Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

Cisco and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Cisco is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1. Cisco holds a 0.8% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 8.4% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...

Read 26 Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center reviews

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166 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Read 89 Palo Alto Networks Panorama reviews

4,721 Views
2,137 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Palo Alto Networks Panorama and Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center compete in centralized firewall management. Users appreciate Panorama for its pricing and support, while Cisco's features make it compelling for those who value robust capabilities and comprehensive functionality.

Features: Palo Alto Networks Panorama is known for centralized management, scalability, and ease of use, with strong automation capabilities and robust reporting features. The automation and credential theft prevention make it notable, as is the ability to seamlessly manage multiple firewalls. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is recognized for all-in-one firewall protection and centralized management critical for large network infrastructures.

Room for Improvement: Panorama users indicate room for improvement in pricing and complexity of managing multiple firewalls. Its documentation and integration with third-party products also need enhancement. Cisco users suggest improvements in user interface simplicity and cost, with some indicating performance issues tied to complex setups.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Panorama supports deployment models including hybrid cloud and on-premises and is praised for its versatile deployment options. Cisco Secure Firewall supports on-premises and private cloud deployments, with robust support noted despite occasional response delays for both.

Pricing and ROI: Palo Alto Networks Panorama is perceived as expensive yet offers strong ROI due to its extensive feature set and efficiency. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center's cost is similar, with charges for additional features but offers flexible licensing for diverse user needs. Both provide potential ROI through increased productivity and centralized management.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

January 2025

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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 Secure Firewall Manag...

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.4%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Awais Ejaz

Chief Information Security Officer at Allied Bank Limited

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.

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Kim Ejby Lorentzen

Senior Principal Solutions Architect, HPE Aruba Networking - Full Stack Platform Expert at Danoffice IT ApS

Unified firewall management streamlines operations across branches with prompt support services

The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration. One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Scalability is not an issue as long as you are able to buy additional licenses. Ten percent of our customers use Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, and we have large accounts with 50% of their end users behind this firewall."

"The tool helps with internet access protection."

"Cisco's support and services are far superior to any other security product in Pakistan."

"The technical support team is responsive and supportive."

"My clients have never contacted me with any issues, so I believe the solution is stable."

"The most valuable aspects are the antivirus and URL filtering."

"The applied policy inside the firewall is good."

"The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center pros

"Especially for big, worldwide clients, one of the most valuable features is being able to create some rules to place on the security groups."

"Panorama integrates security management by allowing easy modification of policy by account, IP, or application."

"It is really useful for big deployments."

"Variable creation and template stack functionalities make Palo Alto Networks Panorama a brilliant solution. It is a completely scalable system, with good technical support."

"Palo Alto technical support is excellent."

"It allows administrators to manage all firewalls from a single interface, reducing the time and effort required for configuration."

"The most valuable feature is the Threat Intelligence."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama provides many features, such as alerts, traffic monitoring, and logs."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pros

Cons

"We use the suggested standard policies that come with the equipment. We don't put much effort into customizing these policies, which we know is a risk. We're moving to a more advanced IT area that will change how we manage the firewall policies. Cisco offers many ways to manage the equipment, but our team lacks extensive knowledge. We're moving these responsibilities to a specialized security team."

"The first version had a lot of bugs, but the recent versions have sorted them out."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"Areas for improvement include pricing points and the range of products available at any given time."

"Cisco Firepower has been effective in solving various problems, but it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly like Fortinet."

"The performance of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could be improved."

"The tool is a little bit pricey. I was not involved much with finance, but it appeared to be really expensive."

"The IOS and the deploy option could be improved."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center cons

"The pricing is quite high."

"The solution can improve by providing unique reports in relation to the function of which you choose the firewall to do."

"They need to do less bug-related releases and create versions that are stable for at least six months at a time. I don't find this issue in other solutions like Cisco, Check Point, FortiGate, or others. Those just provide a patch if there is a bug and we don't have to worry about downtime."

"Lacking in speed and reliability."

"We had some challenges with the initial setup, but it was more on a learning curve basis."

"In the future, it would be beneficial if Panorama could include a firewall assurance feature similar to Skybox."

"The general customer feedback is when saving the configuration, it takes a long time. That needs to be fixed. The troubleshooting, the debugging part is also a little bit of a pain. It's not user-friendly on the interface to do our debugging when comparing it with other firewalls, like Forcepoint."

"The solution is extremely expensive. You can integrate it with other Palo Alto products, however, it ends up being too much."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has the best price on the market."

"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 is rather expensive."

"Technical support is an additional annual cost and is not included with the license."

"I use the free version of the product."

"The solution is not expensive."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center pricing and cost advice

"The product's pricing is high but flexible. It now follows the pay-per-use pricing model. I would rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."

"We're a reseller, and we're an MSSP. So, we get some extreme discounts."

"Pricing for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is always high. If you're going to sell the product, you always have to talk about the technology because it should be about the solution rather than the price."

"Palo Alto is costly compared to Fortinet and Sophos."

"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."

"It is pretty reasonable as compared to other companies."

"The pricing could be lower."

"The pricing is pretty average. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a five."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

21%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Engineering Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?

I would rate setup cost as four for now.

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What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?

I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

The setup cost is too high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times. High-speed replies are crucial. Additionally, the AI module should be on-premises, not in the cloud. It should support more flexib...

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Firewall Manager vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Compared 64% of the time

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AlgoSec vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 21% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 18% of the time

AWS Firewall Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 14% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 13% of the time

ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 2% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

February 2025

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center report

Download Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

February 2025

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Overview

The Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is the administrative nerve center for select Cisco security products running on multiple platforms. It provides unified management of Cisco Secure Firewalls with Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) software for port and protocol control, application control, IPS, URL filtering, and malware protection functions. Firewall Management Center is the centralized event and policy manager for:

● Cisco Secure Firewall with the Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) OS

● Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services

● Cisco Secure IPS (Firepower Next-Gen IPS / NGIPS)

● Cisco FirePOWER Threat Defense for ISR

● Cisco Malware Defense (AMP)

Cisco

Panorama network security management provides static rules and dynamic security updates in an ever-changing threat landscape. Reduce administrator workload and improve your overall security posture with a single rule base for firewall, threat prevention, URL filtering, application awareness, user identification, file blocking and data filtering.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

January 2025

Free Report: Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

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