FireMon Security Manager vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

FireMon and Skybox Security are both solutions in the Firewall Security Management category. FireMon is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Skybox Security is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.3. FireMon holds a 16.4% mindshare in Firewall Security Management, compared to Skybox Security’s 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of FireMon users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Skybox Security users who would recommend it.

FireMon Security Manager

Read 56 FireMon Security Manager reviews

4,466 Views
3,472 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Skybox Security Suite

Read 35 Skybox Security Suite reviews

3,066 Views
2,314 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

FireMon Security Manager

Skybox Security Suite

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

FireMon Security Manager and Skybox Security Suite compete in the network security management category. FireMon appears to have the upper hand with its strong rule comparison and policy validation features.

Features: FireMon Security Manager provides valuable features like redundant ACL reports, policy review, and ticket integration. It also offers alerts for firewall changes, making it well-suited for compliance and security policy validation. Skybox Security Suite excels in firewall management and vulnerability control, integrating with multiple vendors, and offering change management and network path analysis to understand network changes.

Room for Improvement: FireMon requires enhanced network maps, better SMB firewall support, and improved migration processes. Reporting needs consistency, and update processes should be more user-friendly. Skybox's web interface and firewall change management need development. Reporting should be expanded, and customer support could be more responsive, requiring improved third-party tool integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FireMon supports on-premises deployment with excellent customer service and technical support. Users appreciate its various support channels. Skybox supports on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments, offering superior technical support and highlighting its flexibility in deployment environments.

Pricing and ROI: FireMon's pricing is seen as balanced but expensive, delivering significant ROI through time savings in audits. High renewal costs are a concern. Skybox is costly, with a pricing model that could be more flexible, but it offers value in network assurance and vulnerability management, providing potential for cost reduction and ROI in larger implementations.

To learn more, read our detailed FireMon Security Manager vs. Skybox Security Suite Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FireMon Security Manager vs. Skybox Security Suite

January 2025

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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

FireMon Security Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Skybox Security Suite

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

7th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (42nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 16.4%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 10.9%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Ganesh-Khutwad

Senior Network Specialist at Tech Mahindra Limited

Rapid policy insights with robust dashboards and cross-vendor automation

FireMon Security Manager is excellent for real-time compliance management. It allows us to quickly retrieve any policy needed for testing and easily analyze it for loopholes. If a loophole exists, FireMon provides comprehensive details within the policy manager. It alerts us to firewall rule additions or changes that violate compliance policies. It supports various firewall platforms, including Checkpoint, Zscaler, Fortinet, Cisco, and AWS, and provides centralized management for all configured policies through a single console. FireMon Security Manager provides many features, like whether my firewall is compatible with required standards such as NTP and SNMP. Each compliance included in our RFPs is shown in the UI of FireMon. It gives robust and clear dashboards, making it easier to understand risks because the policies have ratings showing usage, and the number of hit attacks. It streamlines our compliance reporting processes by providing comprehensive risk and compliance assessments. It offers a range of features, including verification of firewall compatibility with protocols like NTP and SNMP, and detection of signal charges. FireMon effectively addresses all compliance requirements outlined in our RFPs. For instance, it can determine if firewalls or proxies within a stack are configured in Secure Mode or Active-Active mode. FireMon Security Manager enables us to generate reports on all these aspects, ensuring thorough compliance monitoring and documentation. FireMon Security Manager is robust and can help automate firewall policy changes across large multi-vendor enterprise environments. FireMon Security Manager helps automate firewall policy changes across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, hybrid, SASE, and SD-WAN. It also simplifies cleaning up firewall rules in our environment. The time required to accurately create, approve, and deploy firewall policy rules has been reduced. Tasks that took 30 minutes can now be completed in just five minutes using FireMon. FireMon provides immediate visibility into our policies through a robust and clear dashboard, making it easy to identify errors or misconfigurations based on the policy rating.

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NenadMijatovic

Director of Sales at S4E Serbia

Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use

Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FireMon is nice and provides 360-degree user views."

"FireMon decreases errors and misconfigurations by 10% that increase risk in our environment. That has to do a lot with the change reporting that is in place, but also with the built-in controls and custom controls that we have made. Those all decrease the errors that people naturally make on a day-to-day basis for firewall administration."

"When it comes to real-time compliance management, it is very good because it is able to compare changes in the configuration as well as giving us a timestamp. It also sends email alerts to our environment so we know if someone has made a change on the network. It gives us the whole picture of that change. Whether it is a configuration change or just a small comment, it gives us the before and after snapshot."

"I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive."

"The technical support is very good. They've always been helpful."

"FireMon saves us a lot of time and it's nice because if you're adding a rule that's similar to another rule, it'll tell you so sometimes you can just edit the one and add another source or destination in there without creating a duplicate rule. It enables you to consolidate and have fewer, more meaningful rules. We're saving around 30% of our time."

"The most valuable feature of FireMon is its ability to configure multiple devices and consolidate them into a single desktop, which allows us to manage all of our security devices, such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, from one place."

"Overall, I would rate this solution a nine out of ten."

More FireMon Security Manager pros

"It has a good policy management feature and can provide customers with good quality outputs."

"When you import all the assets that you have, like desktops, servers, networks, devices, routers, and then firewalls, and other products, then Skybox makes like, a model of the network, but with context. So, it is not just a model in VIZIO. Or something like it like that. You get the model with context, and, like, it looks like a real network in a real-time. So you can check your network and the security of your network on that model."

"Key features for us include the firewall change audit every week. Also, being able to track firewall ACL usage, so that we can produce semiannual reports on ACL usage and shadowed and redundant rules on the firewall."

"The product's most valuable feature is vulnerability management."

"The most valuable features are the rule compliance and the OS vulnerability checks."

"The performance could be good because we chose it at the time, but it is too complex for us to appreciate its performance because we lack the necessary skills."

"Change Manager is most important because of the impact on each other of a network change or a firewall change. We want to understand this and to know, beforehand, what the impact of a change will be. We are a large network so that is a very important tool."

"Correlates logs and threats and prioritizes; provides network maps;p provides change result context and resulting vulnerability."

More Skybox Security Suite pros

Cons

"The initial setup can take some time, including connecting it and configuring it. It's not something that is easy for anybody to do. There is time and energy required because of the number of systems you have to configure to get it to work properly."

"A feature that could be improved is support for more devices, not just the firewall."

"I ran a report and FireMon suggested that certain tools were not used. When I removed them, while it didn't bring our environment down completely, a lot of our environment started malfunctioning. Our backup system did not work, nor did other things that involve internal and external communication. We are not comfortable with what it did."

"The advanced features are complex in setting up the rules."

"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."

"A phone app would be nice. This is the reason why it is not perfect yet."

"Sometimes, there is a problem related to the sizing itself. If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing. It may relate to the hardware specifications."

"We have not used the Policy Planner but even so, we have identified areas of improvement with it during our testing. For example, it could be better when it comes to ease of integration or ease of policy automation. Another problem is that there is a console where it has too many options and is not very straightforward. Essentially, controlling it could be made more seamless."

More FireMon Security Manager cons

"Skybox Security Suite can improve the change management module. It is the one part of the tool that is used with the firewall devices and you have a change management module that is used to record changes of all firewalls in the company. It's not compatible with all brands, this is where they can improve the solution."

"The vendor's support is terrible."

"It's expensive."

"The only place where Skybox has room for improvement, and they're working on releasing this, it's just a slow-go, is the UI. The user interface has historically been via a locally installed thick client. They are moving to a web-based console and it's slowly coming out."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The solution was quite technical. It would be easier to manage if the solution was more specific about aspects of the solution and provided more advisory around how to use it effectively. It would help users a lot if they were more clear about everything."

"They are not satisfied with the complexity of the solution and the price."

"There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly."

More Skybox Security Suite cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."

"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."

"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."

"We pay for it yearly."

"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."

"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."

"Pricing is reasonable."

"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."

More FireMon Security Manager pricing and cost advice

"I've seen the pricing of every solution on the market. When you compare apples to apples, where Skybox becomes exceedingly expensive is if you look at it compared to something like FireMon that only does a fraction of what Skybox does. But if you include everything that Skybox does, it becomes way more expensive than the competition, but you're also not comparing apples to apples. If you look at FireMon, and you look at like just the firewall assurance piece, they are fairly comparable and, actually, Skybox comes in a little bit cheaper in some cases, depending on which product you're looking at."

"The price is not expensive."

"The pricing is high, and the licensing model needs more flexibility."

"I think the price is fair."

"It's expensive."

"When compared with other companies, the license is more costly."

"The solution is based on a subscription model for annual licenses."

"The product's pricing is excellent value. In terms of licensing, make sure you understand your network components, all your hops through your network, thoroughly, before you decide on the total cost. If you want to do point-to-point flow analysis and such, you need to have the configuration of all the devices in between point A and point B. A lot of people don't realize all their network components until they start using this product."

More Skybox Security Suite pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FireMon?

I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.

See all answers

What needs improvement with FireMon?

Although configuration is not the most difficult aspect of FireMon, a basic understanding of cloud computing and firewall principles is necessary for successful implementation. Therefore, simplifyi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for FireMon?

FireMon Security Manager is a highly intelligent and useful device that consolidates all our security policies, including those for Zscaler proxies, into a single console. This centralized view eli...

See all answers

What do you like most about Skybox Security Suite?

Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integrat...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?

Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approximately 50 percent different. The tool may require special vendor support from abr...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?

There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly.

See all answers

Comparisons

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 40% of the time

AlgoSec vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 38% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 4% of the time

ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 3% of the time

RedSeal vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 3% of the time

More FireMon Security Manager Competitors

AlgoSec vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 34% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 28% of the time

RedSeal vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 4% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Skybox Security Suite

Compared 3% of the time

More Skybox Security Suite Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FireMon Security Manager

February 2025

Download FireMon Security Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Skybox Security Suite

January 2025

Download Skybox Security Suite product report

Overview

The increasing complexity of networks, driven by the constant influx of new devices, applications, and cloud services, presents a daunting challenge for managing firewall policies and rules. A typical enterprise environment has millions of rules, and just one simple misconfiguration can lead to devastating consequences like compliance violations, outages, and data breaches.

FireMon’s Security Manager is a purpose-built network security policy management (NSPM) platform that automates the management of firewall and cloud security policies to eliminate policy-related risk, accurately and quickly change rules, and meet internal and external compliance requirements.

Reduce Risk Manage risk with real-time visibility and control
Manage Change Avoid misconfigurations, accelerate business, and improve security
Enforce and Maintain Compliance Avoid violations, avoid risk, and avoid fines

FireMon

The Skybox Security Suite platform combines firewall and network device data with vulnerability and threat intelligence, prioritizing security issues in the context of your unique environment. Powerful attack vector analytics reduce response times and risks, bringing firewall, vulnerability and threat management processes for complex networks under control.

Firewall Assurance brings all firewalls into one normalized view, continuously monitoring policy compliance, optimizing firewall rulesets and finding attack vectors that others miss. Skybox covers the most comprehensive list of firewall vendors, complex rulesets, even virtual and cloud-based firewalls. With proven scalability in 1,500+ firewall deployments, Firewall Assurance keeps rules optimized and ensures changes don’t introduce new risk.

Gain total visibility of the vulnerabilities in your attack surface without waiting for a scan. Leverage Skybox Research Lab's vulnerability and threat intelligence, and automatically correlate it to your unique environment. With network modeling and advanced simulations, pinpoint exposed vulnerabilities and other attack vectors. And use context to prioritize vulnerabilities in terms of actual risk and respond to threats with accuracy and efficiency.

For more information or to view a demo, visit www.skyboxsecurity.com.

Skybox Security

Sample Customers

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo

ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson

Buyer's Guide

FireMon Security Manager vs. Skybox Security Suite

January 2025

Free Report: FireMon Security Manager vs. Skybox Security Suite

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