes online that we will be protected in short order. From that perspective, no one really comes close now to Firepower, which is hugely valuable to us from an upcoming new attack prevention perspective."
"I like the user interface because the navigation is very easy, straightforward on your left side pane you have all the sites that you need to browse. Unlike any other firewalls, it's pretty straightforward."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"The VM it's very quick for deployment. If we need to have a POC for a customer, if we don't have any hardware physically at our premises, at our store, in our office, we can download the VM from Fortinet and install all the VM to their environment in order to run it. If we have a customer that says "let's start tomorrow" we are able to do that in a way that's not possible with a hardware version."
"Use of this product does not require daily interactions."
"The most valuables features are the ease of use and deployment."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"Technical support has been super responsive and dedicated to getting any challenges resolved."
"Technical support is very helpful."
"The customer care center of Fortinet is good. For all the requests that we have done, they work as fast as possible, so this is a good point for Fortinet."
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"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."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"They should work on making it a little more intuitive for users and not quite as complex. Still, it's a good product."
"It integrates with other security products from Cisco, but sometimes, there can be glitches or errors."
"The graphical interface should be improved to make the configuration easier, to do things with a single click."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"With the new FTD, there is a little bit of a learning curve."
"I would like to see them update the GUI so that it doesn't look like it was made in 1995."
"It lacks management. For me, it still doesn't have a proper management tool or GUI for configuration, logging, and visualization. Its management is not that easy. It is also not very flexible and easy to configure. They used to have a product called CSM, but it is no longer being developed. FortiGate is better than this solution in terms of GUI, flexibility, and user-friendliness."
"Fortinet could improve the availability and delivery of its products. It takes four to six weeks for every purchase to arrive."
"The interface needs to be updated and simplified."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM should improve its asset identification, wherein the device can identify assets on the network, like computers."
"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."
"Some issues with connecting to the VPN from home after firmware updates."
"The users must buy FortiSIEM to get advanced analytics."
"Improvements are needed for the responsive UI and JIT traffic reporting."
"It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box."
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 Netgate pfSense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM report.
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