Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs. Zscaler Internet Access

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Score 7.8 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
Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Zscaler Internet Access™ (ZIA) is a secure web gateway (SWG), delivering cloud native cyberthreat protection and zero trust access to the internet and SaaS apps.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Editions & Modules
Firepower 1000
1,000-5,000
per appliance
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Considered Both Products
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
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
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 …
Zscaler Internet Access

No answer on this topic

Features
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
8.4
33 Ratings
3% below category average
Zscaler Internet Access
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.230 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection8.330 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.733 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.529 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.232 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.333 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN9.228 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability9.232 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.928 Ratings00 Ratings
Identity Management
Comparison of Identity Management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
5.2
2 Ratings
54% below category average
Multi-Factor Authentication00 Ratings5.22 Ratings
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
9.9
2 Ratings
4% above category average
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings9.92 Ratings
Threat Intelligence
Comparison of Threat Intelligence features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
8.5
134 Ratings
4% below category average
Network Analytics00 Ratings8.4134 Ratings
Threat Recognition00 Ratings8.4131 Ratings
Vulnerability Classification00 Ratings8.6117 Ratings
Automated Alerts and Reporting00 Ratings8.4127 Ratings
Threat Analysis00 Ratings8.8125 Ratings
Threat Intelligence Reporting00 Ratings8.7124 Ratings
Automated Threat Identification00 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
Zero Trust Security
Comparison of Zero Trust Security features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
-
Ratings
Zscaler Internet Access
8.9
157 Ratings
3% below category average
Continuous Verification00 Ratings8.7144 Ratings
Secure Web Gateways00 Ratings8.9139 Ratings
Network Flow Control00 Ratings8.9129 Ratings
Network Traffic Analysis00 Ratings8.6130 Ratings
Segmentation Leveraging00 Ratings8.4116 Ratings
Admin Access Control00 Ratings9.0138 Ratings
Network Data Encryption00 Ratings8.9126 Ratings
Network Topology Mapping00 Ratings9.92 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
ThreatLocker
ThreatLocker
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access
Score 8.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(34 ratings)
8.8
(180 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(2 ratings)
8.5
(3 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
8.4
(164 ratings)
Availability
8.1
(2 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(29 ratings)
5.5
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(34 ratings)
7.3
(6 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesZscaler Internet Access
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
Zscaler
Zscaler Internet Access is effectively a cloud firewall. It thrives best for traveling users that need a consistent experience as the multiple Service Edges around the world will help reduce the bottleneck and latency of VPNs hosted on firewalls. Also reduces the cost to spin up small locations that wouldn't necessarily need a firewall on site for Zonal traffic (this rings true for any SSE product). However troubleshooting this tool is a bit of a beast as previously mentioned - the logs are pretty minimal and the first reaction after perusing logs is typically to get a pcap file (which used to be a last resort for Network Engineers).
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
Zscaler
  • Single Pane of Glass Management - Everything is very easy to access and monitor the entire environment from an internet security perspective.
  • Install Flexibility - We can and do install Zscaler Internet Access on both our client devices as well as our SD-WAN appliances and servers. This allows us to control internet security even on devices without an agent in our networks.
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
Zscaler
  • User Interface could be a little better
  • The activate button when making changes could be better, activate seems somewhat like a misnomer especially to newer admins/engineers to the product, a more accurate word would be publish.
  • Blocked action message for the user could be more user friendly
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
Zscaler
It is working for us and we have yet to really utilize all the capabilities it offers.
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
Zscaler
The application is easy to install and configure on all Windows devices. To troubleshoot any internet issue, we can easily collect all the relevant logs from Zscaler and check the exact issue. The only problem is with the uninstall, as a dedicated crew needs to provide the password.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Has not let me down yet.
Read full review
Zscaler
No answers on this topic
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
Zscaler
There are often performance issues reported
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
Zscaler
I cannot give a fair rating for this as I have not had to contact Zscaler support. There was one time we had to contact them because we needed to check if they were having issues on their end. Our ISP was actually the problem but support seemed very friendly.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Cisco
Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
Read full review
Zscaler
No answers on this topic
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
Zscaler
Zscaler Intenet Access outperformed the competition due to its lightning-fast policy delivery and cross-compatibility. It is easy to track employee usage and block unnecessary websites, reducing company internet usage. Zscalar installed on every system increases cloud-based software bandwidth, decreasing user turnaround time and increasing efficiency.
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
Zscaler
  • We just turned off the general VPN this week, post Zscaler rollout of ZPA & ZIA, but it's still the "new" kid on the block, so "everything" is a Zscaler issue.
  • The ZIA implementation revealed to us exactly how inadequate our internal policies regarding internet access are. Instead of leveraging the tool to reduce risk factors, we find ourselves adjusting ZIA policies to accommodate user complaints rather than adhering to company policy enforcement.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Zscaler Internet Access Screenshots

Screenshot of Stop Advanced Threats and Data Loss
Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) is a cloud native security service edge (SSE) solution that builds on a decade of secure web gateway leadership. Offered as a scalable SaaS platform through the world’s largest security cloud, it replaces legacy network security solutions, preventing advanced attacks and data loss with a comprehensive zero trust approach. ZIA is integrated seamlessly into the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ to provide superior defense-in-depth, secure connectivity, end user experience, and administrative visibility and control.