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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

"If an AP or any wireless device goes into critical mode, Cisco Prime sends an alert. That is the most helpful feature."
"Enables oversight in order to tweak and tune."
"Has a good wireless heatmap and search management features."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"Cisco Prime allows us to manage all the wireless controllers and access points."
"The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks."
"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."
"Cisco Prime can help customers fix their Wi-Fi issues with scientific and digital data."
"It's very easy to install, and it's easy to discover and communicate with your device."
"I appreciate the ability to connect via SSH through Fortinet FortiManager to the FortiGates I manage. This feature allows me to gather information about the interfaces without having to physically connect to the device. This is a convenient aspect that I find valuable."
"It would normally take us a handful of days to install one FortiGate instance on one site. But with this technology, zero-touch deployment, we need just one hour or maybe as little as 30 minutes to install one site. It is much more efficient."
"Fortinet FortiManager allows a full view of all the devices on the network from one location."
"Setup, setting policies, and reporting were all very easy. We had no issues whatsoever getting the solution up and running."
"The integration is quite good."
"The centralized management of policies and certificates, coupled with the capability to handle multi-site deployments effectively, provides streamlined operations."
"FortiManager enables us to set unified firewall policies from one centralized dashboard, reducing human error. If you do not have a central dashboard, there's a chance you might set a policy on one firewall and forget to do it for another."
 

Cons

"The overall management capabilities of Prime need to be improved."
"Cisco can only be used for Cisco environments and is not compatible with other vendors."
"The product needs to improve its stability."
"The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user."
"Some improvements are needed, specifically in the form of more updates and enhancements."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"I rate Cisco Prime seven out of 10 for affordability. All Cisco solutions are expensive."
"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."
"The GUI is not ideal."
"Troubleshooting for Fortinet products is more difficult than competing products like Cisco and Palo Alto."
"The product is not very stable."
"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."
"Its licensing model should be improved."
"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."
"The user interface can feel clunky, especially for more complex tasks such as managing large-scale policy packages or custom scripts."
"Areas for improvement in Fortinet FortiManager are scalability and stability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is quite high."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The solution is not inexpensive but is worth it for large-scale environments."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We update the license every five years."
"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"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."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"Fortinet FortiManager is costly."
"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."
"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."
"Our organization pays a monthly license fee for the solution."
"Fortinet FortiManager is not expensive at all if you compare it with other vendors like Check Point and Cisco. Fortinet products are the least expensive on the market in the category of firewalls."
"The price of Fortinet FortiManager is inexpensive."
"Pricing could improve a little bit so I rate it a seven out of ten."
"The pricing model is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

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: January 2026.
881,036 professionals have used our research since 2012.