Cisco Secure Firewall delivers comprehensive threat protection for modern, distributed networks. Built to support hybrid workforces and multicloud environments, it enables Zero Trust access, application visibility, and secure remote connectivity. With integration across the Cisco Secure portfolio, including SecureX and Talos threat intelligence, the firewall powers organizations to detect and stop more sophisticated threats. Centralized management simplifies policy enforcement, orchestration,…
N/A
FortiGate
Score 8.5 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 Secure Firewall
Fortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure Firewall
FortiGate
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No 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.
Manager Enterprise Systems & Networks Infrastructure
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
I believe Cisco firewalls are definitely on par with Palo Alto but the latest AI feature releasing in 2024 will certainly surpass all expectations. Fortinet is going to struggle after this and I can say that with certainty given we have removed all our FortiGate firewalls.
The Cisco Secure Firewall has less throughput than the Juniper SRX but easier integration and management. The FortiGate is extremely competitive in pricing and has a capable gui, but often gets called out for security vulnerebilities
Fortinet is a great competitor but it has had a lot of vulnerabilities and fair share of issues. We chose Cisco Secure Firewall solely because we are a CIsco environment that uses a lot of the Cisco products. We use the Catalyst switches, the Meraki switches and access points …
Fortinet and Palo both offer strong firewall capabilites but integrating them with the rest of our Cisco infra required additionnal efforts and multiple management consoles (so less visibility). With Cisco Secure Firewall, everyting operates in a complementary and unified way …
Having worked in the Fortinet and Sonicwall space, I have found that the Cisco Secure Firewall platform is the easiest to work with. The platform is easily customizable and overall very clean. Cisco has kept the platform feeling fresh with regular updates.
Cisco Secure Firewall works better with the Cisco ecosystem when we can utilize it and feels beefy enough when we utilize it in the data center. The Fortinet we have found are great, small cost boxes for remote offices with a better UI then Cisco Secure Firewalls. The feature …
Palo Alto has better architecture with their multi cpu concept that increases throughoutput. Cisco has better features and mostly better integrations outside of their eco system. Overall the products and features of cisco are slightly better but if cisco would implement the …
I can't think of scenarios where it is less appropriate, unless we are talking about real tiny businesses. More businesses will find Cisco Secure Firewall an outstanding tool to use, love, and trust from a reputable Network giant vendor. It is a must for businesses that want to focus on what they are doing, and leaving the network security for the pros.
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'.
Cisco's firewall actually does its job of blocking what it is supposed to block. We had an old Firewall that led to slippages. Cisco catches 97% of malware and vulnerabilities during testing. For Coitiar, that means an engineer who clicks a link with malware is handled quickly.
We actually tested if failovers would affect running sessions. We pulled our primary unit during a certification submission period. The firewall just switched, and the connection kept running.
The AI assistant in policy management is excellent, and for our lean team, it makes the whole process easy and efficient. I don't have to audit 200 policies manually; the AI steps in and does its thing.
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.
I mean I think a lot of the technology with managing them is getting better. There's a few cons to the new firewall management console. You can't sort through routes or I think you can with interfaces now, but there's a few caveats that they haven't really worked out yet, but they're implementing AI into it, so it's getting to be a lot easier to use.
It works really well. We can do most anything we want or need to with it, and you don’t have to have a doctorate or multiple certs to necessarily figure it out. The thing that would probably have to happen to make us switch would be if we just got priced out - Cisco’s more powerful and higher bandwidth models cost a pretty penny.
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.
i think overall after ALOT of tac cases it works allright now. But still have alot of issues if you use cloud based mangement. fx, if you open 2 windows of access policys, both of the pages, rules starte to jump form side to side. if you then open one more list, its start to jump even faster. if you close the 2 of them, its back to normal. ALSO the extended access lists for VPN, SUCKS. Its the tiniest window when opening the editor, and you are not able to give the rules names, Which means finding and editing rules SUCKS, its a horrible experience, and eveytime we have to we want to yell :P
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.
We have not had any performance issues with Cisco Secure Firewall, even with DPI and IPS enabled, we have not seen a performance hit. Emoployes have not complained about any slow network speeds that could have been attributed to the secure firewall it has always been something else within the office network.
I rarely get the support I need in the time I need it. Often, while they are "looking at packet captures and going to get back to me" I fix the problem on my own. If you were to look at my TAC cases over the past year, you would see some very lengthy cases that usually ended with me contacting the TAC person and telling them to just close the case
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.
was a good training but questions was answered not so good. Training was "Fundamentals of Cisco Firewall Threat Defense and Intrusion Prevention (SFWIPF)".
Our initial implementation was aided by Cisco's professional services and was excellent. The engineer was very knowledgeable and helped us work through issues while building out our new internet security edge Part of this involved tools to migrate the firewall configuration from old to new.
Cisco Secure Firewall works better with the Cisco ecosystem when we can utilize it and feels beefy enough when we utilize it in the data center. The Fortinet we have found are great, small cost boxes for remote offices with a better UI then Cisco Secure Firewalls. The feature set included with the firewalls feels similar from a security point of view.
[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.
A solid, realistic rating most people give for Cisco Secure Firewall pricing is 7 or 8 out of 10 (because the product is strong but licensing can be a bit complex)
Cisco Secure Firewall has never given us any trouble, it has stayed up at all times, upgrading the appliance has also become much simpler. We operate the appliance in a HA pair, so 0% downtime within our organisation. During switchover while upgrading, not a single packet seems to get lost, so this has been a very valuable asset to our company.
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.
