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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 2.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 17.9%, up from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
FireMon Security Manager17.9%
Cisco Security Cloud Control2.7%
Other79.4%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

FS
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,…
SurajYadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Centralized policy governance has reduced audit effort and continuously improves risk visibility
I wish to see deeper and more customizable reporting and dashboards, as while the standard reports are useful for audits, operational teams sometimes need real-time, flexible views without exporting data. Tighter integrations with ticketing and change management tools would also enhance the workflow from request to implementation. FireMon Security Manager is excellent for policy governance and risk reduction, but better real-time dashboards and stronger workflow integrations would make it even more powerful for daily operations. There are one or two areas where FireMon Security Manager could be improved to make it even stronger. While FireMon Security Manager overall delivers solid governance and risk insight, it would benefit from more flexible dashboards and deeper integrations to reduce manual steps and improve visibility without relying on external tools. I rate FireMon Security Manager an 8 out of 10. It is a strong tool for firewall policy management, risk analysis, and compliance, clearly improving our audit process and policy governance. The reason I do not give it a 9 out of 10 is mainly because the dashboard could be more flexible and integration with the firewalls could be smoother. FireMon Security Manager is a reliable and high-value platform for managing and governing firewall policies, especially in a multi-vendor environment, though a few areas can still be improved.

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 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 most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time."
"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"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 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,"
"It gives us the ability to go to one place to look for potential firewall rules that are inappropriate, or which don't meet compliance. Instead of manually searching hundreds of firewalls for a policy, we can go to this one location and find the rules which are now out of compliance."
"It is a good product. Previously, we were using only spreadsheets to compare the usage, but now with FireMon, we are able to clean up or review the policies to some extent. It is still a work in progress, but we are at a good stage now."
"Compared to other applications, it is user-friendly. The appearance of the menus and titles is clear and they are easy to follow. Of course, it requires some experience through using it, to go through everything, but it is not very difficult. It is an easy application to use."
"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 decreases errors and misconfigurations by 10% that increase risk in our environment. That has to do a lot with the change reporting that is in place, but also with the built-in controls and custom controls that we have made. Those all decrease the errors that people naturally make on a day-to-day basis for firewall administration."
"The most valuable features are Policy Optimizer and Firewall Manager for different brands of firewall."
"The most effective feature is the general reporting on compliance."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"FireMon could be easier to use and flexibility regarding reporting could be improved."
"The stability has been fairly decent, but there have been a few issues. My coworker has had some issues in the past where he has had to work with support."
"When it comes to real-time compliance management, something that is missing is alerting on certain, predefined controls. It would be good to have a predefined set of controls which, if not complied with in a newly set up rule, would create an alert for us. That is something that is missing, out-of-the-box."
"When it comes to identifying risk in our environment and prioritizing fixes, it is really about the different priorities within the organization. FireMon is not so smart that it can tell what's important to us. It's up to us to figure that out."
"We're working on implementing FireMon with our ticketing system service now. Having that would be an improvement."
"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."
"A feature that could be improved is support for more devices, not just the firewall."
"One area for 7.x customers that needs improvement is the migration. It is an involved process so get ready to spend some time getting your environment back to the way it was."
 

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."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"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."
"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."
"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."
"Its pricing is good. Compared to others, it is not so expensive."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"Pricing is reasonable."
"We don't license all of the devices in our network, so it does not provide us with a comprehensive visibility of all devices in a hybrid network at this time."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
 

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 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.
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,103 professionals have used our research since 2012.