Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Score 8.9 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 Catalyst SD-WAN
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN gives users the ability to manage connectivity across their WAN from a single dashboard that simplifies day to day monitoring and operations. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN can be cloud-managed or deployed on premise offering comprehensive routing, security and policy control, along with advanced analytics with the flexibility to connect to multiple clouds with greater speed, reliability, and efficiency. According to the vendor, it can be deployed across a small number of…N/A
Pricing
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
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 Catalyst SD-WAN
Considered Both Products
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
The company has been using Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software for more than 10 years, for the support team its operation is simple, so even though Palo Alto has more functions, we would have a certain cost of investment and time in training the entire team, or we …
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
8.0
49 Ratings
6% below category average
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies7.332 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools6.830 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection8.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls9.045 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.147 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console8.147 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging5.648 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN9.248 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability9.347 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.746 Ratings00 Ratings
Proxy Server8.031 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Cisco Routers
Cisco Routers
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(87 ratings)
8.6
(73 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.1
(4 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Availability
7.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(8 ratings)
8.3
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Catalyst SD-WAN
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 is a flexible tool for managing and optimizing WAN connections, but it does require some technical expertise to manage. It excels in its ability to integrate multiple WANs. It will however be a not-so-useful purchase if your company has few locations as it will be more expensive and complex for nothing.
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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
  • Enhancing network security by integrating with other security solutions and providing secure segmentation of the network.
  • Improving network visibility and control by providing detailed analytics and network-wide policy management.
  • Simplifying branch office networking by reducing the need for specialized hardware and simplifying network management.
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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
  • It does appear to be a little glitchy when you go from template mode to CLI mode and try to do testing on certain areas. The configuration tends to get hung in that old session when you drop it from being controlled by the controller to making changes in CLI. I've had a lot of instances where you try to put it back into controller mode for review management and it holds on to your items you've had in CLI mode , it gets a little confused at which config it needs to use. You end up having to reset the whole number environment.
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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
highly recommended
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Usability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Cisco
It is the best solution on the market.
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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
No answers on this topic
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
Al ser soluciones integradas del portafolio de soluciones de Cisco, el soporte es transversal a cada uno de los componentes implementados, teniendo el cliente la capacidad de resolver sus inconvenientes bajo una misma infraestructura que está totalmente homologada, satisfacciendo de esta manera, las necesidades del cliente asi como permitiendo, que este se concentre en su negocio. Since the Cisco SD-WAN tools are a part of Cisco’s broader portfolio of solutions, support cross-cuts to each of our deployed components, with our company as the customer having the ability to solve our problems through the same, approved infrastructure. Their support team easily satisfies the customer’s needs so that they continue to focus on business functions.
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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
No answers on this topic
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
The proof-of-concept setup that was done at a client site did provided a greater positive impression by Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN than Fortinet Secure SD-WAN for sure. It makes sense to use Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN while the major client is a Cisco house where more than 95% of network equipment used at their global networks are Cisco's.
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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
  • It's definitely decreased the amount that we spend on really expensive circuits every year. We're moving to cheaper broadband circuits with much higher throughput, being able to leverage those and still get the performance that we want, the quality of service that we want.
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ScreenShots