Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Cisco AnyConnect

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco 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
Cisco AnyConnect
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Cisco offers an SSL VPN solution via AnyConnect.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
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
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Considered Both Products
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Our Palo Altos and Cisco ASAs are pretty comparable. They both seem to work well when used in an HA pair. They can both do IP/Port based ACLs. But the Palos also have APP-ID which helps to make sure that the traffic passing through your firewall is the type of traffic …
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Cisco has been in the networking industry for what seems like an eternity. That being said they take what they do and the products they make very seriously. Cisco products are created with the customer in mind, and they are made to be somewhat easy to configure, to the point …
Cisco AnyConnect
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
AnyConnect is a mature VPN client solution without any problems, meeting our requirements easily. Local and international support is very good. You can find a Cisco expert or engineer very easy. We have several good
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
Almost every Cisco product I've used has amazing abilities. Like everything in this world, nothing is perfect, but there is constant growth and improvement on abilities, and that resonates with my drive to always provide the very best for the business and end-user alike. …
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
Palo Alto and Fortinet are good manufacturers but more than 5 years ago when the project was tendered, Cisco ASA was better for the cost, benefit, and approval apart from the fact that we have Cisco ISE, Cisco DUO and all those tools converge quite well when you have the …
Chose Cisco AnyConnect
Personally I think AnyConnect is the best VPN client in the market for PCs and mobile devices. It's globally used by many contractors/consultants, so there is no need to train them. The huge community gives a lot of ready scenarios and helps with finding an issue and fixing it. …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
7.9
49 Ratings
8% below category average
Cisco AnyConnect
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies6.932 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools6.730 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection8.132 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls9.045 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP7.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.847 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging5.748 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN9.148 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability9.147 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection9.046 Ratings00 Ratings
Proxy Server8.031 Ratings00 Ratings
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
-
Ratings
Cisco AnyConnect
8.9
4 Ratings
1% below category average
AES 256-bit Encryption00 Ratings9.64 Ratings
Kill Switch00 Ratings8.42 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support00 Ratings9.84 Ratings
Split Tunneling00 Ratings9.64 Ratings
IP Address Masking00 Ratings8.73 Ratings
No-Logs Policy00 Ratings8.42 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations00 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection00 Ratings9.53 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Customer Support Services00 Ratings8.64 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.6 out of 10
Norton 360
Norton 360
Score 7.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.6 out of 10
FortiGate
FortiGate
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(87 ratings)
8.7
(98 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.1
(4 ratings)
9.9
(12 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(76 ratings)
Availability
7.5
(2 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(8 ratings)
9.0
(80 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.5
(2 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco AnyConnect
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Cisco
It's well suited for the mobile task force we have at Engel for all the information workers, the salespersons, and the salespeople that are abroad and are not often on the Engel premises but are on customer premises. So for them, it's the only really good tool to connect to central IT resources. But when I look to the future way of utilizing cloud resources and having a hybrid approach and having SaaS services like Salesforce, which are running natively in the cloud, then AnyConnect might not be suitable for them because anyway, I have a direct connection via an HTTPS tunnel to run all my SAS applications. I would not see any benefit of using AnyConnect in this case. So the more a company runs in the cloud, the less it needs AnyConnect.
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Pros
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.
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Cisco
  • Cisco AnyConnect connects the machine with the VPN very smoothly in a few clicks also provides security with Multi-Factor Authentication.
  • It Provides the facility of creating Network groups such as Local and Project Network so that user can limit the connectivity options.
  • The System scan feature is so robust, it Scans the System every time we connect to a new network and remembers the older Network and does not Scans while we connect to usual Netwroks.
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Cons
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[.]
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Cisco
  • Manual Administrative Config: The Enrollment requires the user to enroll from their end and can't just be "Setup" for the user unless you act as the user. For things like SMS text, it would be nice just to put it in place and have it work without a "Setup/Enrollment" process. This does, however ensure the user understands the process.
  • Active Directory Sync and Azure Sync Did not automatically match up accounts and duplicate, so I had to do it manually, to be fair the account usernames do not match the Email Address which is used for Azure so it would be difficult.
  • Duo Support and Cisco Support seem to have not been integrated with each other well, most support tickets end up with a Duo expert and a Cisco Firewall Expert on at the same time, though this has improved dramatically.
  • They did not force my Admin to use an NTP Server off the bat, which would have fixed a few issues we had that persisted for a while until he started using one. (A bit old fashioned)
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Likelihood to Renew
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
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Cisco
This is software is easy to use, easy to maintain, easy to support, cost effective, and extremely secure. We will continue to use it for all employees well into the future. We have already renewed our licenses for another 5 years - that's how confident we are that this software will remain a primary security solution for our firm.
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Usability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Compared to other products that I have used, Cisco gives me more information and it is easy for me to understand what's happening from the application, which is Cisco AnyConnect, which other vendors don't. It's very hard for me if I have to work with other applications, I have to get support from the application owner vendor. But in Cisco, I myself can read through and get this thing. Now with that being very comfortable, I mean very, very useful. I would like to get to more detail in a more simplified way. There are plenty of things. It is also where there is something it gives me in a simplified way. This is what has happened that would help me in some cases. But always there is a scope for improvement in any product. I never rate any product to 10, even if it's better because there is always room for improvement. So I personally feel we can still make this better. It is a good product, but we can still make it better
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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Cisco
Thus far, I have not encountered any outages to Cisco AnyConnect. Any firmware updates are completed infrequently and efficiently such that the users don’t experience noticeable downtime. I have not encountered any errors running the platform at any time of day or night , or from any geographical location. Provided a hard-wired or WiFi internet connection is available, expect Cisco AnyConnect to run without unexpected interruption.
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect is usually a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. I have run into a few scenarios that have caused the connection to be considerably slower. However, in thise instances, I am linking a poor Wi-Fi connection as the root cause of slow implimentation.
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Support Rating
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.
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Cisco
Their support team is extraordinary and quick responding. All support team members have great product knowledge and takes very minimum time for query resolution. Support is available on phone, emails, etc. As per my experience with their support team, I will rate them with 10 stars here because it was truly exceptional.
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Implementation Rating
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
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Cisco
We are quite satisfied with the deployment. We might extend our deployment. My suggestion to everyone will be utilizing Cisco cloud infra as well. As it will give you some nice features like cloud based firewall, DNS Security and threat intelligence. Threat intelligence was a key decision maker for us and people should not ignore it.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
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Cisco
I have tried the above too. I have noticed that the consistency and reliability that connect provides are way better than theirs. Integration with 2-factor authentication apps is something extremely important, and I am not sure if this two software provide such functionality. Network stability and speed are also not as good as Cisco Anyconnect.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect has been a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. Customer support is consistently top-notch, coming up with quick fixes to whatever difficulties are thrown your way. I would not hesitate to reccommend Cisco AnyConnect to any business that needs connected employees throught the world.
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Return on Investment
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
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Cisco
  • We are able to seamlessly work on multiple clients daily, and it allows us to quickly handle more projects at the same time.
  • Cisco AnyConnect has allowed our own company's coworkers to remotely connect back to the corporate network, easily assisting work schedules and processes, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to work remotely, meant our processes still happened quickly and efficiently, by being able to leverage and use Cisco AnyConnect VPN.
  • Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked 100% remotely for a few years now. This was always due to the reliable connectivity and ease of use with Cisco AnyConnect VPN. I live 2+ hours from our nearest corporate office, and even further from some of my client locations, and I have always been able to connect to any of my multiple Cisco AnyConnect VPN connections, within seconds.
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ScreenShots