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Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama 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
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.6%, down from 10.7% 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…
Kim Ejby Lorentzen - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified firewall management streamlines operations across branches with prompt support services
The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration. One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks…

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 that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"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 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."
"The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."
"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"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 product can scale."
"Technical support is quite helpful."
"The entire ease of use is most valuable. If you're managing firewalls locally with PAN-OS, the look and feel of Panorama is the same. So, you don't have to relearn another product. If you're used to managing firewalls from Palo Alto, you can easily use Panorama to manage them. It looks and feels the same."
"The solution offers good logging features."
"The main value of Palo Alto Networks Panorama lies in its ability to centralize management, similar to FortiManager."
"One valuable feature is centralized management. We are able to manage it centrally for two to three remote offices, our head office and our data centers. So, it is very simple to manage."
"Centralized firewall management and update management are the most valuable features."
"The dashboards are very good on Palo Alto. They offer a centralized dashboard for managers as well."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes technical support is slow to respond."
"The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment."
"It is not a cheap product."
"Integration between Panorama and the Edge Firewall has a lot of issues, like different configuration assets, configuration object templates, lack of flexibility, and not a good browser."
"There is room for improvement in response time for tech support."
"The current documentation is not detailed enough."
"They need to do less bug-related releases and create versions that are stable for at least six months at a time. I don't find this issue in other solutions like Cisco, Check Point, FortiGate, or others. Those just provide a patch if there is a bug and we don't have to worry about downtime."
"The solution could improve by having a true single pane of glass environment for unified management. At the present time, you still have to use three or four different solutions to bring everything together."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Everyone, I suppose, would like the price to be improved. Price is always a good thing to change."
"It is very affordable when compared to more expensive firewalls."
"It is pretty reasonable as compared to other companies."
"The price of Panorama is expensive."
"Cost-wise, it's very expensive."
"Pricing for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is always high. If you're going to sell the product, you always have to talk about the technology because it should be about the solution rather than the price."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is high. There is a pay-per-use model."
"The pricing is pretty average. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
51%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Legal Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
In large installations, it can be expensive with hardware appliances, however, virtual Panorama is well-priced and is sold every time there's a solution.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment.
 

Also Known As

CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.