Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Score 8.6 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
Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
The VM-Series is a virtualized form of Palo Alto next-generation firewall that can be deployed in a range of cloud environments. The VM-Series natively analyzes all traffic in a single pass to determine the application identity, the content within, and the user identity.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareVirtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
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) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Considered Both Products
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
The Palo Alto firewalls do a decent job of packet forwarding, but the GUI is slow and cumbersome.
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
When comparing Cisco ASA to other vendors' products we needed to bear in mind that most other security vendors offer a next-gen Firewall solution while the ASA is still a legacy firewall. Based on this, Cisco ASA is by no means a loser here. Cisco ASA is an extremely capable …
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Cisco tried to build a new platform by bolting acquired and rebranded SourceFire as a next generation platform but really missed the boat. Cisco should be considered a networking company not security. Firewall technology is changing and Cisco needs to reevaluate their place in …
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
Cisco made sense from the standpoint that my engineers already knew it and there was little learning curve. Personally, I prefer a purpose-built hardware solution. Untangle is not ready for the enterprise as a whole but works great to do web/application filtering . …
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
We sell both PAN and Cisco products. We feel a certain bias toward ASA as overall they are easier to deploy, easier to troubleshoot, last years beyond their supported lifetime and have extremely sturdy reliable hardware.
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
I've used older Cisco PIX and we have a third party that uses Palo Alto firewalls that is more suited for our enterprise but the ASA works seamlessly with our communication manager server.
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
We selected Cisco ASA because most of the other networking equipment is also Cisco devices. With this we are able to be confident that we will not have any issues with incompatibility. The ability to integrate with other Cisco solutions that we already had in place was also a …
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
We currently have both products running in our environment. The ASA has a more mature product line and we have had create success with implementing and administering the ASA for the years. Solid product with great features.
Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
The Cisco back end support is what made the difference for us. The ability to configure the device to our specific needs was a plus as well. VPN was easy to set up and we have had few issues with end users connectivity.
Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Chose Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
PAN was a much more solid choice, with less infrastructure needs required than Checkpoint. Cost was also a factor, with PAN being cheaper, even without the discounts given by our rep. VPN's are much easier to configure with non-heterogeneous products where the checkpoint …
Chose Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
We did a shootout between the SonicWall / Fortinet / Barracuda / Cisco ASA + Firepower / Palo Alto, both hardware and (when applicable) VM appliances.

The Barracuda / Sonicwall / Fortinet technology is interesting, but nowhere near as robust as the PA technology. Using the …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
8.1
49 Ratings
5% below category average
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
9.5
6 Ratings
11% above category average
Identification Technologies8.632 Ratings9.76 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.030 Ratings9.56 Ratings
Content Inspection7.932 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.645 Ratings9.46 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.347 Ratings9.46 Ratings
Firewall Management Console8.547 Ratings9.46 Ratings
Reporting and Logging5.948 Ratings9.36 Ratings
VPN9.048 Ratings9.26 Ratings
High Availability9.047 Ratings8.85 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.046 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Proxy Server8.032 Ratings9.44 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(87 ratings)
9.5
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(8 ratings)
10.0
(1 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) SoftwarePalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
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.
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
PaloAlto VM-200 is a virtualized firewall with high processing power and network edge protection. The great advantage is being able to implement in a VMware environment without worrying about hardware, rack space, physical network connections and others. It can be easily managed via the web and remotely to create protection, access and reporting rules. The VM-200 firewall can be used by any company, small or large because it has several models available according to the real needs of each one.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
  • Decrypt internet traffic
  • daily reporting of top internet users
  • classify internet traffic in real-time to allow us to understand the organization needs.
  • Strong AI capabilities
Read full review
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[.]
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
  • High Availability can be improved to allow active-active deployment
  • All command line documentation to provide and support automation
  • It will be nice to have link aggregation just like in the hardware firewall models.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
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.
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
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.
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto VM series are best selling and industry's top-selling security product which customers prefer while securing their public cloud environment
Read full review
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
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
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.
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
palo alto firewalls are application-oriented systems. They can beat other product which are based on layer 3/4 inspection. Vm series are also quickly available and could be useful in urgent deployment needs . other vendors like Fortinet and cisco could take much more time to provide the VM and in some cases installation and license validation are complicated
Read full review
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
Read full review
Palo Alto Networks
  • ROI has been achieved quickly through lack of security incidents.
  • Inline filtering happens at line rate, unline Sourcefire from Cisco.
  • Great incentives from PAN to switch made a difference in the choice to change.
Read full review
ScreenShots