TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Catalyst Center

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ACisco Catalyst Center provides an intent-based platform for managing enterprise networks across campus, branch, and edge environments. It combines automation, analytics, and assurance to streamline IT operations, improve security posture, and reduce manual tasks. With integratedAI/ML-driven insights, policy-based controls, and end-to-end visibility across wired and wireless infrastructures, Catalyst Center empowers IT teams toproactively detect issues, enforce compliance, and accelerate…N/A

    FortiGate

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AFortiNet FortiGate is a firewall option with high integrability. It offers a variety of deployment options and next-gen firewall capabilities, including integration with IaaS cloud platforms and public cloud environments.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—FortiGate pricing starts at $250 for home office use, up to $300,000 for large enterprise appliances. Must contact sales team for pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Fortinet
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    306 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    245 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    319 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    49 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    195 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    44 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    229 Answers
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Catalyst Center and Fortinet FortiGate
    Feature
    Cisco Catalyst Center
    -
    Ratings
    Fortinet FortiGate
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.951 Ratings
    Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.351 Ratings
    Content Inspection00 Ratings8.852 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.953 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings8.750 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.752 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.353 Ratings
    VPN00 Ratings9.152 Ratings
    High Availability00 Ratings9.348 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.251 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings8.539 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Cisco Meraki Dashboard
    Score9 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (343 ratings)
    8.7
    (79 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (9 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (19 ratings)
    8.7
    (21 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (33 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (5 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Catalyst CenterFortiGate
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Would recommend Cisco Catalyst Center to medium to large scale organizations that have many cookie-cutter sites and the resources to properly provision all their devices. I would not recommend to teams that do not have a strong network engineering team that can navigate the various intricacies of the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    Fortinet FortiGate addressed an immediate security issue we had a few years ago. The device gave us a much clearer picture of the activities on our network and also more importantly, increased our awareness of threats from the internet as a whole. Fortinet FortiGate helps us to mitigate these threats with regular signature updates from Fortiguard labs, identifying certain characteristics which, once recognised by Fortinet FortiGate, can be harnessed to deploy powerful 'playbooks'.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • Again, the ease of use of the APIs and the API Explorer provides the tools needed to write these custom workflows that allow us to do a lot of the automation we’re doing now, saving hundreds of hours by using those tools.
    • The product is very intuitive, and there is a lot of support out there in the DevNet community to help with that.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    • SD-WAN - Load balancing of Internet traffic is a USP of Fortigate and makes it stand tall in the competition. Be it 3 or more Internet Links, multiple Subnets/segments of users to distribute and bandwidth load balancing for links and users. SLA based monitoring of Internet Links / MPLS links, makes it even better to choose the links on the basis of performance (Latency, packet loss, Jitter etc).
    • SSL VPN configuration - As we all have WFH force (to some extend or all employee) during Covid-19, it is impossible to plan BCP without having a SSL VPN. In Fortigate, the SSL VPN configuration is very easy with the help of wizard. The deep CLI-level debugging is also very helpful in troubleshooting. Type of tunnel can be easily configured - Full Tunnel or Split Tunnel for SSL.
    • Explicit Proxy - This is also a great feature to shape and re-route the traffic, configuring the Proxy on the Firewall itself. We are using this feature in Pilot for now, and planned to rollout in few weeks looking at the success rate of the POC.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • Within its Tasks - Audit, it can sometimes allow plaintext data, including passwords, to be seen. There should be functionality to detect password usage and appropriately obfuscate the data.
    • Occasionally, Catalyst Center does not sync changes properly within templates, which requires deleting and reconfiguring the template version. Better processes here would be beneficial.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    • Documentation is missing a great deal of detail and assumes the customer and just guess and fill in the blanks themselves
    • Fortinet has lots and lots of video guides on topics that only a small percentage of customers would ever need
    • The documentation and video guides do not get updated so most is only relevant to older software versions
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    I think new products are often "half-baked" or over hyped when they release, as was the case with DNAC. We were well ahead of the curve in acquiring it. But as it has matured it is now a fantastic addition to our infrastructure. I think we are easing into a stage where it is hard to envision a large organization NOT having Catalyst Center in place. If for nothing outside of the mapping and troubleshooting aspects; using it as a "source of truth".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    Fortinet's products have kept improving with new software releases and they continue to deliver great value. Their support is also very good. I believe that as a small enterprise, their products have given us competitive advantage delivering features and functionality that enable us to innovate and do things better. They also continue to be a leader in the markets they serve.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    Cisco DNA Center is going to help us in security, simplicity and ease of administration. Cisco DNA Center is complete management and control platform that simplifies and streamlines network operations. Cisco DNA Center offers a single dashboard for every core function in your network. With this platform, IT can become more nimble and respond to changes and challenges faster and more intelligently.
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    The firewall runs very well, firmware updates are fairly quick but you must follow the upgrade path. Neglecting this step will cause a lot of pain. If you decide to go with Fortinet FortiGate switches and/or access points, they can be managed within the firewall which is great. We're also using the FortiAnalyzer which easily plugs into the firewall for any reporting you may require.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    We had didn't any hardware failures at our two main office locations and upgraded our units last year after using them for about 5-6 years
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    El soporte de CISCO DNA Center es muy bueno, responden a mis dudas pero no he tenido oportunidad de reportar un incidente o determinar un tiempo de respuesta critico. The support of CISCO DNA Center is very good, they answer my questions, but I have not had the opportunity to report an incident or determine a critical response time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    The Support team at Fortinet is excellent. They can not only help you configure the device for what you are trying to do, they offer suggestions on improving rules, and troubleshooting issues. Their response time is fast, ensuring you are up and running immediately with no questions asked. We had a hard drive failure in one of our Fortinet Fortigate appliances. The tech answered immediately, and started rebuilding the drive after some preliminary investigations. After rebuilding, there were still errors and issues, so they dispatched a brand new Fortinet Fortigate appliance. The tech then backed up the configurations for when the new device came in, which showed up in a few hours. A restore of the configuration took less than a minute, and there were no more errors or issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cisco
    It was informative, but the labs were not available long enough for us to get intimately familiar with CCNA before it was closed. The course instructor was well informed and got us as close to ready as she could.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Catalyst Centeris basic zero-touch provisioning out of the box. You just rack and stack the switches, patch 'em in, and the controller pushes the config automatically. No need to console into every single box or spend hours script-running over CLI.The AI-driven assurance and telemetry are top-tier. Instead of getting flooded with useless syslog alerts when a link drops, it correlates the telemetry data to give you proactive health checks. It literally pinpoints wireless anomalies and bandwidth chokepoints before the users even start opening tickets.It handles fabric microsegmentation like a boss through SD-Access and TrustSec. You can easily enforce group-based policies right at the hardware level. It drops IoT gear, guests, and corporate traffic into their own secure buckets dynamically, without you having to manage a trillion messy VLANs and ACLs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    [Fortinet] FortiGate is not only cost effective but it gives the comprehensive security against the APT attacks and gives the complete traffic visibility and granular control. You can easily create the VDOMs (Virtual firewall) within a Fortigate firewall and customize the dashboard as per your requirement if you have multiple VDOMs within a single firewall.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    No changes needed to terms and conditions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Fortinet
    My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
    • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Fortinet
    • The pricing given to us for our firewall was well within what we were already spending for other vendors solutions and had the added value of eliminating a separate expense for a dedicated web filtering appliance.
    • We have also adopted Fortinet's security fabric approach and thus changed vendors for our switch and AP devices. These devices have come at reduced prices as compared to another previous vendor we were using, particularly in relation to ongoing annual maintenance costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

    Screenshot of AIOpsScreenshot of BaselinesScreenshot of PoliciesScreenshot of HealthScreenshot of Network HierarchyScreenshot of PoE