Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs Fortinet FortiGate Cloud comparison

Cisco and Fortinet are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Cisco is ranked #14, while Fortinet is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4. Cisco holds a 1.1% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Fortinet’s 5.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Read 15 Cisco Defense Orchestrator reviews

725 Views
245 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

Read 75 Fortinet FortiGate Cloud reviews

1,296 Views
1,115 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud and Cisco Defense Orchestrator compete in network security management. Fortinet FortiGate Cloud has an edge in pricing and support, while Cisco Defense Orchestrator offers a more comprehensive feature set for enterprise needs.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate Cloud offers centralized management, automated security policy enforcement, and detailed analytics. Cisco Defense Orchestrator provides advanced integration capabilities, real-time threat intelligence, and extensive policy control.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate Cloud could enhance integration with third-party apps, improve interface design, and increase data storage options. Cisco Defense Orchestrator may benefit from simplified setup procedures, more intuitive navigation, and reduced complexity for non-expert users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is straightforward to deploy with reliable support. Cisco Defense Orchestrator offers effective deployment backed by extensive documentation and comprehensive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate Cloud provides cost-effective solutions with quick ROI for smaller deployments. Cisco Defense Orchestrator justifies its higher cost with enhanced capabilities and long-term value for extensive security management.

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

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

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

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is 5.4%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

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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IgnitiusMolepo

Senior IP Network Defense at MTN

The hub-and-spoke setup is useful because I can manage security from where I am, while the IT engineers in branch offices can handle it on their end.

When we're upgrading, it's sometimes quite challenging, especially firmware. We usually don't upgrade unless we have a bug, and we still feel it's not safe to react instead of being proactive. We often have some delays when updating FortiGuard, too. Nevertheless, I believe that it's okay most of the time with proper management. We also run into some problems using FortiGate as a UTM solution. I feel like maybe they're not giving me a full view of the other components that they have in that box. Their box has some DDoS defense, but I need complete DDoS protection. I must not have light DDoS protection on other UTM boxes because if I'm uncertain about the security posture, it will compromise me. We like having everything in one box because running multiple boxes eats up more resources on the computing level. We need a total solution, not half-half.

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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."

"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."

"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."

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

"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion prevention."

"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."

"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."

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

More Cisco Defense Orchestrator pros

"The product's valuable features include network management and switching devices from anywhere."

"The main advantage of FortiGate Cloud is its reliability, scalability, and pricing."

"We are currently only using Fortinet VPN from Fortinet's suite of applications and solutions. During the nearly two years that I've been working here, we've experienced zero incidents with the Fortinet FortiGate Cloud hardware or software. However, our operational system lacks high availability, which became evident during two fires."

"The installation is very simple."

"You can control the solution anywhere from the cloud."

"The most valuable feature is the inspection. It inspects before we have any traffic stops intrusion."

"This product is easy to manage and easy to use."

"Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is easy to use."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cloud pros

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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

More Cisco Defense Orchestrator cons

"If more products convert their configuration to Fortinet configuration, it will be easy for migration."

"Fortinet should simplify the licensing model. It's too complex for decision-makers to choose from the range of options. Handling the pricing model is a nightmare, so it's difficult to sell the solution."

"It would be much better if Fortinet FortiGate Cloud allowed third-party integrations like multi factor-authentication."

"The interface and dashboards should improve in Fortinet FortiGate Cloud. Other solutions have better graphical interfaces."

"The capacity to execute the solution needs to be improved. I would like to see management and analytics included in the solution."

"Currently with the solution, if you want to manage more than one FortiGate you have to use a VM, and a VM can control up to 10."

"As with any IT vendor, there are software issues."

"The Linux version currently lacks some of the latest features, notably in the IPv6 tool stack, which is available for Windows clients."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is more inexpensive than other vendors."

"The license for Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is annual."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is affordable. However, lowering the price would be good for the end-users. The cost of the solution was approximately $800 per year. There are some additional features you can add in addition to the regular features."

"I rate the product pricing as seven out of ten."

"I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."

"Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is a cost-effective solution. I rate its pricing a six out of ten. Pricing depends on the firewall model. If the firewall model's pricing is high, the solution's pricing also increases."

"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for Fortinet FortiGate Cloud."

"The solution requires an annual license but the cost is reasonable in comparison to competitors in the same category."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

52%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Legal Firm

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud has valuable firewall, SSL VPN, and web filtering features.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?

The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate is very competitive when compared to other industry-leading products such as Palo Alto and Cisco devices.

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What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?

There are some areas that need improvement regarding customer support. Fortinet could enhance their customer service by offering more direct remote sessions to resolve issues, as relying solely on ...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

February 2025

Download Cisco Defense Orchestrator product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

February 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate Cloud product report

Also Known As

CDO

FortiCloud, FortiGate Cloud

Interactive Demo

Cisco

Demo not available

Fortinet

Overview

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.

Cisco

FortiCloud can help with your wireless and security challenges in a number of ways. Our solution addresses common IT difficulties including time-consuming provisioning, high investment costs, complex management, vulnerability to advanced threats, and the need to easily scale with growth.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

January 2025

Free Report: Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Fortinet FortiGate Cloud

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