Cisco Security Cloud Control vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

Cisco and FireMon are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Cisco is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.0, while FireMon is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Cisco holds a 2.5% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to FireMon’s 17.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of FireMon users who would recommend it.

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Read 15 Cisco Security Cloud Control reviews

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806 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

FireMon Security Manager

Read 57 FireMon Security Manager reviews

3,304 Views
3,205 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Cisco Security Cloud Control

FireMon Security Manager

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

FireMon Security Manager and Cisco Security Cloud Control are key players in network security management. FireMon appears to have an edge due to its advanced analytics and wide vendor support.

Features: FireMon Security Manager provides robust features including redundant ACL analysis, policy trace, graphical views, rule management, Security Manager, and Risk Analyzer. Cisco offers centralized device control, automation, and integration but lacks some of the advanced analytics found in FireMon.

Room for Improvement: FireMon users desire better network map customization, improved rule integration, and simplified reporting. Cisco users suggest enhancement in user interface, third-party support, and report customization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FireMon is primarily on-premises with hybrid cloud support and responsive customer service. Cisco spans both public and private cloud deployments, excelling in cloud support and training, but integration aspects need improvement.

Pricing and ROI: FireMon is seen as expensive but balanced with structured licensing and significant ROI in automation and security. Cisco's comprehensive capabilities justify its cost for heavily invested users, offering value despite high investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager

December 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

Cisco Security Cloud Control

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

13th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

FireMon Security Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 17.6%, up from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FireMon Security Manager	17.6%
Cisco Security Cloud Control	2.5%
Other	79.9%

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Francisco Delos Santos

Security Engineer at Metrobank

Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention

Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…

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Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Centralized firewall oversight has transformed policy audits and now streamlines risk reviews

The best features of FireMon Security Manager are centralized firewall visibility, policy risk analysis, and compliance reporting. It provides a single view across all firewalls, helps quickly identify risks and unused rules, and generates audit-ready reports, which is extremely useful in large, regulated environments. Change tracking is also very helpful, as it shows who changed what and when, reducing the risk of misconfiguration. The change tracking feature has helped our team by giving clear visibility into what rule was changed, when it was changed, and whether it introduced any risk. This has reduced troubleshooting time and helped us quickly validate changes during audit and incident review. Policy risk analysis and unused rule identification are also very valuable, especially in large environments, as they have helped us continuously reduce risk and keep firewall policies clean. The reporting and dashboard visibility are worth highlighting. FireMon Security Manager makes it easy to share clear, understandable reports with auditors and management, which saves time and reduces back-and-forth during review. FireMon Security Manager has had a very positive impact on our organization by reducing manual effort and improving overall security posture. It helped us gain centralized visibility across a large firewall environment, reduce risk and unused rules, and significantly shorten the time required for audit and policy reviews. It has also improved change control and accountability, which reduced configuration errors and operational risk.

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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

"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."

"We have quite a few Active Stone by pairs. If they fail over... I'll see that there's a change on it and I'll have a look. The only change on it is that now this one is the standby, it took over the active role. I can go into that firewall and find out what happened... and troubleshoot based on that. That's pretty cool too."

"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion prevention."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."

"The ability to do operations on multiple firewalls at once is valuable because it saves time and mental effort. The solution's ability to make bulk changes makes it very convenient to manage things at once on multiple targets."

"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."

"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 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."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control pros

"Firewall auditing is very important. We also use the solution for rule traffic analysis, traffic flow discovery and hidden/shadow rules within over 100 firewalls spanning five different brands."

"FireMon saves us a lot of time and it's nice because if you're adding a rule that's similar to another rule, it'll tell you so sometimes you can just edit the one and add another source or destination in there without creating a duplicate rule. It enables you to consolidate and have fewer, more meaningful rules. We're saving around 30% of our time."

"The Security Manager part of FireMon... gives me an eye on everything that's out there, everything that I cannot see. Because I'm not a network admin, I cannot go to a firewall itself, but at least I have FireMon so that I can go in and view everything that I want to view. And I can eliminate whatever I see that is wrong,"

"The most effective feature is the general reporting on compliance."

"The most valuable features are Policy Optimizer and Firewall Manager for different brands of firewall."

"What I like about FireMon is the ability to track changes made by network engineers on the network."

"The most valuable feature is that everything is recorded in the historical logs, including the firewall rules, headcounts, object-level usage, and the rule documentation. The rule certification details are also there, which means that someone can be held accountable for a specific firewall rule."

"I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive."

More FireMon Security Manager pros

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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall."

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

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Security Cloud Control cons

"The AWS integration is still not mature for us to use. It is just not ready for our use case for AWS connectivity. Therefore, it does not provide us with a single pane of glass for our cloud environments, because we can't manage our cloud environment with the tool."

"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."

"A phone app would be nice. This is the reason why it is not perfect yet."

"I don't like that it comes with bugs, constant issues, and limited functionality."

"We are looking for more integration with SIEM and other tools."

"Some of the things that you want to do in FireMon are not exactly straightforward, like creating certain reports or controls. Some of the functions could be a little more user-friendly, such as creating certain filters."

"I ran a report and FireMon suggested that certain tools were not used. When I removed them, while it didn't bring our environment down completely, a lot of our environment started malfunctioning. Our backup system did not work, nor did other things that involve internal and external communication. We are not comfortable with what it did."

"Sometimes, there is a problem related to the sizing itself. If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing. It may relate to the hardware specifications."

More FireMon Security Manager cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"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 a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."

"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."

"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."

"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."

"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."

"Pricing is reasonable."

"Pricing model seems fair."

"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."

More FireMon Security Manager pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

30%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	45

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...

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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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about FireMon?

I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?

Our experience with FireMon Security Manager's pricing and licensing is that it is on the higher side, but justified for a large, regulated environment. The setup cost and licensing made sense give...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FireMon?

FireMon Security Manager is a strong platform. However, it could be improved with a more intuitive user interface and faster initial onboarding for new users. Simplifying some workflows and dashboa...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 19% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 13% of the time

AlgoSec vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 12% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiPortal vs Cisco Security Cloud Control

Compared 7% of the time

More Cisco Security Cloud Control Competitors

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 39% of the time

AlgoSec vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 34% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 8% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Firewall Manager vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 1% of the time

More FireMon Security Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Security Cloud Control

January 2026

Download Cisco Security Cloud Control product report

Buyer's Guide

FireMon Security Manager

January 2026

Download FireMon Security Manager product report

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO

No data available

Interactive Demo

Cisco

Demo not available

FireMon

Overview

Cisco Security Cloud Control offers centralized management, real-time visibility, and AI-driven automation for on-premises and cloud environments, simplifying scalability and deployment.

With a unified approach, Cisco Security Cloud Control enhances security posture by providing cross-platform insights across Cisco's ecosystem. It accelerates threat detection and optimizes policy enforcement through a blend of AI automation and natural language querying capabilities. The intuitive platform serves multiple devices, enabling comprehensive management of Secure Firewall, Secure Access, and other services with guidance from the Cisco AI Assistant. It also includes an AI Operations feature that identifies critical issues and provides real-time insights, enhancing response times while a policy analyzer improves security hygiene by detecting and closing security gaps. Its automation minimizes manual tasks, secures cloud-stored configurations, and supports two-factor authentication. However, it could benefit from improvements in navigation clarity, bulk change handling, and expanded third-party integrations.

What are the key features of Cisco Security Cloud Control?

Centralized Device Control: Streamlines management with bulk policy upgrades and automation.
AI-Driven Automation: Reduces manual tasks and enhances threat detection.
Network Visibility: Provides insights with valuable reporting and intrusion prevention.
Intuitive Configuration: Enables easy policy adjustments and restoration of secure connections.

What benefits can users anticipate?

Increased Efficiency: Reduces operational overhead with centralized management.
Improved Security: Enhances protection through automated policy enforcement and AI insights.
Time Savings: Simplifies management of multiple devices in cloud and on-premises environments.
Scalability: Supports growth with ease of deployment and policy consistency.

Industries implementing Cisco Security Cloud Control leverage its capabilities for tasks ranging from firewall management to intrusion prevention. Enterprises use it to streamline policy management, automate configurations, and integrate Cisco devices with cloud strategies, benefiting from simplified security orchestration and network segmentation.

Cisco

The increasing complexity of networks, driven by the constant influx of new devices, applications, and cloud services, presents a daunting challenge for managing firewall policies and rules. A typical enterprise environment has millions of rules, and just one simple misconfiguration can lead to devastating consequences like compliance violations, outages, and data breaches.

FireMon’s Security Manager is a purpose-built network security policy management (NSPM) platform that automates the management of firewall and cloud security policies to eliminate policy-related risk, accurately and quickly change rules, and meet internal and external compliance requirements.

Reduce Risk Manage risk with real-time visibility and control
Manage Change Avoid misconfigurations, accelerate business, and improve security
Enforce and Maintain Compliance Avoid violations, avoid risk, and avoid fines

FireMon

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager

December 2025

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