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Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center support is rated well, but experiences vary due to regional barriers, response times, and documentation quality.
Sentiment score
6.2
Palo Alto Networks Panorama's customer service is knowledgeable and effective, though improvements are needed in speed, consistency, and pricing.
The tech support I've encountered has been good, prompt, and fast.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
5.1
Cisco Secure Firewall needs enhanced interface, performance, integration, cost management, API support, policy simplification, and AI-driven analytics.
Sentiment score
4.4
Panorama needs better pricing, usability, integration, intuitive design, and performance enhancements, plus improved analytics, support, and monitoring.
The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is highly scalable, supporting varied user bases with flexible license expansion and generally high satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.8
Palo Alto Networks Panorama is highly scalable, effectively managing large networks, suitable for medium to large enterprises despite hardware needs.
Scalability is primarily enhanced by Strata Cloud Manager as it is much easier to scale in the cloud than in an on-premises installation.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
8.5
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center offers flexible, customizable licensing with individual feature fees, leading to variable and sometimes high costs.
No sentiment score available
Palo Alto Networks Panorama offers robust features and performance justifying its higher cost, making it a valued investment.
Virtual Panorama is well-priced and is sold every time there's a solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is stable, with minor issues resolved by updates and effective Cisco support, ensuring reliability.
Sentiment score
7.7
Palo Alto Networks Panorama is praised for its stability and reliability, performing well even during demanding tasks with minimal issues.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
7.8
Cisco Secure Firewall excels in intrusion prevention, scalability, and integration, offering centralized management and comprehensive security features.
Sentiment score
8.0
Palo Alto Networks Panorama centralizes firewall management, simplifying security configuration and enhancing efficiency with robust, scalable features.
The platform is quite similar to the firewall interface, making it easier for tech consultants to manage.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 9.3%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Awais Ejaz - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and reasonably priced product that protects organizations from malware
The product must improve its performance. When we push policies from the console, it takes a lot of time. It takes five to seven minutes to push one policy. If someone pushes a wrong policy and there is an outage in the banking system, they would have to wait six to seven minutes to revert it. We have highlighted this issue to Cisco. A year ago, we told Cisco that we need APIs for integration with SOAR for pushing policies. We cannot push policies or run playbooks from SOAR to block any IOCs on the web and email gateway because Cisco doesn’t expose the APIs. It is one thing for which we have been following up with Cisco for the last year, but I don't think they've developed the API integration. Palo Alto and Fortinet provide this feature to their users.
ManjitSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in proxy with the ability to maintain your own policies
Our company uses the solution for monitoring and policies. We monitor data, make rules for firewalls, and allow source IPs to destination IPs with respect to ports and services.  We also use UR filtering to allow or block things. We have a Prisma Access Firewall that we allow or block for remote…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Engineering Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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 needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
We encountered challenges, particularly when building use cases for this firewall, as it requires specific OS versions and firmware upgrades, which can lead to increased downtime. It adds an admini...
What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
Palo Alto Panorama might appear expensive to some enterprises, but its powerful platform justifies the cost.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
Palo Alto needs to improve deployment by making it easier to deploy an agent to a desktop. Currently, it's complex since the product cannot utilize the AD serving for deployment, which would be a d...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.