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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate vs Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Cisco Secure Firewall offers ROI through reliability, preventing costly incidents, improving efficiency, and easy integration despite ROI quantification challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
Fortinet FortiGate offers cost-effective security and performance improvements, boosting user productivity and reducing operational costs.
Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire reduces costs and streamlines threat management with efficient detection and seamless firewall integration.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
We have experienced a positive return on investment by utilizing Fortinet's products.
There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Cisco Secure Firewall users praise efficient customer service but note occasional inconsistency; direct contracts improve support quality.
Sentiment score
7.0
Fortinet FortiGate's support varies; praised for responsiveness but criticized for delays, with location impacting experiences and documentation praised.
Sentiment score
7.6
Palo Alto Networks WildFire customer service is praised for expertise but varies in responsiveness, with challenges in smaller regions.
I have to provide many logs, yet problems remain unresolved, often requiring workarounds rather than solutions.
I have been working with them on firewalls, wireless, switching, and routing, and the support is the best.
If I have a priority one case, I am able to call the manager to raise the severity.
He explained that it required a command line configuration, as it couldn't be done through the graphical user interface.
I would rate their support for FortiGate a nine out of ten.
They offer very accurate solutions.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Cisco Secure Firewall is scalable and flexible for businesses, but costs and hardware vary, requiring careful needs assessment.
Sentiment score
7.3
Fortinet FortiGate is scalable and flexible, but may require hardware changes and face integration issues with other vendors.
Sentiment score
8.1
Palo Alto Networks WildFire offers scalable, customizable, and flexible solutions efficiently accommodating growth, highly rated by larger enterprises.
Scalability presents a challenge.
Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, it lags in configuration and other aspects.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
You can choose a cheaper model if you only have 20-30 users, but you will need to spend more money for a FortiGate solution that covers 5,000.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
Cisco Secure Firewall is praised for stability, reliability, minimal issues, rapid updates for bugs, and exceptional performance under pressure.
Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiGate is generally stable and reliable, though firmware updates and resource intensity may temporarily affect performance.
Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly stable, seamlessly integrates, and is reliable with minimal issues and exceptional cloud performance.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional performance and stability.
Improper handling of these can lead to a memory surge, a well-known bug that can cause the entire system to freeze.
It is less stable than Palo Alto Networks and Check Point firewalls because there are lots of bugs in the latest firmware.
We have not had any problems with the operating systems or maintenance of subscriptions.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Firewall users seek improvements in routing support, cost efficiency, UI design, integration, and performance enhancements.
Fortinet FortiGate needs enhancements in stability, interface, pricing, VPN performance, third-party integration, and technical support.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs UI, pricing, deployment, integration, offline capabilities, support, and feature improvements for better user satisfaction.
Firepower Management Center is quite out of date compared to other vendors.
The integration between Cisco products themselves presents difficulties, such as SD-WAN configuration.
Cisco Firewalls require FMC for management.
If I have put 10 GBPS of throughput on a firewall and I enable all of these features available, such as IPS or UTM functionalities, the throughput comes down to 1 GBPS.
By providing an integrated solution, users would have access to all features and functionalities within a single window, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple windows.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Firewall is costly but valued for performance, support, and discounts, appealing to security-focused enterprises.
Fortinet FortiGate is cost-effective, offers flexible licensing, and includes most features with straightforward pricing despite some high renewal costs.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire, perceived as costly yet advanced, targets enterprises, offering a 30-day trial and complex pricing.
It's considered a premium, but people pay that price for Cisco.
The licensing process for Cisco Secure Firewall is convoluted, involving many steps to request and enter a license key.
Secure SD-WAN is free of charge.
The most expensive part is the renewal of the license subscription.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Firewall offers robust security, easy management, and integration with high availability, scalability, and centralized policy creation.
Fortinet FortiGate offers robust security and management features, valued for ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and consistent performance.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in real-time threat analysis, malware detection, easy integration, and improved network visibility with machine learning.
It includes features like IPS, malware protection, and other security features.
Cisco Firewall has very good features, like trusted applications and restricted access for users based on keywords.
The most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewall include the next-generation firewall and its strong anti-malware capabilities.
The firewall, IPS, and VPN functions are the most valuable features.
FortiGate provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats.
Within the same dashboard, you get to see the security profiles, the type of traffic that's passing through, the top applications that are being consumed, etc.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
 

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls
Firewalls
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Maharajan S - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances security with precise access control but has integration challenges
Overall, I would rate the product six out of ten. Because of the support and cost, I moved away from Cisco, but otherwise, it is a good product. Recommendation depends on the requirement. If lacking a proper team and being dependent on the OEM and partner, Cisco is not suitable. However, if the team is qualified with Cisco-certified people and the requirement is a big network, it can be considered. In today's hybrid work world, having an expanded gateway is more typical than having a single one. Thus, Cisco is unlikely to be recommended for a hybrid requirement unless in-house skills align. Otherwise, depending on partners and Cisco, it can be a risk. I rate the overall solution six out of ten.
EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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Also Known As

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
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