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CentOS Linux vs. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    CentOS Linux

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ACentOS Linux is a Linux distribution is an enterprise OS platform compatible with its source RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Its end of life was announced for December 2021.N/A

    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.N/A
    Pricing
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    73%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    87%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    42 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    82%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    Features
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of CentOS Linux and Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Feature
    CentOS Linux
    -
    Ratings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    8.9
    50 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Identification Technologies00 Ratings7.932 Ratings
    Visualization Tools00 Ratings7.931 Ratings
    Content Inspection00 Ratings8.433 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.446 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings8.448 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.049 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.949 Ratings
    VPN00 Ratings10.049 Ratings
    High Availability00 Ratings9.649 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection00 Ratings10.046 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings9.032 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
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    Score8.3 out of 10
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    Score8.3 out of 10
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    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (22 ratings)
    9.0
    (88 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.1
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    8.7
    (8 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.5
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CentOS LinuxCisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Open Source
    In any role where you need raw server power, CentOS Linux is extremely well suited. It is extremely stable, and in my experience, probably the most stable of the Linux distros available. It has a very wide base of support from 3rd party sources for additional functionality that do not come already in the CentOS Linux distribution itself. It is not as appropriate for situations that are customer facing or end user facing. For those, I recommend Ubuntu Linux. But for everything server & compute related, I recommend CentOS Linux.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Open Source
    • First of all, CentOS is one of the most secure and stable OSes straits from the box.
    • High performance on the average hardware.
    • In most of my scenarios—easy and quick deployment.
    • Huge KB community that helps to build and support different services on CentOS.
    • Versions lifecycle.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
    • ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
    • ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
    • Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Open Source
    • CentOS is not a great desktop platform. Although some would disagree with that statement, I think that CentOS is better suited to life as a server.
    • Since CentOS is community-supported some software vendors will not officially support it because it isn't Red Hat.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
    • [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
    • It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Open Source
    It is a very typical server software, so you will have just the console. But it is still very easy to use, you can do anything from there and you have te built in manuals to review any information. For the other hand, if you need a graphical environment is not an issue, you can install any environment you what, Gnome, xfce, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Open Source
    Again, written documentation is excellent, even on the older versions. The support community is the best. It is comprehensive and I would say that it global because it transcends national boundaries. Also, you find all types of people using CentOS to do all sorts of things so you are bound to find someone to talk to if there are problems.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Open Source
    CentOS is based on RHEL, so it really came down to the costs when making the selection between our options. RHEL offered more support and features, but nothing that we specifically needed. CentOS is fully customizable, something Windows Server was also lacking in many ways. The stability and speed was unmatched in comparison to Windows, and we were not utilizing any Windows-specific software to require us to use the Microsoft alternative. My years of experience have also made it a breeze to set up and configure new CentOS instances, leading me to stay where I'm comfortable.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to understand GUI.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Open Source
    • CentOS's support of RPM packages makes it very easy to replicate RHEL servers for development or testing in cheap / free environments
    • CentOS's minimalistic desktop environment requires additional tweaking / packages if you want to have a usable desktop environment with the niceties of other modern distributions. As a result, if developers want to use CentOS, they'll need to spend more time customizing it than other distros.
    • CentOS's easy customization from the command line lends itself well to our virtualization infrastructure where setup can be easily scripted to modify CentOS's configuration files.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
    • Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
    • Many support options available
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots