


Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks K2-Series compete in the network security category. Both products have their strengths; however, Palo Alto Networks K2-Series may have a slight edge due to its ease of use and superior threat prevention capabilities.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall includes robust layer 3 to layer 7 access control, advanced NAT capabilities, and Modular Policy Framework for traffic inspection. It provides stability and advanced security features with comprehensive VPN options. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series offers superior security with efficient threat prevention and advanced traffic management features, providing users with high protection levels and reliability.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Firewall should improve SSL decryption, DHCP reservation support, and its GUI interface. Users mention complexity in configuration and licensing. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is criticized for its high cost, with users suggesting enhanced threat intelligence and user interface improvements.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Firewall is typically deployed on-premises, with adaptable public cloud options. User reviews note deployment complexity but praise customer service and support. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series offers deployment flexibility similar to Cisco’s, with on-premises and hybrid cloud options, and strong customer service, although support wait times can be longer.
Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall is a premium product with significant licensing and operational costs, but users appreciate its robust features and stability offering long-term cost savings. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is perceived as more expensive but justified by its advanced security capabilities, with users recommending price adjustments and enhanced features for better ROI over time.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is that there's no waste in any infrastructure cost and licensing costs for us.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is the single pane of glass, which is a huge plus for us.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Cisco Secure Firewall is reliability and robust network design.
For CN-Series, there is no competitor which works the same way as Palo Alto does.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
As a solution provider, when I encounter problems, I connect directly with Fortinet support, and they provide solutions within a very short time.
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.
They have expertise and provide solutions for the most difficult problems.
I would rate tech support from Palo Alto Networks at around eight out of ten points because we had dedicated people assigned to us.
We get Gold support from them, and they are pretty good.
I would rate the technical support for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series from Palo Alto as nine out of ten points.
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.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
Scalability presents a challenge.
Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, it lags in configuration and other aspects.
Even with the highest one, the 4600, we still face issues, particularly when transitioning between screens; it becomes very slow.
Vertical scaling allows you to purchase more powerful devices with additional RAM, compute, and larger model form factors.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.
We have often encountered split-brain scenarios during failover processes and code upgrades, which have been persistent problems for us.
We work with a cluster with high availability, so if something goes wrong, we have it functioning.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional performance and stability.
Palo Alto typically doesn't have many glitches.
When considering Sophos XG, which we also use, the logging and reporting functionality is notably more efficient.
These sessions should be around five to ten minutes long, allowing users and partners to quickly grasp the information without disrupting their daily tasks.
The solution should be able to implement machine learning and analytics of all the logs for threat detection and protection.
My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time.
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.
Enhancing web traffic protection would be a great upgrade.
L1 engineers cannot work on the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series because it's too complex, which requires L2 and above level of engineers.
With AI, if there is a Precision AI bundle that you're planning on exploring, then that definitely needs a significant uplift because currently it doesn't work for all the known models.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.
It is about 20% cheaper.
It's good to have them, however, it costs us a lot.
It's considered a premium, but people pay that price for Cisco.
There are a lot of in-place contracts for us that provide the benefit of discounts.
It's a little bit expensive.
The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable.
These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.
The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring.
We got a firewall and gave an SSL VPN to my client to connect to their servers, after which, such kind of activities involving ransomware attacks stopped.
What stands out positively about Cisco is their training and support, which has effectively prepared engineers to work with their products.
This is very important to my organization, as we work extensively with security because we are a bank, so we can keep the data safe.
Cisco Secure Firewall allows me to safeguard Layer 7 or Layer 3 and manage the security rules with the business needs of my organization.
Overall, the K2-Series helps in much more protection, and dashboard compliances are being met.
We had configured dynamic user groups and App-ID based policies, which makes it all Zero Trust.
Mainly, it is very easy to understand, and the logs are very good.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Fortinet FortiGate | 18.7% |
| Cisco Secure Firewall | 6.9% |
| Palo Alto Networks K2-Series | 0.2% |
| Other | 74.2% |



| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 357 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 133 |
| Large Enterprise | 188 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 180 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 126 |
| Large Enterprise | 212 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 14 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 8 |
| Large Enterprise | 13 |
Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.
Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.
What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.
Cisco Secure Firewall provides comprehensive network security with advanced features such as application visibility, URL filtering, and malware protection. It combines a user-friendly interface with robust VPN capabilities, making it a reliable choice for varying network environments and industry applications.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional protection with its integration into Cisco's broader ecosystem, ensuring enhanced threat detection and policy unification. Despite its complexity in command-line interfaces and management, Cisco Secure Firewall remains a potent tool for safeguarding data. It is widely adopted for edge security, VPN services, perimeter defense, and traffic segmentation, especially in hybrid settings. Essential sectors like banking and telecom benefit from its stable connectivity and centralized security management. Though there are challenges with costs and support for third-party APIs, the firewall's scalability and high availability provide comprehensive support for protecting network assets.
What are the key features of Cisco Secure Firewall?Cisco Secure Firewall is widely implemented across sectors like banking, education, ISPs, and telecoms. It fortifies data centers and network edge security, delivering strong protection for client access, hybrid environments, and intrusion prevention. In these industries, firewall solutions ensure secure connectivity and manage RTU traffic effectively, leveraging centralized management and integration with Cisco's security tools.
Designed to handle growing throughput needs due to increasing amounts of application-, user-, and device-generated data, the K2-Series offers amazing performance and threat prevention capabilities to stop advanced cyberattacks and secure mobile network infrastructure, subscribers, and services.
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