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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Juniper SRX Series Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
409
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Juniper SRX Series Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.7%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 5.6%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper SRX Series Firewall is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Jordan De Sousa - PeerSpot reviewer
Helped with the consolidation of tools and has a great dashboard
We have used different types of solutions. We had Cisco ASA for about 10 years, and then we switched to an on-site firewall to MX from Meraki, Cisco. For our cloud, we have Cisco Services Routers. The migration to the cloud has been a lot of work. Not all of our systems were compliant with being on the cloud so we had to work on some applications and delete some of them. For the old systems, we had to do extra work but for the newer systems, it was fine. The migration took around 18 months to migrate 99%. We had more than 2,000 on-prem firewall sites. Cisco helped with the migration to the cloud with the migration tool. Migrating MX was really easy and the tools helped us to migrate from the old ASA we had to the new MX. The cloud, firewalling, and CSR helped us from the data center on-premise approach to the cloud because at the time we didn't have a lot of experience with the cloud. It was easy to use the Cisco appliances in that space. I think that this solution has saved our IT staff time because of the ease of deployment. When I first started as a network engineer, it took a whole day to configure a firewall because of all the particularities you could potentially have at a site. I think that this solution saved our organization's time because security saves money because. At the end of the day, firewalls block threats. This solution helped with the consolidation of tools as we had all the observability tools in the solutions. Some 10 years ago we all had third-party solutions doing the observability. Now, we have the whole package and not only the firewall. We choose Cisco 10 or 20 years ago mostly because it was a market-leading solution. I also think it's because of MX's user-friendly solution that you can get on board easily. As far as CSA goes, I believe it's because you have a lot of features on the firewalls and it's the stability of course.
MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain
We have used Juniper SRX Series Firewall in airports and multiple other industries The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple. The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve. I have been using Juniper SRX Series…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate has led to a reduction in our security budget."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"I'm looking forward to FortiGate's dashboard features, insights, application oversight, and monitoring, which could help us significantly."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The GUI is among the most valuable features,"
"The firewall and policy side are easy to use."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The feature my customers find the most valuable is the exportability."
"ASA 5505 and ASA 5506 are very powerful tools to use in a business environment, and provide a lot of security."
"The most valuable features of Cisco firewalls are the IPS and IDS items. We find them very helpful. Those are the biggest things because we have some odd, custom-made products in our environment. What we've found through their IPS and IDS is that their vulnerability engines have caught things that are near-Zero-day items, inside of our network."
"It's quite a capable box for UTM."
"I have found the stability of this solution really good. This is why I use it."
"It uses many applications, like antivirus blocking and web filtering."
"The rollback option and Commit Confirmed are great features. They give us the security to change configurations without downtime."
"Commit: You can update the whole configuration without affecting the production. The new configuration will be loaded once the command "Commit" is submitted. You can also do a Commit confirmed to automatically roll back to the previous config after X minutes."
"You can scale the solution."
"It's easily scalable."
"I like that Juniper SRX is easy to use, scalable, and stable with good performance."
"I like the Junos OS, which has been very good for me. It's very clever."
"Most of our clients use it as a traditional firewall, blocking Layer 3 and Layer 4, blocking by transport."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"It needs more available central management."
"​It needs to improve its ISP load balancing.​"
"Cisco should redo their website so it's actually usable in a faster way."
"It doesn't have Layer 7 security."
"​I would like it to be easier to work with and have a better user interface.​ It is not straightforward. You need to know the Cisco command-line interface."
"One feature lacking is superior anti-virus protection, which must be added."
"Cisco's inspection visibility could be better."
"Cisco ASDM is a problem because it is old."
"The graphical interface could be improved. From what I have seen, Fortinet, for example, has a nicer GUI."
"The software was very buggy, to the point it had to be removed."
"The solution's initial setup process was lengthy as I was new to Juniper."
"Juniper SRX could improve by adding an IPX feature."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."
"It does have its nuances in terms of deployment. There are always areas to make something easier or more intuitive or make the system auto-negotiate more with existing hardware."
"It's unexpected that market support is very limited now, and SRX firewall will become obsolete and reach end-of-life."
"It must be 5G ready. The 5G network is rolling out soon in India, and Juniper must upgrade their firewall slot to the 5G network, or they must manufacture a 5G dongle card for the Juniper firewall. I want Juniper to upgrade their dongle from 4G to 5G. Presently, they have an expansion slot in the SRX 322 series and higher firewalls. In that expansion slot, they can put a 4G mobility SIM card so that whenever our primary link is down, it will automatically connect through this GSM network and form a tunnel."
"It would be ideal if the solution could use cloud services to help update signatures or threat prevention systems."
"The workplace management console needs improvement. It should be a little bit more developed. Also, the interface needs a bit more improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs are very low."
"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."
"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."
"The pricing is flexible."
"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."
"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"Fortinet FortiGate is reasonably priced."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"We pay a lot of money for it."
"We've compared it to other solutions, like WatchGuard and other types of firewalls in that same realm. Cisco ASAs are fairly priced and very competitive with them."
"The ROI is good. Using ASA, we have saved 10% to 20% on our costs."
"You get what you pay for. It's always priced based on what you get and what it can handle. It's acceptable."
"Our subscription costs, just for the firewalls, is between $400,000 and $500,000 a year."
"Their pricing is very aggressive and good. Even a small company can afford it. I am happy with its pricing. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The price of Firepower is not bad compared to other products."
"We paid about $7,000 for the Cisco firewall, plus another small Cisco router and the lead switch. It was under the combined license. It's a final agreement."
"There is value for money. It offers a good solution at a good price. The price is normal for such a product."
"When you consider performance, price, and features, maybe Juniper is not so cost-effective compared to other solutions like MikroTik."
"This is an expensive product."
"The pricing is perhaps half, probably forty percent, of Cisco."
"I find the price to be reasonable for an enterprise-level solution."
"There was no additional licensing cost because there were no IPS services. It was just a firewall IP circuit router so they have the default licensing. We just need to renew the support yearly."
"Pricing is very good, not expensive."
"The prices are very good as compared to other vendors."
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
54%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fort...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What do you like most about Juniper SRX?
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is a stable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper SRX?
Customers always want cheaper solutions. Fortinet is a cheaper solution than Juniper.
What advice do you have for others considering Juniper SRX?
Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because of the complexity of configurations and the maintenance.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
Juniper SRX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
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.
7-Eleven, AARNet Pty Ltd, Allegro Networks, alltours GmbH, Apollo Hotel Papendrecht, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Atlantech Online, Availity, Bajaj Capital, Baloise Insurance, BancABC, BAS Group, Black Lotus, Blue Box, Borealis, Carilion Clinic, Catholic Health System, CATV, Champlain College, Chinas Ministry of Railways, China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT), Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds, Cloudwatt, CODONiS, Colt Technology Services, Cork Internet Exchange, CSS Versicherung AG, CyrusOne, Danish Crown, Deloitte Belgium, Department of Energy, Divona Telecom, DQE Communications, DreamHost, European Government Agency, Expedient, Financial Market Information Services Provider, Fluidata, Fonality, Fox Sports, Global Financial Institution, Global Investment Bank, Global Investment Company, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), Goethe University, HEAnet, High Performance Networks Inc., Hillenbrand
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Juniper SRX Series Firewall and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.