Cisco Firepower 4100 Series vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Firepower 4100 Series’ 1-rack-unit size is presented by the vendodr as ideal at the Internet edge and in high-performance environments. They further state that it shows what’s happening on your network, detects attacks earlier so you can act faster, and reduces management complexity.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 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
Firepower 4100
50,000-250,000
per appliance
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Firepower 4100 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 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series
Chose Cisco Firepower 4100 Series
As I mentioned before, the Fortigates have better failover. I think the Cisco interface is easier to use that that of the FortiGate. My only criticism would be that with multiple CLIs, it can get a bit confusing when you are trying to configure something or troubleshoot from …
Chose Cisco Firepower 4100 Series
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series deployment is straightforward and easy to implement. It is also can support high availability and able to achieve redundancy. Besides, firmware upgrade is quite simple and the process does not take much effort as the upgrade will be automatically …
FortiGate

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Firepower 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series
8.5
4 Ratings
1% below category average
Fortinet FortiGate
8.7
51 Ratings
1% above category average
Identification Technologies8.34 Ratings8.949 Ratings
Visualization Tools8.34 Ratings8.249 Ratings
Content Inspection8.03 Ratings8.950 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.34 Ratings8.851 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP10.03 Ratings8.748 Ratings
Firewall Management Console9.14 Ratings7.750 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.74 Ratings8.151 Ratings
VPN9.64 Ratings9.150 Ratings
High Availability9.34 Ratings9.446 Ratings
Stateful Inspection10.04 Ratings9.349 Ratings
Proxy Server5.52 Ratings8.737 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco Firepower 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(4 ratings)
9.1
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(19 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 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 Firepower 4100 SeriesFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
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.
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'.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • VPN Site to Site
  • High Availability / Failover
  • Ldap mapping to vpn connections
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
  • The failover process is clunky. When out Fortigate firewalls failed over, we lost 1 ping. When our Firepowers failover, whether it is on purpose or not, we experience a 2.5 minute complete outage.
  • Cisco could stand to improve their support documentation. I have found it difficult to find good directions for configuring these, especially when it comes to NAT and IPSEC tunnels.
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
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
No answers on this topic
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
In general, the Cisco Firepower 4100 Series works well, great performance, support a high volume of traffic, configuration, users, the device is powerful and once you have something configured you can be sure that it will rarely fail but for day to day troubleshooting or modifications needed can be a little complicated due to you have to deploy every change you make in the device and is not as fast as other devices, in general a deploy takes 5 minutes.
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.
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
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
Read full review
Support Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
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.
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
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
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series deployment is straightforward and easy to implement. It is also can support high availability and able to achieve redundancy. Besides, firmware upgrade is quite simple and the process does not take much effort as the upgrade will be automatically done by itself. Cisco Firepower 4100 Series is also very cost effective compared with other similar ranges of firewalls.
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
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
No changes needed to terms and conditions.
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
  • 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.
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.
Read full review
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