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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
327
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
410
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (4th)
Palo Alto Networks NG Firew...
Ranking in Firewalls
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
192
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 5.8%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 3.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Q&A Highlights

Abdul Azim - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 05, 2024
 

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.
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.
AmjadKhan1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides inline protection with a unified view and anti-spyware capabilities
I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls ten out of ten because it is the best. Our disaster recovery site utilizes Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls. We are also in the process of upgrading the firewalls at our 365 sites in Pakistan to Palo Alto Networks firewalls. While budget firewalls may advertise comparable features, they often fall short of effectively detecting viruses, threats, and ransomware. In contrast, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, combined with Cortex XDR, provide comprehensive threat intelligence and detection capabilities, ensuring superior security coverage. I recommend conducting a proof of concept before selecting a firewall. This will allow you to evaluate different options and determine which best suits your needs. While Palo Alto offers robust firewall solutions, it's essential to compare them with other vendors to ensure you make an informed decision.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The AnyConnect remote access VPN gives us an easy way to deploy remote working for our users."
"ASA is stable and with a low level of work required on the maintenance side."
"The most valuable feature is zone segmentation, which we utilize through the Firepower management console."
"The security features are the most valuable. My customers find the security products very useful because nowadays there are many threats from the internet and other malicious users. The security products really help."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewall include the next-generation firewall and its strong anti-malware capabilities."
"The user interface is very easy to manage and find rules. You can do object searches, which are very easy. Also, the logging is very simple to use. So, it is a lot easier to troubleshoot and find items inside the firewall."
"Firepower has reduced our firewall operational costs by about 25 percent."
"I haven't had any major problems so I haven't had to open a ticket with technical support."
"The most valuable feature is WildFire, which blocks sophisticated attacks and distinguishes it from other traditional firewall functions."
"The best feature is the packet inspection; compared to solutions like Cisco and FortiGate, Palo Alto's packet inspection is much less CPU intensive, allowing it to detect threats embedded within packages more quickly and efficiently."
"It worked fine normally."
"The solution is user-friendly. It's secure and easy to understand your network visibility, control the network, and prevent attacks."
"The GUI is simple and the solution is straightforward."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls helped reduce our downtime."
"I like that they are more stable than the previous ones, and they allow a lot of other features."
"The solution provides web security, application security, and network security."
 

Cons

"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"It would be nice if you didn't have to configure using a command-line interface. It's a bit technical that way."
"The maturity needs to be better."
"I have found that Cisco reporting capabilities are not as rich as other products, so the reporting could be improved."
"The use of it has really bogged down our response time for certain problems, given we have to go through AT&T for everything."
"There is limited data storage on the appliance itself. So, you need to ship it out elsewhere in order for you to store it. The only point of consideration is around that area, basically limited storage on the machine and appliance. Consider logging it elsewhere or pushing it out to a SIEM to get better controls and manipulation over the data to generate additional metrics and visibility."
"Usually, the customers are satisfied, but I am going to recommend that all clients upgrade to FirePOWER management. I want Cisco to improve the feature called anti-spam. We use a Cisco only email solution, that's why we need the anti-spam on email facility."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"There is no support here in Georgia. If something goes wrong, support is not always very helpful with the other firewalls or other products."
"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."
"I wish that the Palos had better system logging for the hardware itself."
"The machine learning component on the firewall level requires more computing power to perform at the full production level. Therefore, the ML is currently providing partial real-time attack prevention."
"The analytics could be improved."
"Personally, I feel that their dashboards for reporting and things like that need some improvement."
"I would like to see more in terms of reporting tools and the threat analysis capabilities."
"I would like a collaboration system and reporting ASA policy needs to be smarter."
"The reporting and visibility are phenomenal, but you don't get that information out of the box. They can email reports regularly, and the functionality is all there. However, a lot of it is based on an older model for email, where customers have in-house email servers. The small and medium-sized business customers I deal with are moving toward Office 365 or some other cloud-based mail and not maintaining their own internal mail servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."
"Fortinet FortiGate gives you most of the features in one license."
"Other firewalls are more expensive than Fortinet FortiGate, such as the Azure firewall."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. 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."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."
"It is affordable. The hardware is not that expensive anymore. It is a matter of licensing these days."
"It's affordable."
"To discuss with Cisco Systems or their partners to gain the optimal price and to not consider, without verifying, the false information that Cisco ASA is very expensive."
"The price is fair. It's not the cheapest, but it's not bad."
"When we are fighting against other competitors for customers, whether it is a small or big business, we feel very comfortable with the price that Firepower has today."
"Firepower has a very high cost and you have to pay for the standby as well, meaning that the cost is doubled."
"We looking for a possible new solution because of the licensing and VPN.​"
"It is more expensive than the other solutions."
"It has a yearly subscription."
"It is very expensive. You pay for a year."
"After the hardware and software are procured, it is the AMC support that has to be renewed yearly."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The Palo Alto solution is actually not expensive. It was comparable to the old firewall manufacturers that we were using. From the benefits that we have gotten out of the Palo Alto products, it is well worth the difference in cost, even though the difference in cost is not much at all."
"It is expensive as compared to other brands."
"I would assume that it's still within mid-range given its company structure and everything else. My guess is it's still okay."
"If you compare Palo Alto with other firewalls, it's a bit expensive."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Abdul Azim - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 5, 2024
Nov 5, 2024
When considering a firewall solution, Palo Alto Networks stands out in terms of advanced security features, AI-driven automation, and ease of management. These attributes make it an ideal choice for organizations looking to not only secure their networks today but also protect themselves from the evolving cyber threats of tomorrow. In comparison, Cisco Firepower, while a solid solution, lacks t...
See 2 answers
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 10, 2024
I will say go for Palo Alto Firewalls purely on basis of ease of management(centralised management has all features that one will need), only reason one would think of Cisco firepower if you are dependent on EIGRP as dynamic routing protocol and PA's will support anything else like BGP/OSPF for total integration and Dynamic topology, Similar to Checkpoint firewalls but much cheaper in price.We use All 3 firewall technologies , Cisco, PA and Checkpoint, if I have money I will go for checkpoint everywhere, main problem with Cisco has been centralised managed and Cisco never got it right, Central management for PA is almost there but is still not as good as Checkpoint.
Bijo Abraham - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 5, 2024
When considering a firewall solution, Palo Alto Networks stands out in terms of advanced security features, AI-driven automation, and ease of management. These attributes make it an ideal choice for organizations looking to not only secure their networks today but also protect themselves from the evolving cyber threats of tomorrow. In comparison, Cisco Firepower, while a solid solution, lacks the same level of integrated AI capabilities, cloud-readiness, and seamless management interface. Given these factors, Palo Alto Networks offers superior protection, greater operational efficiency, and long-term scalability — all of which align with modern business requirements for agility, security, and growth. We strongly recommend that the organization adopt Palo Alto Networks Firewalls to meet current and future security needs. This recommendation aligns with the organization’s objectives of reducing complexity, improving security posture, and preparing for future threats with an intelligent and easily manageable security solution.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
41%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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 is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...
 

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
Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
 

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.
SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.