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Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 16.0%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ramish Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 25, 2023
Acts as a safeguard against external threats such as viruses, malware, and offers URL scanning, but it needs to be more user friendly
It acts as a security center that deals with anti-malware, antivirus, and protection against network attacks It acts as a safeguard against external threats such as viruses, malware, and offers URL scanning. Cisco Secure Firewall's strength lies in its regular updates and automated blocking of…
WL
Jul 24, 2023
Reporting helps us remove rules rather having to dig deep to do so, but some functions are tricky to use
I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive. We can use FireMon to create reports and use that information to make changes within FireMon. I also like that we can track the kinds of changes that the network engineers are performing on the networks. We can run reports on that. We have also set up alerts and reports that come into my inbox daily. That gives me a rundown of any changes that have occurred within the environment. The solution has a good dashboard that gives you an overview of what's going on within your network in terms of compliance and the security index. The dashboard also gives you an outline of redundant and unused rules. You can run reports and make them a bit more targeted in terms of what you're looking for. That can help with the cleanup. I've also dabbled in the Policy Analyzer to see what information I can get from that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco's support and services are far superior to any other security product in Pakistan."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is scalable."
"The solution is quite scalable."
"The platform's most valuable feature has been its centralized management capability, which allows us to monitor and control multiple devices from one location."
"The most valuable aspects are the antivirus and URL filtering."
"The solution is useful and powerful."
"Malware detection, URL filtering, and antivirus are the most beneficial features for our security management. The platform has three main components: filters, hardware, and antivirus. We use the standard approach for automation and integration. The person in charge of management follows the rules and policies of the equipment and handles operations. However, we haven't set up any notifications, so it's mostly manual."
"The most valuable features are the Virtual Private Network and the Electronic Control Lists."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting capability because everything that we do is a result of our being able to query a report, based on our environment and our PCI compliance efforts."
"When it comes to real-time compliance management, it is very good because it is able to compare changes in the configuration as well as giving us a timestamp. It also sends email alerts to our environment so we know if someone has made a change on the network. It gives us the whole picture of that change. Whether it is a configuration change or just a small comment, it gives us the before and after snapshot."
"What I like about FireMon is the ability to track changes made by network engineers on the network."
"It provides us with a single pane of glass for our on-prem environment, to see configuration. We have not implemented into the cloud yet. We can search for an object group and see where it lives on any firewall in the enterprise or find security rules, no matter what firewall they're on."
"Vendor agnostic when it comes to integrating with other product."
"I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive."
"The technical support is very good. They've always been helpful."
"The most valuable feature of FireMon is its ability to configure multiple devices and consolidate them into a single desktop, which allows us to manage all of our security devices, such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, from one place."
 

Cons

"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could improve by being less expensive."
"Due to the lack of enough tutorials available online, I face problems with Cisco."
"The solution could improve the number of ports available and load balancing."
"The IOS and the deploy option could be improved."
"The first version had a lot of bugs, but the recent versions have sorted them out."
"Cisco Firepower has been effective in solving various problems, but it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly like Fortinet."
"Some duplicated values and security standards are not working in some high-application protocols with Cisco's next-generation firewalls."
"The performance of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could be improved."
"The training for configuring new users or operators is confusing because the UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."
"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."
"Some of the core functionality in our environment doesn't seem to work. We will get buggy code releases. They need to work on their Q&A of every code release."
"The initial setup can take some time, including connecting it and configuring it. It's not something that is easy for anybody to do. There is time and energy required because of the number of systems you have to configure to get it to work properly."
"We have had some stability issues that are affecting operations. We rely heavily on this solution and if it isn't working then we have to create rules manually."
"When it comes to identifying risk in our environment and prioritizing fixes, it is really about the different priorities within the organization. FireMon is not so smart that it can tell what's important to us. It's up to us to figure that out."
"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."
"It comes as a Linux appliance on a server and we're not a Linux shop, we're more of a Windows shop. It would be great if they could automate or integrate the backups into it and other things through their GUI interface, just to make the management of Linux a little more transparent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you are using a Cisco solution you know it will be expensive. Cisco makes you pay for everything individually. We pay for the licenses that we need."
"It could be considered relatively cheaper when compared to some other vendors in the market."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has the best price on the market."
"I use the free version of the product."
"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing costs are yearly."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive. We do not have to pay more than the standard licensing fees."
"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."
"Pricing is reasonable."
"Pricing model seems fair."
"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"We pay for it yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Government
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Engineering Company
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations.
What do you like most about FireMon?
I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint, our only limitation is the number of devices that we manage. Our environment is small. We have fewer than 20 enterprise firewalls, meaning it's hard ...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain d...
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. FireMon Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
801,634 professionals have used our research since 2012.