Cisco IOS Security vs Menlo Secure comparison

Cisco and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Cisco is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.3, while Menlo Security is ranked #51. Cisco holds a 0.3% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Menlo Security’s 0.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Cisco IOS Security and Menlo Secure compete in the cybersecurity platform category. User satisfaction with Cisco IOS Security is higher for overall security features, while Menlo Secure is preferred for threat isolation.

Features: Cisco IOS Security is known for comprehensive security protocols, robust network protection, and integration capabilities, ensuring reliability and coverage. Menlo Secure excels in advanced threat isolation, seamless browsing experience, and strategies to minimize direct threat exposure through isolation techniques.

Room for Improvement: Cisco IOS Security users highlight the complexity of configurations, performance lags under heavy traffic, and a need for more intuitive setup processes. Menlo Secure users suggest improvements in support documentation, occasional issues with integrating third-party applications, and some challenges in deployment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco IOS Security has a steeper learning curve for deployment with users needing more intuitive setup and better customer service. Menlo Secure offers easier deployment, faster setup times, and more responsive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco IOS Security requires higher initial investment, justified by its robust feature set and long-term reliability, offering good ROI. Menlo Secure, while costly, is cost-effective due to enhanced threat isolation, reducing potential cyber attack costs, with upfront costs seen as more balanced with isolation benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco IOS Security vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Menlo Secure

April 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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco IOS Security is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Karthik Venkataraman

Senior Consultant at Velocis Systems

User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues

Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward. From a networking perspective, for instance, Cisco IOS incorporates time-tested security features. The zone-based firewall feature has significantly influenced our network security management. For instance, when managing multiple geolocations, it's essential to apply geographically appropriate policies. If a customer operates within the UK zone, I need to implement UK-specific policies. This approach is also applicable to customers in the Asia Pacific and UK regions. It enables me to tailor security policies based on the geographical location of my customers, such as adjusting policies for customers in China or Japan. This flexibility helps in creating a comprehensive zone list. Additionally, this feature allows for seamless service agreements between all zones from headquarters, providing access to all zones within the firewall we create. Essentially, it facilitates the creation of zones within the firewall.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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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 most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."

"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."

"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."

"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."

"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."

"A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."

"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."

"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The technical support is good."

"The technical is excellent."

"Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward."

"The stability of this solution is excellent."

"The solution effectively integrates with Umbrella."

"In Pakistan, we only use Cisco because they have good local support infrastructure. Huawei and Fortinet don't offer direct support in Pakistan."

"The product has valuable features for business intelligence."

"I recommend Cisco IOS Security for other organizations."

More Cisco IOS Security pros

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

Cons

"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."

"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."

"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."

"I think there could be more QoS features"

"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."

"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."

"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."

"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it."

"While I do not have specific recommendations for improvement, pricing can be reduced."

"The solution is complex and can be more user-friendly."

"I wish it would be more like the next generation firewall technology. There should be more selection between the application and filtering."

"Cisco IOS Security's monitoring is rather rudimentary and could be improved."

"An area for improvement in Cisco IOS Security is the performance because it's not as stable sometimes. There's also some latency in the solution, which could be improved. Cisco IOS Security integrates with other solutions, but you'll encounter many errors after integration, so this is another area for improvement. I'd like to see enhanced performance and a simplified setup in the next version of Cisco IOS Security."

"Cisco IOS Security could improve its security features. There are competitors that have some additional security features, such as Fortinet FortiGate. Additionally, there should be better synchronization with Cisco IOS Security and other vendors, and improved AI features would be beneficial."

"The pricing is the only con for this product."

More Cisco IOS Security cons

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."

"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."

"The price of FortiGate is good."

"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."

"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."

"The pricing or licensing of Fortinet FortiGate is quite effective as it offers different bundles that aggregate most required features, while also allowing clients the option to select specific components alone."

"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."

"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"We can purchase its licenses as per specific business requirements."

"The pricing is average and includes all features with support."

"Palo Alto networks are more expensive than this solution and this is why you will see more products like this one in Mexico."

"They have smart licenses that can be provided for one year, two years, three years, five years, and seven years. Alternatively, they have perpetual licenses available."

"Price is certainly something that the IOS technology has fallen behind the competition on."

"The product is expensive."

"The pricing for Cisco IOS Security is reasonable compared to other Cisco products."

"The cost may be around $5,000 to $10,000 a year. If you want support you have to pay at least this price."

More Cisco IOS Security pricing and cost advice

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

29%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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What do you like most about Cisco IOS Security?

Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It off...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco IOS Security?

Pricing can be reduced. I rate the current price for the product a four out of ten.

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What needs improvement with Cisco IOS Security?

While I do not have specific recommendations for improvement, pricing can be reduced.

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 37% of the time

OPNsense vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 13% of the time

Meraki MX vs Cisco IOS Security

Compared 11% of the time

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Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 22% of the time

Talon vs Menlo Secure

Compared 14% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security

April 2025

Download Cisco IOS Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

April 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

IOS Security

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Cisco IOS Software delivers a sophisticated set of security capabilities for a comprehensive, layered security approach throughout your network infrastructure. Cisco IOS security technologies help to defend critical business processes against attack and disruption, protect privacy, and support policy and regulatory compliance controls.

Cisco

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Arup Group, Brunel University London, City of Biel, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, K&L Gates , New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Offshore Northern Seas, Transplace

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco IOS Security vs. Menlo Secure

April 2025

Free Report: Cisco IOS Security vs. Menlo Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS Security vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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