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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs Fortinet FortiManager comparison

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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
74
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

"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"The product has a lot of features and capabilities."
"The solution helps with the management and support of the enterprise network."
"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."
"Operationally, Prime is quite easy to use and I like the wireless heatmap and search management features."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"The interfaces are a valuable feature."
"The firewall configuration has more capabilities than the other firewall management systems that I have worked with."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows you to manage multiple FortiGate devices from a single console, and this is a valuable product feature."
"The most valuable features are the centralized management of the firewalls."
"You can configure it at your ease."
"Fortinet FortiManager is effective and helpful for VPN management, such as deployment VPN management."
"It's a very rich, robust product."
"FortiManager's most valuable features are web-based or web-rule-based policies, SD-WAN, and the ease of upgrading to new firmware."
 

Cons

"Cisco Prime needs to have lower prices and more customization options."
"Now, the complexity has increased, so the quality of work also has taken a slight hit with respect to their TAC support especially."
"The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user."
"This is not a scalable solution."
"The solution has issues with real time monitoring of devices and NetFlow such as inadequate visualization for reports, sources, and destinations."
"The reporting feature of Cisco Prime should be improved."
"Cisco needs to improve Prime's monitoring tab. If any device goes down, there is a 15-second lapse before we know. It would be much better if we were alerted two or three minutes before a device is about to fail, so we can dispatch a field engineer and avoid network downtime. I would like to see a feature that allows you to access the devices directly from Prime's monitoring tab. That would make work easier for us."
"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."
"If you have more than one FortiMail device, you can't manage it then with FortiManager on FortiGate."
"The CLI could be enhanced."
"The information extraction through command lines was could improve to some extent. Although there were some command lines available, there were not enough options. For instance, I needed to obtain the management IP address of my two Fortigates, but the Fortinet FortiManager did not provide me with the IP address on the LAN interface. I attempted to find this information through the command line but was unsuccessful. I also searched for articles on the internet, but could not find a solution. This is an aspect that could be improved or potentially there is a method to access this information that I have yet to discover."
"There is a degradation of performance if we activate logs on FortiManager."
"We have experienced a series of minor bugs that necessitated contacting technical support on several occasions."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"The interface could be improved. It is split up into different areas, which makes it more difficult to navigate and get the right section of the correct file. The solution is quite expensive, so it would not be suitable for small to medium sized organizations."
"In the next release, FortiManager should include more protection features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"We update the license every five years."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"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 would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"The cost is quite high."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"This is an affordable solution, and its licensing model is based on the number of devices."
"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."
"The pricing model is affordable."
"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."
"Compared to Check Point or Cisco, Fortinet FortiManager is more affordable but it is still on the higher end."
"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model by feature."
"Fortinet FortiManager can be expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 think Fortinet FortiManager can be improved as the web page loading is slightly slow.
What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiManager?
My main use case for Fortinet FortiManager is to manage multiple FortiGate devices. I can confirm that I use Fortinet FortiManager perfectly in my main use case.
 

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, Skyline Communications and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.