Cisco Nexus Dashboard vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Nexus Dashboard provides a simplified, centralized data center dashboard that enables businesses to manage their hybrid cloud network operations.N/A
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
F5 Networks offers the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager, a firewall software combining a number of features including DDoS, DNS security, and other protections.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
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 Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Nexus Dashboard
-
Ratings
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
8.6
2 Ratings
1% above category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)
Score 7.6 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(36 ratings)
7.6
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Nexus DashboardF5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights is a powerful network monitoring software. It may assist you in more effectively monitoring your network. With the program's assistance, we can detect a wide range of network flaws and irregularities. Furthermore, it eliminates an interruption in the services we offer our consumers while also allowing us to reduce our high rates. Technicians no longer need to utilize CLI to copy and paste hundreds of coding lines. If you want a powerful programmable management program for your next-generation data centre, this is the program for you.
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F5
We were able to eliminate a firewall from our network architecture by integrating the module into our existing F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM). This allowed us to save on tech refresh costs, since the F5 was able to handle the module without much additional strain on the device. However, if a firewall had features that the AFM lacked, then using that firewall in tandem with an F5 would be preferable.
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Pros
Cisco
  • It is a flexible tool that helps streamline and facilitate the development of new services.
  • Ideal for automating tasks such as network modification, configuration, and removal, which provides great time savings.
  • Ensures services without interruption and without difficult scheduling.
  • It has a simple user interface and excellent support, made up of several providers.
  • It facilitates the administration of managed services.
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F5
  • Load balancing using pools
  • SSL offloading
  • iRules for threat handling
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Cons
Cisco
  • With the latest version release of Cisco Nexus Dashboard to version 3.0.1 I can say that most of the features have already improved but one of the wishlists that I want for ND is the possibility of extracting lists of Anomaly.
  • Include older versions of Firmware in the list of choices when doing the firmware upgrade analysis, currently only the recommended is in the list of choices.
  • If possible, include all the prechecks in the Firmware pre-upgrade analysis same in the script provided by Cisco.
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F5
  • If unsure, can be overly cautious.
  • There are few changes the end user can make.
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Usability
Cisco
For the end user, it is relatively easy to use. However, some training and practice is a must because the NSO is not as straightforward as the traditional router CLI. For the administrator, Cisco Network Service Orchestrator (NSO) is just like another program running on the Linux system--there is no big difference.
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F5
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
Great and effective automation functionalities and the tools on network security management are the best and easy data reports building. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller feature for the network monitoring and easy management of various services and even offers the best analytics and also powerful integration tools for easy data migration.
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F5
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
F5
F5 Advanced Firewall Manager has been a solid, strong solution to both keep our systems safe and being seamless for our end users. Most of the time, the end-user is not impacted and does not even know F5 Advanced Firewall Manager is running which is exactly what we are looking for.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
It's an upgrade from DCNM and worth looking into. We're trying to solve the issue of Creating and maintaining VLAN fabrics. Speed and ease of use are much better than other options. The app is great; the functionality is solid. Though It can have an improved UI, and user navigation could be simpler. It helps track your data and pipelines; you can set it up in different ways to monitor different flows about where its data is. It has in-built integration with Splunk, which is what was helpful.
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F5
Both F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] and Radware require training as they are not easy to use. But Radware uses some configuration that needs deep learning and proper labs. From an admin's perspective, Configuration and management for F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager are] less. Also, the cost of implementing F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] is lesser than that of Radware Alteon.
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Scalability
Cisco
The platform is very well done, and to date, I have had no complaints about the implementation of the platform and no security issues or vulnerabilities. Cisco in all its product releases new versions to resolve security issues or bugs that appear on the platform, this is a big plus.
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F5
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • From the experience of use, I can affirm that the tool improves the user experience since it reduced the time in the administration of the infrastructure, the prediction of events, as well as the suggestions for solving the problems.
  • all the aforementioned has been simplified thanks to the tool, in turn, it helps us to maintain the network in high availability.
  • The impact has been very positive due to the simplification of the administration, which in turn reduces the detection times, leading to a reduction in costs.
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F5
  • When we had to decide on whether to buy different hardware our team were all in support of renewal for F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager]
  • F5 [BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager] requires proper training on tools and clear concepts of packets, headers, and content to create WAF policies
  • Overall, we are satisfied by the ROI provided by our F5 AFM and GTMs
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ScreenShots