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Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer 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
ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
7
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 ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer is 3.1%, up from 2.8% 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…
Mostafiz Miah - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good integration features and is user-friendly
What is happening in sometimes, if any issues found in the tool, ManageEngine takes time to provide a proper fix, but it does not happen most of the time. If there is a need to get some customized report or feature, ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer team takes some time. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement. From a product point of view, the tool is good, user-friendly, and offers easy installation and easy configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting."
"I found the reporting to be useful because not only can I go back months, but it lists the individual URLs and the time that a particular person visited."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a very user-friendly tool compared to other solutions."
"Firewall Analyzer helps our organization to fulfill the compliance requirement as per ISO 27001, managing the network security effectively."
"The most valuable features of the ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer are the monitoring of the full management of the network elements and the inventory of the infrastructure."
"Overall the solution does a good job."
"Firewall Analyzer is easy to work with."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"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."
"If there is a need to get some customized report or anything, ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer takes some time."
"It would be awesome if the product could monitor services for applications."
"ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer can improve by having better monitoring of all features from firewalls. We are using Kibana in order to monitor parts that this solution does not record. For example, having more correlation and proactive monitoring in some activity or scenario."
"The solution lacks a lot of features that other products have in the marketplace."
"The stability is so-so. There are always memory issues, but the solution is working great apart from that."
 

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."
"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 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."
"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."
"ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer is less expensive than some of their competitors, such as Cisco. The price is one of the reasons why we use ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer."
"I know that the price of the products is flexible. There have been different types of products, like professional and enterprise-based ones, and depending on the requirements, customers can choose their products."
"Needs to work on pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
52%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
3%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Healthcare 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 ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a very user-friendly tool compared to other solutions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer?
I know that the price of the products is flexible. There have been different types of products, like professional and enterprise-based ones, and depending on the requirements, customers can choose ...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer?
What is happening in sometimes, if any issues found in the tool, ManageEngine takes time to provide a proper fix, but it does not happen most of the time. If there is a need to get some customized ...
 

Also Known As

CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
WFP, NYC.gov, Sony Pictures, Franklin Security Bank, ITC INFOTECH
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.