Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

Cisco and Skybox Security are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. Cisco is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Skybox Security is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.3. Cisco holds a 0.8% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Skybox Security’s 10.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Skybox Security users who would recommend it.

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...

Read 25 Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center reviews

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175 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Skybox Security Suite

Read 35 Skybox Security Suite reviews

3,183 Views
2,387 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...

Skybox Security Suite

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Skybox Security Suite and Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center are both powerful tools in the network security management category. Skybox is often chosen for its cost-effectiveness and strong customer support, while Cisco is preferred for its advanced features and comprehensive integration capabilities, despite its higher cost.

Features: Skybox Security Suite focuses on risk management, vulnerability control, and network modeling, and offers predictive analytics for comprehensive security visibility. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center excels in firewall management, threat intelligence, and application visibility, benefiting from seamless integration with other Cisco products.

Room for Improvement: Skybox could enhance its scalability for even larger networks and improve its integration options beyond existing solutions. User interface improvements could also be beneficial. Cisco may improve its ease of use and reduce complexity during the deployment of its comprehensive features. Enhanced scalability for smaller enterprises and option expansions in threat intelligence could also be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Skybox Security Suite is recognized for its easy deployment process and efficient customer support, which facilitates quick setups. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center’s complexity in deployment is countered by detailed documentation and support, enabling successful implementation in large, complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: Skybox Security Suite offers competitive pricing with notable ROI through effective security management and minimal initial costs. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center involves a higher upfront investment, yet its powerful capabilities and integration justify the cost, offering substantial long-term ROI for large enterprises seeking extensive security solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Skybox Security Suite Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Skybox Security Suite

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Skybox Security Suite

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

7th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (43rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 10.8%, up from 10.4% 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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NenadMijatovic

Director of Sales at S4E Serbia

Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use

Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.

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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

"The applied policy inside the firewall is good."

"The most valuable feature of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is the UTM."

"I like its system management and filtering options as a layer seven firewall."

"The product's user interface is very easy to use and convenient."

"The technical support team is responsive and supportive."

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

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

"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."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center pros

"The most valuable features are the rule compliance and the OS vulnerability checks."

"I think that compliance checks and policy compliance are the product's good features."

"This type of tool does a great job of reaching into those other devices producing risk recommendations, compliance recommendations, and a single plane of glass to do your queries, so you can find where these rules might exist."

"The most valuable feature is the compliance, whether it's access compliance or the configuration compliance, to make sure that all of our devices are configured as they're supposed to be, to limit access as much possible, to follow least-access guidelines."

"Aside from Firewall Assurance, we are using Network Assurance and Change Manager for an overview of the whole network and for documenting requests and the recertification of the ruleset."

"The ability to appropriately prioritize vulnerabilities inside the environment, and then to have visibility into the traffic and rule sets of an organization, are two of the top capabilities that I recommend. Skybox is the only one that does both of those in a single platform."

"Skybox allows organizations to reprioritize the vulnerability they attempt to patch and mitigate, based on the contextual awareness of the network."

"It has a good policy management feature and can provide customers with good quality outputs."

More Skybox Security Suite pros

Cons

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

"It's not very user-friendly and can be somewhat disorganized."

"It takes five to seven minutes to push one policy."

"The solution should improve the user interface."

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

"The product's setup could be easier."

"I had a challenging time trying to size the firewall on the cloud. Maybe the information is there, but I couldn't find it easily. Usually, it depends on the cloud provider itself, whether you use AWS or Azure. These guys give you the information, so this part is not as detailed."

"Cisco firewalls use old ESR or a Linux system, and there are problems with encryption. When we switch on encryption, the throughput goes down."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center cons

"Reporting. A lot of the reports, out of the box, are limited to a certain number of either configuration violations or access rule violations. So when you first set up a new firewall to be monitored by Skybox, you don't get a real full report. You have to really tweak it to get everything."

"Skybox Security Suite can improve the change management module. It is the one part of the tool that is used with the firewall devices and you have a change management module that is used to record changes of all firewalls in the company. It's not compatible with all brands, this is where they can improve the solution."

"There is room for improvement in the technical support."

"Skybox should improve their UX features by making them easier to use."

"The vendor's support is terrible."

"The most recent update was not tested with all of the vendors before it was released, so some of the features are misbehaving."

"I've had issues with licensing where, when they were expiring and I asked for the updated licenses, I would the wrong ones. I think their process needs to be straightened out a little bit - I don't know if they fixed it already, it has been awhile. It wasn't as straightforward as it could have been."

"The setup documentation needs a lot of improvement."

More Skybox Security Suite cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One of the advantages of Cisco is its range of flexible licensing options."

"The solution is expensive. We have a multi-license, and we pay extra for support."

"It is rather expensive."

"The product pricing is reasonable and falls in the mid-range."

"I rate the tool's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing costs are yearly."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center pricing and cost advice

"The price is not expensive."

"I rate the pricing two on a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is cost-effective."

"The pricing has increased exorbitantly in the last few years, so now it is questionable. Now, it makes me want to review other products."

"The product's pricing is excellent value. In terms of licensing, make sure you understand your network components, all your hops through your network, thoroughly, before you decide on the total cost. If you want to do point-to-point flow analysis and such, you need to have the configuration of all the devices in between point A and point B. A lot of people don't realize all their network components until they start using this product."

"With licensing, the number of network nodes becomes very expensive to the point where you have to rationalize if the tools are warranted anymore."

"I think the price is fair."

"I've seen the pricing of every solution on the market. When you compare apples to apples, where Skybox becomes exceedingly expensive is if you look at it compared to something like FireMon that only does a fraction of what Skybox does. But if you include everything that Skybox does, it becomes way more expensive than the competition, but you're also not comparing apples to apples. If you look at FireMon, and you look at like just the firewall assurance piece, they are fairly comparable and, actually, Skybox comes in a little bit cheaper in some cases, depending on which product you're looking at."

"The price of the Skybox Security Suite can be expensive."

More Skybox Security Suite pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

19%

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Engineering Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

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.

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

The product pricing is reasonable and falls in the mid-range.

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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...

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What do you like most about Skybox Security Suite?

Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integrat...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?

Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approximately 50 percent different. The tool may require special vendor support from abr...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?

There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly.

See all answers

Comparisons

AWS Firewall Manager vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Compared 70% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Compared 30% of the time

More Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Competitors

AlgoSec vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 34% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 29% of the time

FireMon Security Manager vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 15% of the time

RedSeal vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 4% of the time

More Skybox Security Suite Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

January 2025

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center report

Download Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center product report

Buyer's Guide

Skybox Security Suite

December 2024

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Learn More

Cisco

Skybox Security

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)

The Skybox Security Suite platform combines firewall and network device data with vulnerability and threat intelligence, prioritizing security issues in the context of your unique environment. Powerful attack vector analytics reduce response times and risks, bringing firewall, vulnerability and threat management processes for complex networks under control.

Firewall Assurance brings all firewalls into one normalized view, continuously monitoring policy compliance, optimizing firewall rulesets and finding attack vectors that others miss. Skybox covers the most comprehensive list of firewall vendors, complex rulesets, even virtual and cloud-based firewalls. With proven scalability in 1,500+ firewall deployments, Firewall Assurance keeps rules optimized and ensures changes don’t introduce new risk.

Gain total visibility of the vulnerabilities in your attack surface without waiting for a scan. Leverage Skybox Research Lab's vulnerability and threat intelligence, and automatically correlate it to your unique environment. With network modeling and advanced simulations, pinpoint exposed vulnerabilities and other attack vectors. And use context to prioritize vulnerabilities in terms of actual risk and respond to threats with accuracy and efficiency.

For more information or to view a demo, visit www.skyboxsecurity.com.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Skybox Security Suite

January 2025

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