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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, which allows us to be proactive in our environment."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat map."
"Cisco Prime, from a management perspective, has good reporting."
"The solution provides data that allows us to time travel through logs and perform remote operations or troubleshooting."
"The product has a lot of features and capabilities."
"Technical support is great, and we find them to be helpful and responsive."
"The map overview of our campus environment shows the distribution of RF frequency channels and the distribution of a client, providing us with a great idea of where the busier areas are within our environment to allow us to tweak and tune."
"We look at the traffic to segment the network and it improves and increases the performance. When we have a mobile connection and local laptops are on the same network. We have seen a big performance upgrade."
"There is something called zero-touch provisioning, where you can add a new device without any configuration; you just add it to FortiManager and then forget about it."
"My advice to anybody who is researching this product is that it is quite easy to use and the learning curve is not steep."
"We are managing a research and education network, and we have about 200 Fortinet FortiGate devices dispatched in the country, and we are managing all of them with FortiManager, which has simplified the management and reduced the time to configure the devices."
"The capability of centralized management is valuable, and we can configure all firewall boxes with the same configuration."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiManager are the overall management it provides and its ease of use."
"In general, I have no serious concerns about this product so I have no problems recommending it."
"FortiManager is a benefit to our clients who have several Fortinet products in their ecosystem."
 

Cons

"The solution is a bit pricey."
"I want the tool to improve data visibility."
"They could consider offering more flexible pricing options for their customers."
"I would love for Cisco Prime to show bandwidth usage and consumption, but I can't monitor bandwidth usage at a given time."
"They can also improve the management of more enterprise devices."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"It should be able to monitor Palo Alto, Juniper, and Check Point products - not just Cisco solutions."
"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."
"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."
"You cannot integrate with other solutions, so they should allow integration with Cisco and Juniper."
"One of the biggest limitations is the grammar of the API – not the API itself."
"There is room for improvement in Fortinet FortiManager because there is no option for roaming profiles, and the cloud console is not available, which is different compared to Cisco Meraki, and the cloud connectivity is not sufficiently good."
"In the next release, FortiManager should include more protection features."
"The GUI and the whole process of configuration should be improved."
"The solution has some bugs."
"We have experienced a series of minor bugs that necessitated contacted technical support on several occasions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."
"The solution requires you to have a license for every device, as well as for any advanced features being used, which makes it costly for high-volume users. However, for a large-scale environment with a lot of customers we have found it to be a worthwhile investment."
"The license model they use depends on the size and is not limited to the users."
"On a scale from one to ten with one being the highest price and ten being the lowest price, I would rate FortiManager's price at three."
"If you compare Fortinet and Palo Alto, Fortinet is cheaper, but if you compare Cisco and Fortinet, sometimes Cisco is cheaper because Cisco gives us more discounts because of the size. Cisco isn't cheap, but sometimes, we get a big discount from them."
"FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten."
"The pricing model is affordable."
"The price of Fortinet FortiManager is inexpensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: March 2026.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.