Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A
FortiGate
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
FortiNet 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 Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
Firepower 1000
1,000-5,000
per appliance
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesFortiGate
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFortiGate 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 Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
FortiGate NGFW, is also an excellent product with good processing power and traffic handling. But our client was previously familiar with Cisco Firepower, and we had resources to support it well. The trust and support facility of Cisco helped our client to choose Firepower over …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Not at the host level, but at network-level, Firepower is a great product for small scale businesses and the logging capability is excellent. The resource's accessibility for understanding the event type and support is well. Firepower is not a competitor for FortiGate. …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Cisco is preferable because, Fortinet FortiGate does not have the lowest cost in terms of initial purchase or maintenance. Some companies bundle their hardware, license, and support better. Cisco has a more modular approach that allows for choice but also complicates the buying …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is a challenger; it still needs improvement to become a leader like Checkpoint or Palo Alto. I installed Palo Alto firewalls, Checkopoint firewalls, and FortiGate, which are much more efficient for now than Cisco Firepower 1000 Series. I also had to …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
we have chosen Cisco in order to complete the Cisco full stack.
The price is higher than the competitors devices
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
We use both devices for different purposes. Both have their benefits, which we try to bring to best use in our environment.
This makes it hard to compare them. All I can say for sure is, that they work quite well as a team, each leveling out the others flaws.
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Fortinet's GUI is much better to work in over FTD hardware comparable to FTD.
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
[We've used] checkpoint 2200 and 3200 models. Based on the compromises we had to make by not applying the "Optimised" IPS profile and High CPU problems, I would suggest Firepower 1000 but Meraki MX series can take away the spot light from Firepower 1000.
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
The Cisco Firepower 1140 hit the sweet spot between performance and price. Also, I am more familiar with Cisco products so I wanted to stay on that side. We looked at the Firepower 2110, but thought the 1140 was a better fit for our needs.
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
In terms of cost-effectiveness, Cisco gives the same or better service at a lower cost compared to Palo Alto devices. There are other products in the market with similar protection services and even lower cost but customer service is not as good as Cisco. So, it is a combined …
Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Cisco is up there, not the lowest cost in terms of initial purchase or maintenance. Also not quite the best in terms of reputation yet but getting better. Some companies bundle their hardware, license, and support better. Cisco has a more modular approach that allows for choice …
FortiGate

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
8.3
33 Ratings
2% below category average
Fortinet FortiGate
9.2
38 Ratings
8% above category average
Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings9.636 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.130 Ratings8.736 Ratings
Content Inspection8.230 Ratings8.937 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.633 Ratings9.638 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.629 Ratings9.237 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.032 Ratings9.638 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.033 Ratings8.238 Ratings
VPN9.128 Ratings9.738 Ratings
High Availability9.232 Ratings9.733 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.828 Ratings9.636 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 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 Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
7.3
(34 ratings)
9.5
(65 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(2 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
8.5
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(29 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(34 ratings)
8.6
(26 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.5
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
Read full review
Fortinet
For FortiGate Firewall, the basic functionality and requirement is met easily as Fortigate is among market leaders in NGFW. There are some extra points that inclined us to use Fortigate as our main Firewall. [Fortinet]Fortigate has a very well refined and functional SD-WAN solution when it comes to load balancing for normal Internet Traffic. 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 - 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. Though, I think Fortigate is one of the best options for small and mid-sized organizations, there are some areas for improvement. First, the CLI interface is very hard to adapt as the commands and directory hierarchy is very different for common syntax and standards.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
  • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
Read full review
Fortinet
  • It is the most reliable NGFW that we have ever been touch with it.
  • You can easily upgrade the firewall cluster firmware without user attention!!!
  • User IDentity based feature is fantastic and intrusion prevention just works with least false-positive possible.
  • Very reachfull and intuitive GUI, just love it
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
  • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
  • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
  • Speed to data can use improvement.
  • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
Read full review
Fortinet
  • When we switched to Fortinet Fortigate, it took some time getting used to and become familiar with the new interface. Being used to strictly command-line interfaces, a full GUI-based firewall was something brand new. Careful planning had to be done when creating rules to ensure we didn't miss anything. However, once we got used to the new GUI interface, going from one Fortinet product to another was simple, as Fortinet used the same interface for all of its devices.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
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.
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
Read full review
Fortinet
The user interface shared among many simultaneous users is very easy to get around. With shared favorites among users, most tasks are easily bookmarked and can quickly be found and edited. Their strategy for web filter integration is easy to understand and manage as well. With some general direction, setup and maintenance were easy to do and easy to teach others in the organization to do as well.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Has not let me down yet.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
Read full review
Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
Read full review
Support Rating
Cisco
I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
Read full review
Fortinet
We live in Turkey. Fortinet's Turkey office [dealt] constantly with us in our every problem or our experience. In addition, global support teams also supported every ticket we opened in every problem we encountered. They support innovative approaches and evaluate and offer solutions. In this context, they were very supportive of the problems we encountered in previous versions.
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.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Cisco
Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
Read full review
Fortinet
Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
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.
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
  • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
  • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
Read full review
Fortinet
  • Fortigates have an interesting bundle model for support and subscription services that make it an attractive option to deploy Firewall, IDS, Ant-virus, anti-SPAM in a single device. The cost of the bundle is pretty much what you pay for the device, not requiring huge expenditures on it's time to renew the hardware.
Read full review
ScreenShots