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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs Fortinet FortiManager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiManager
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Has an easy implementation process, but the performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive
The project implementation was easy overall. Adapting Cisco's solutions to our specific environment required effort, as their documentation only covers some network scenarios. The deployment didn't happen all at once; it was staged and controlled to ensure a smooth transition. We started with a small test environment before gradually rolling it out to all campuses. This gradual approach helped mitigate the risk of any issues arising across multiple locations simultaneously, especially on a critical day like Monday morning. We have a team of three executives working on the process. Their job roles included network specialists and a manager. It requires maintenance, which is included in the annual cost. We receive updates and support as part of the renewal process.
SudeepMaydeo - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Head of IT Infrastructure at EPL Americas
Ensures seamless integration and centralized visibility for network security operations
The version upgrade from a single dashboard for all the firewalls in one click is the beauty of Fortinet FortiManager as the most impactful feature in managing our network security. Fortinet FortiManager's policy management enhances our security protocols by enabling us and giving integrated centralized visibility, which has proven to be very healthy. Because of this, we have identified some of the vulnerabilities in our systems, and we mitigated them through Fortinet FortiManager. The central dashboards and the visibility are what appealed to us to go with Fortinet FortiManager. Fortinet FortiManager has adapted to changes in our network scale and complexity as we have geographically 18 international locations, all equipped with firewalls and some cybersecurity initiatives and IT infrastructure initiatives.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Prime is helpful as it provides us with real-time monitoring. This allows us to be proactive in our environment."
"As a large organization, it is difficult to individually monitor every device. Instead, we use Cisco Prime to keep an eye on the network and services. We do not use it as a node tool, as we have other tools for network operation centers. When services go down, it can cause issues, we rely on Cisco Prime to monitor and notify us of any service disruptions. We mainly use Cisco Prime Infrastructure for configuration-level tasks."
"The solution's configuration management tool is amazing because it centralizes and pushes configurations which saves a lot of volume and effort."
"I have found the solution to be scalable."
"Cisco Prime, from a management perspective, has good reporting."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"What I found most beneficial from Cisco Prime is that it gives you an insight into what your network does, even when you're not actively monitoring what's going on with your network."
"It gives you the ability to upgrade switches remotely, schedule the upgrade time, perform backups, and monitor the health of all networks."
"It is easy to deploy to licenses."
"The most valuable feature is the central configuration for firewall policies."
"The solution brings device management into one single pane of glass and is a pretty good product."
"For the whole security fabric from Fortinet, with a simple click you can see if some workstations or services are affected by an attack. You can really easily quarantine it, check the solution, and fix it."
"FortiManager's most valuable features are web-based or web-rule-based policies, SD-WAN, and the ease of upgrading to new firmware."
"The central management feature is the most valuable to me."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows you to manage multiple FortiGate devices from a single console, and this is a valuable product feature."
"FortiManager's most valuable feature is central management."
 

Cons

"The onboarding process could be improved and developed to enhance compatibility for non-Cisco devices."
"The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user."
"The solution can be slow at times."
"The user interface of Cisco Prime could be more user-friendly and increase its performance."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"The product needs to improve its interface and reporting."
"Lacking in integration with a SIEM tool."
"Cisco Prime could improve the notifications in the system. Having more details about what is happening would be useful, such as traffic numbers or who is connected. We can see them through the firewall controller, but it would be better if you can see them from one place."
"Its licensing model should be improved."
"Troubleshooting for Fortinet products is more difficult than competing products like Cisco and Palo Alto."
"The presence of Fortinet in our region (Nigeria) needs to be stronger."
"Having FortiManager work with all of the Fortinet products would be a good improvement."
"When we have a specific configuration pushed it does take some time to be deployed on the actual firewall."
"The FortiManager is more complex and they can make it easier to use the VPN manager. All other features are okay. However, the VPN manager is more difficult and can cause some issues in the environment, if you do not have the experience to use it."
"It's a difficult process to transfer one interface from one virtual domain to another."
"There are a lot of bugs that need to be fixed, for example, the ZTP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The cost is quite high."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."
"In comparison with other products, the price of FortiManager is reasonable."
"The pricing model is affordable."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."
"FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."
"FortiManager isn't expensive, but its cost is dependent on which services are required."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiManager?
The most valuable feature is the centralized management console.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiManager?
I am satisfied with the licensing cost, and I would rate it an 8.5.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
I do not use Fortinet FortiManager daily, but I can speak with my security team and ask them what areas need future improvement for Fortinet FortiManager. When I installed it, I found it somewhat d...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, NetScaler and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: February 2026.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.