Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services vs Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Likelihood to Recommend

If you were looking for a internet edge firewall and wanted to add the modern day "next gen" features than I would say the [Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services] would do the job. The packages Cisco offers with the hardware is pretty easy to understand and you can add the right feature sets to it. If you don't need next gen functions for basic NAT/PAT then it still would be a good firewall. If you wanted it for a data center to inspect traffic going from the LAN to the Data Center it would be a good fit. If you do not size these correctly you might quickly run out of performance or capacity when using the FirePOWER Services. The smaller 5506-X with Firepower really seems to struggle when adding FirePower with it. I would say you would be less likely to use it if your organization has more than 100 devices. You would need to move up to a 5508-X, 5512-X or larger units.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Mining & Metals Company, 501-1000 employees

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When we are asked by local partners which security equipment we use we always recommend our Cisco security products. The Firepower firewall is no exception and we can easily recommend this to others who need a fast, secure, and well built system that integrates well with all your existing hardware and software.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Identification Technologies

Visualization Tools

Content Inspection

Policy-based Controls

Active Directory and LDAP

Firewall Management Console

Reporting and Logging

VPN

High Availability

Stateful Inspection

Proxy Server

Pros

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services are very well suited for most environments.
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services have a variety of networking features including NextGen, web content filtering, data analysis, high availability failover, packet inspection, context-based ACL, and other features to protect your networks.
It's easy to deploy and manage.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Paper & Forest Products Company, 10,001+ employees

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Lots of expansion modules available for add-ons.
SFP ports are fast and plentiful.
Well designed hardware blends in with our other modern Cisco equipment.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

GUI to be HTML5 rather than needed JAVA and ASDM
In relation to Firewall power, the Management console is rather lacking support.
Better 10 gig support
Cost is high compared to comparative providers of firewalls.
Better DNS object support / there are a number of shortfalls
Layer 4-7 firewall features
Better threat defense options

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Dave Clark

Senior Network Specialist

Amelco UK LimitedGambling & Casinos, 51-200 employees

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Initial install and configuration can be complex.
May need to learn the new interface if coming from ASA.
Buggy web interface can at time cause issues.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services 8.2

Based on 1 answer

Overall, it does most of the things we want without too much effort. Support is good but expensive.

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Dave Clark

Senior Network Specialist

Amelco UK LimitedGambling & Casinos, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services 6.9

Based on 2 answers

Cisco firepower provides automatation for an organisations security operations to detect and stop the most advanced threats fast. It also assists in preventing attacks in using intelligence and innovative solutions.

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Zakarieya Abderoef

Solutions Architect

Baraka Technology GroupInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Performance

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services 8.2

Based on 3 answers

[Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services] is really powerful at looking at attacks from multiple points. The updates come from the Talos group which is constantly adding new threat updates to the devices. This does give me some peace of mind that we are being protected from the newest viruses. The users who sit behind the firewall have no had any issues with the ASA's performance for general connectivity. If an outside device tries to get in they are blocked without much of an issue. The internal users who sit behind the firewall have no noted any performance issues over the years. I think if you heavily use the firepower services on the box you can tax it pretty hard and that will affect performance. When using the interfaces of the firepower you can watch it struggle sometimes. ASDM doesn't seem to be affected by it as much but when using IDS/IPS you can see performance go down a bit. It's still usable but you can tell it was not designed to handle the most modern engines.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Mining & Metals Company, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Support Rating

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services 8.0

Based on 7 answers

Cisco TAC support is as painful to deal with as most technical support situations. However, they do offer good online tools that prevent a phone call. When a replacement has been needed, Cisco has sent replacement equipment quickly and well within the service level agreement. Having your ducks in a row (registration, accounts) before you experience an issue can save you time.

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Jason Lachowsky

Computer and Information Systems Manager

Minnesota SenateGovernment Administration, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Implementation Rating

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services 8.2

Based on 2 answers

We find these easy to deploy and we have a process we follow. We normally take 1-2 days to deploy.

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Dave Clark

Senior Network Specialist

Amelco UK LimitedGambling & Casinos, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

I have some familiarity with other products in the firewall space, but I feel that Cisco offers the best ability to integrate all of our data sources together, being that the majority of the infrastructure is Cisco. That being said, Check Point, Fortinet, F5 and others offer strong competition to Cisco.

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Jason Lachowsky

Computer and Information Systems Manager

Minnesota SenateGovernment Administration, 201-500 employees

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No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

The upgrade from the previous firewalls increased the throughput available by over 100%.
The team has direct insight into traffic flowing in and out of the network.
It has required a greater staff investment to configure properly.

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Zar Jerome Cajudo

System Engineer

Trends & Technologies, Inc.Retail, 501-1000 employees

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Positive impact would be our increased security network wide.
Another positive would be the increased processing power, saving us time and [from] needing more equipment.
A negative impact would be the increased need for having to learn a new interface.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

Cisco ASA 5500-X pricing starts at ~$400 and scales up to $20,000 for higher capacity appliances.

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series Editions & Modules

Edition

Firepower 4100	50,000-250,000¹

per appliance

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Likelihood to Recommend