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Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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

Cisco Defense Orchestrator
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Balaji - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Yonas Abebe - PeerSpot reviewer
Great dashboard with extensive visibility and good support
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I remember version 6.4 had an integration with Eddie, allowing me to define a policy according to my users, however, the latest version, lacks this integration. The logging of FMC should be improved as it does not offer real-time solutions like DazaSodo.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people."
"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the Virtual Private Network and the Electronic Control Lists."
"Cisco's support and services are far superior to any other security product in Pakistan."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is scalable."
"The technical support team is responsive and supportive."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is the UTM."
"The overall product rating is eight out of ten."
"The solution has a great UI and a policy deployment mechanism, and all the configuration is easily manageable for the firewalls."
"I like its system management and filtering options as a layer seven firewall."
 

Cons

"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."
"There could be some slight improvements to navigation. In some of the navigation you've got to go back to be able to get into where you need to be once you've made a change. If I make a change, I've then got to go back to submit and send the change."
"I've found dozens of bugs over the year we've been using it. The more I use it for different things, the more problems I find... Most of the problems have to do with the user interface. A lot of thought and work has gone into the back-end component to make the product do what it's intended to do, but the way it is presented for use hasn't gotten nearly as much thought to make it smart and bug-free."
"When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"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."
"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."
"We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue."
"Cisco Firepower has been effective in solving various problems, but it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly like Fortinet."
"Due to the lack of enough tutorials available online, I face problems with Cisco."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The product's setup could be easier."
"We use the suggested standard policies that come with the equipment. We don't put much effort into customizing these policies, which we know is a risk. We're moving to a more advanced IT area that will change how we manage the firewall policies. Cisco offers many ways to manage the equipment, but our team lacks extensive knowledge. We're moving these responsibilities to a specialized security team."
"Areas for improvement include pricing points and the range of products available at any given time."
"The IOS and the deploy option could be improved."
"The solution could improve the number of ports available and load balancing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"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."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"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 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."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"It is rather expensive."
"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."
"It could be considered relatively cheaper when compared to some other vendors in the market."
"My license offers all the protection, like malware protection, VPN protection, IDS, IPS, and endpoint protection."
"Technical support is an additional annual cost and is not included with the license."
"I use the free version of the product."
"The solution is not expensive."
"The platform is costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
52%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
3%
Government
21%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Engineering Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I...
 

Also Known As

CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.