AlgoSec vs Cisco Defense Orchestrator comparison

AlgoSec and Cisco are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. AlgoSec is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.9, while Cisco is ranked #14. AlgoSec holds a 21.9% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Cisco’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of AlgoSec users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

AlgoSec

Read 182 AlgoSec reviews

10,768 Views
4,643 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Read 14 Cisco Defense Orchestrator reviews

764 Views
257 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AlgoSec

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

AlgoSec and Cisco Defense Orchestrator compete in network security management, with Cisco Defense Orchestrator holding the upper hand due to its robust features and perceived value for the price.

Features: AlgoSec offers comprehensive policy analysis, risk management, and compliance assurance capabilities. Cisco Defense Orchestrator provides powerful automation, multi-vendor support, and streamlined policy change management, making it suitable for complex network environments with better integration and scalability.

Room for Improvement: AlgoSec could benefit from enhancements in automation and scalability to better serve large enterprises. Improving user interface and integration capabilities would also enhance its appeal. Cisco Defense Orchestrator could improve customer support response times, offer more flexible pricing options, and increase compatibility with various network components.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AlgoSec features a flexible deployment model with strong customer support, ideal for smaller networks. Cisco Defense Orchestrator's cloud-based model simplifies deployment for large-scale operations but faces challenges with support response times.

Pricing and ROI: AlgoSec is recognized for its competitive setup cost and cost-effective policy management, delivering a good ROI. Cisco Defense Orchestrator may have higher initial costs but justifies them with significant ROI through enhanced security features and operational efficiencies, especially valuable for large enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed AlgoSec vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AlgoSec vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

AlgoSec

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

1st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

182

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

14th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of AlgoSec is 21.9%, up from 20.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Shameerudheen Kp

Manager, MS Operations at NTT Security

Easy to setup with good auto-implementation and good rule reviews

AlgoSec is slow when it is loaded with too many firewalls and policies. A plan to take care of heavy usage is to be considered. Support of all firewalls and policy features to be enabled. AlgoSec should support in identifying most hit rules and re-ordering existing firewall rules - this is a very key to manage firewall CPU. A clustering of AlgoSec can also be considered. A group of AlgoSec servers managing large client bases geographically or datacenter-wise or function-wise. A head reporting unit and child processing units.

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Vivek Balaji

Technical Director - Cyber Security at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees

Useful guides, excellent support, integration could improve

Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components. I have been using Cisco Defense Orchestrator for approximately eight months. The Cisco Defense…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"This has helped to restrict rules, delete rules that are too permissive, and create a configuration that complies with our security policy."

"The initial setup process is excellent."

"AlgoSec has definitely helped to improve the process of auditing all firewall rules and access."

"To be able to monitor all firewalls under one umbrella."

"It offers a range of automated workflows and processes that accelerate security policy management."

"We are moving towards an automated environment so the ability to work with Ansible, ServiceNow, and Palo Alto gives us the ability to automate our firewall policy creation. And it does so in a manner where we do not have to worry about a policy being created that may put our organization at risk."

"AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer can detect misconfigurations and unused or permissive rules, as well as rules without logging. Through a single dashboard, I can see all the problematic rules from all the firewalls. It's very simple, with AlgoSec, to get an analysis of all the rules, and that helps with visibility."

"Firewall Analyzer is valuable because it makes searching our existing policies so simple."

More AlgoSec pros

"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."

"When we're looking to the policies, it identifies the shadow rules. It notifies us about anything that will supersede other rules."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We spun up the VM onsite. We generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator. After that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy."

"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."

"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."

"The most valuable feature is being able to do centralized upgrades on the ASAs. We can select all of those ASAs, and say, "Upgrade these ASAs at this scheduled time." It will copy down the ASA image, ASDM image, and then do the upgrade and failovers, and then put it all back into service as required at a scheduled time. It automates that process for us."

"We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple."

"For this product, they are very uncharacteristically interested in resolving whatever issue the customer reports. They're really attentive, and they address whatever we bring up as quickly as they can. That's been a very positive aspect of the product."

More Cisco Defense Orchestrator pros

Cons

"The Flash to HTML5 rewrite has been bumpy."

"We are running multiple hybrid cloud solutions, working with cloud providers, and looking for API integrations with cloud and related interoperability. Sometimes, when we are trying to delete or disable any rule, it takes more time than expected."

"The only problem I have with AlgoSec is just its level of support, not with the product. Not with the organization or the documentation or anything else, but if I need any additional support, the only problem is the time it takes to get it."

"Some of the auditing functionality needs improvement. Our major focus is the firewall validation process and tracking and verifying that changes are implemented correctly. We are actually doing parts of the auditing process manually. And getting any one of the vendors to bring out a good auditing process has been very difficult."

"The interface is more on the complex side."

"I would like to see more object-based reports on groups and object usage."

"One important thing they should improve is their support level. We have a lot of trouble with the basic enterprise support level. They are very slow to respond and solve problems."

"In the VMware platform, sometimes the application is frozen and we have to reload the machine."

More AlgoSec cons

"If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO."

"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."

"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."

"I'd like CDO to be the one-stop-shop where we could do all the configurations easily. It would be nice, for ASA upgrades, if we could do them from a central repository and not have to reach out to Cisco. That would be a definite plus."

"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."

"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."

"It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances."

More Cisco Defense Orchestrator cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When I have active and standby firewalls, if I do an analysis of the active firewall and by mistake, I also do an analysis of the secondary or standby firewall, it'll consume two licenses from the total number of licenses I have. So, I need to change the license and make the active firewall secondary. They need to improve how they are counting the number of licenses."

"The cost of the tool can be recovered with AlgoSec automations."

"Price is not my concern. If a tool does its job, it is not my concern to obtain a good price for it. If a tool is needed, we are going to buy it."

"Pricing is easy to grasp."

"The price came in where we really didn't even need to have much of a discussion. That was very good. There are also options regarding what you want to pay for. It wasn't really pushed on me that I have to get all of it or else I can't be an AlgoSec customer."

"The price is within the standard of security products."

"AlgoSec is not a cheap product. If I compare Firemon and AlgoSec, because I am also Firemon certified, Firemon is still cheaper in price than AlgoSec."

"The price is adapted to the product's utilization for each company."

More AlgoSec pricing and cost advice

"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."

"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."

"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."

"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."

"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."

"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Computer Software Company

51%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Legal Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AlgoSec?

AlgoSec's ability to integrate with various security and networking solutions enhances its overall value.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlgoSec?

I am into operations and not aware of cost or pricing.

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What needs improvement with AlgoSec?

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Comparisons

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs AlgoSec

Compared 34% of the time

FireMon Security Manager vs AlgoSec

Compared 25% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs AlgoSec

Compared 18% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs AlgoSec

Compared 7% of the time

Opinnate vs AlgoSec

Compared 1% of the time

More AlgoSec Competitors

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Compared 38% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Compared 36% of the time

More Cisco Defense Orchestrator Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AlgoSec

January 2025

Download AlgoSec product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

January 2025

Download Cisco Defense Orchestrator product report

Also Known As

No data available

CDO

Learn More

AlgoSec

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Cisco

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

AlgoSec

Cisco

Overview

AlgoSec, a global cybersecurity leader, empowers organizations to secure application connectivity and cloud-native applications throughout their multi-cloud and hybrid network. Trusted by more than 1,800 of the world’s leading organizations, AlgoSec’s application-centric approach enables to securely accelerate business application deployment by centrally managing application connectivity and security policies across the public clouds, private clouds, containers, and on-premises networks. Using its unique vendor-agnostic deep algorithm for intelligent change management automation, AlgoSec enables acceleration of digital transformation projects, helps prevent business application downtime and substantially reduces manual work and exposure to security risks. AlgoSec’s policy management and CNAPP platforms provide a single source for visibility into security and compliance issues within cloud-native applications as well as across the hybrid network environment, to ensure ongoing adherence to internet security standards, industry, and internal regulations. Learn how AlgoSec enables application owners, information security experts, DevSecOps and cloud security teams to deploy business applications up to 10 times faster while maintaining security at www.algosec.com.

Cisco Defense Orchestrator (CDO) is a cloud-based management solution designed to ensure streamlined and consistent security policies across the Cisco security portfolio. Specifically tailored to manage all Cisco Secure Firewall form factors (running either ASA or Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software), CDO offers real-time visibility and troubleshooting capabilities, effectively enhancing overall network security.

CDO addresses the challenges of migration, supporting transitions from on-premises to cloud environments and facilitating the shift from ASA to FTD configurations. As organizations embark on their cloud adoption journey, CDO simplifies provisioning workflows for remote branches, reduces operational expenditures related to inventory management, and offers scalability for multi-cloud deployments.

Sample Customers

Maersk, Delta Airlines, Chevron, General Motors, T-Mobile, Chevron, AT&T, BP, Bell Canada, HCA Healthcare, Morgan Stanley, Unilever, Nationwide Insurance Enterprise, US Bank, Microsoft

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut

Buyer's Guide

AlgoSec vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator

January 2025

Free Report: AlgoSec vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Find out what your peers are saying about AlgoSec vs. Cisco Defense Orchestrator and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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