We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"It integrates with various Cisco security portfolios and products, and there is an easy and seamless integration for building a complete security framework for our customers."
"The integration and configuration were pretty straightforward."
"One of the most valuable features is the AMP. It's very good and very reliable when it comes to malicious activities, websites, and viruses."
"Among the top features are integrated threat defence and the fact that each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control."
"There are some hiccups here and there, but compared to the technical support from other vendors, I have had the best experience with Cisco's technical support. I would rate them at nine out of ten."
"My confidence continues to build upon using Cisco firewalls."
"ASA 5505 and ASA 5506 are very powerful tools to use in a business environment, and provide a lot of security."
"Cisco ASA has an okay CLI with a nice GUI."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"I handle the scanning for the finance department. I recently encountered an issue with the PCL bills, our company bills. I resolved the matter, cleared the bill, and received calls regarding it using pfsense.The user interface is extremely user-friendly, which is why we use it across various plant sites. Our IT representatives at the plants find it easy to use and manage because of its straightforward interface."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"I have a lot of difficulties with the solution's Firewall Management Center (FMC) and the GUI. Neither is responsive enough and should be improved."
"I would like to see more configurable feature parity with Cisco ASA, which is the legacy product that Cisco is moving away from. When configuring remote access VPN, not all of the options are there. You have to download another tool, which means that the configuration takes a little bit longer with Cisco Secure Firewall. Though it's getting there, there are still some features lagging behind."
"We cannot have virtual domains, which we can create with FortiGate. This is something they should add in the future. Additionally, there is a connection limit and the FMC could improve."
"The Cisco ASA device needs overall improvement, as configurations alone do not completely secure my network."
"The worst part of the entire solution, and this is kind of trivial at times, is that management of the solution is difficult. You manage FireSIGHT through an internet browser. I've had Cisco tell me to manage it through Firefox because that's how they develop it. The problem is, depending on the page you're on, they don't function in the same way. The pages can be very buggy, or you can't resize columns in this one, or you can't do certain things in that one. It causes a headache in managing it."
"The solution’s GUI could be better."
"Cisco makes horrible UIs, so the interface is something that should be improved."
"I would like to see an IE version of the solution where it is ruggedized."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The integration should be improved."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
