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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs Fortinet FortiManager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

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
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.
HamedWasel - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good integration capabilities but we've had troubles when moving devices
We've faced an issue when we need to move devices. Templates need to be recreated instead of having the policies, et cetera, cut and pasted over. Everything should just move over when we need to move devices instead of recreating everything from scratch. For the IPSEC tunnels, Fortimanager doesn't have all of the features that are available on Fortigate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"We use the solution to control the physical service station that is part of the SCADA network. We connect and control them remotely."
"The technical support team is very good."
"The installation is easy."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"If an AP or any wireless device goes into critical mode, Cisco Prime sends an alert. That is the most helpful feature."
"This solution enables you to centralize the rules and the configuration of all the equipment."
"The product is easy to use and manage."
"The solution is very stable."
"It is easy to deploy to licenses."
"It's a scalable product."
"It is easy to manage a huge number of devices with FortiManager."
"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."
"It can scale well."
 

Cons

"They could consider offering more flexible pricing options for their customers."
"The product needs to improve its stability."
"The reporting feature of Cisco Prime should be improved."
"We would like to see the inclusion of detailed alerts."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"The onboarding process could be improved and developed to enhance compatibility for non-Cisco devices."
"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."
"They can also improve the management of more enterprise devices."
"The solution has to be enhanced to manage new switches."
"FortiManager could be more user-friendly."
"For the IPSEC tunnels, Fortimanager doesn't have all of the features that are available on Fortigate."
"FortiManager needs to handle different firewall versions more efficiently."
"The price always has room for improvement."
"The presence of Fortinet in our region (Nigeria) needs to be stronger."
"The SD-WAN solution is difficult to manage on FortiManager because you need to share some configurations on the firewall side. Sometimes you lose all connectivity with the firewall, so it is challenging to apply the default configuration to the SD-WAN solution."
"When we have a specific configuration pushed it does take some time to be deployed on the actual firewall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite high."
"I would 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."
"The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"We update the license every five years."
"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."
"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."
"I hope that the prices will become more competitive in subsequent releases, as the current pricing is perceived as somewhat elevated."
"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."
"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."
"FortiManager is reasonably priced - I pay around US$40,0000 per year, which covers fifty locations."
"FortiManager is a bit expensive - I would rate its pricing three out of ten."
"The license model they use depends on the size and is not limited to the users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
FortiGate offers the same features as Palo Alto yet at a more reasonable price. The ROI justifies the investment.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiManager?
FortiManager needs to handle different firewall versions more efficiently. If FortiGate devices have different versions, managing them is challenging. There's also a need to upgrade firewalls or ch...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
No data available
 

Learn More

 

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, HPE Aruba Networking and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.