Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Firewall
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Firewall (formerly Cisco Firepower NGFW) is a firewall product that integrates with other Cisco security offerings. It provides Advanced Malware protection, including sandboxing environments and DDoS mitigation. Cisco also offers a Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System, which provides security across cloud environments using techniques like internal network segmentation. The firewall can be managed locally, remotely, and via the cloud. The product is scalable to the scope of…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 Secure FirewallFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure FirewallFortiGate
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 Secure FirewallFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco Secure Firewall
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.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
We had a lot of bugs with CheckPoint, Cisco Secure Firewalls are much more reliable over time.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
result better in the use of policies and for the segregation of the customer infrastructure.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Because reputation of the brand, but fortinet its easier to operate
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco FTD ofers GUI management and overall if feature richer
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
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 …
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco FTD poc was more successful on our case
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco Firepower is a costlier solution but you get what you pay for, with the added costs Cisco provides a full feature solution to be configured in any scenario. The setup can be complex but sometimes this is needed for challenging setups. This is the full featured standard …
FortiGate

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Secure FirewallFortinet FortiGate
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Firewall
7.7
81 Ratings
11% below category average
Fortinet FortiGate
8.7
51 Ratings
1% above category average
Identification Technologies7.968 Ratings8.949 Ratings
Visualization Tools6.973 Ratings8.249 Ratings
Content Inspection7.872 Ratings8.950 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.478 Ratings8.851 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.065 Ratings8.748 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.576 Ratings7.750 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.477 Ratings8.151 Ratings
VPN7.866 Ratings9.150 Ratings
High Availability8.373 Ratings9.446 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.272 Ratings9.349 Ratings
Proxy Server6.942 Ratings8.737 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure FirewallFortinet 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
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Secure FirewallFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(88 ratings)
9.1
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.6
(19 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(2 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(37 ratings)
9.0
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.9
(2 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
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 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 Secure FirewallFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Well suited any edge kind of protection, which is obviously, again, what firewalls really used for. Less suited if you need more detailed protection, more granular, shall I say it's a better word, more granular protection. The ability to filter not just on IPS and ports, but a much deeper look at the packets and do that.
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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'.
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Pros
Cisco
  • It's been a big change for us because like I said, we've been using it about a year, I think. And we went from ASAs to this, so it was a big changeover from being able to do everything in CLI honestly, it's a bit clunky and more time consuming to have to configure things through the Gooey, which has been a pain point for us. But we've tried to automate as much as we can. What it does well is the analysis. The event, not event viewer, but unified event, that's what it is. Handy tool. Also the tunnel troubleshooting the site to site tunnel monitoring or troubleshooting, I can't remember what it's called. It's pretty good too. It's nice how it has some predefined commands in there. I'd say those are probably the things we like about it the most.
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.
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Cons
Cisco
  • I have one argument, failover scenario. It's not quite easy. Failover scenario of firewalls. It's sometimes not quite easy to know the issue. But if we open a tech case, a technical case to Cisco, Cisco will help us, it's a little bit con, but we are happy with this product.
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
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
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.
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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.
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Usability
Cisco
Solution is highly effective, offers a lot of features with constant improvements and additions of new features over time. It's relatively easy to get familiar with the system, especially if transitioning from adaptive security appliances. If this is not the case, as for learnability there's a learning curve but once learned it is relatively easy to remember the details about the system even after a period of non-use
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
We have had really good success with Cisco Secure Firewall when it comes to availability. Even when we’ve had temporary issues with one appliance or the other, or with the Firewall Management Center, it has stayed up and defended our network diligently. We even had an issue where the licensing got disabled for multiple days, and it kept spinning like a top
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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
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Performance
Cisco
no slowing down, vpn is working fast
Read full review
Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
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Support Rating
Cisco
Cisco support is not at all suitable for this product, at least. It takes a long for them to help us with our server issues. A lot of the time, the customer support person keeps on redirecting calls to another person. They need to be well versed with the terminologies of the product they are supporting us with. Support needs a lot of improvement. Cisco Fire Linux OS, the operating system behind Cisco Firepower NGFW (formerly Sourcefire), also doesn't receive regular patches. In short, average customer service.
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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.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
very good
Read full review
Fortinet
I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
Read full review
Online Training
Cisco
was a good training but questions was answered not so good. Training was "Fundamentals of Cisco Firewall Threat Defense and Intrusion Prevention (SFWIPF)".
Read full review
Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
In the beginning transition from Adaptive Security Appliance to Cisco Secure Firewall did not look like the best choice. Solution was new, there were a lot of bugs and unsupported features and the actual execution in the form of configuration via Firepower Management Center was extremely slow. Compare configuring a feature via CLI on ASA in a manner of seconds (copy/paste) to deployment via FMC to Secure Firewall which took approx. 10 mins (no exaggeration). Today, situation is a bit different, overall solution looks much more stable and faster then it was but there's still room for improvement.
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Fortinet
Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
I think the Cisco product is probably pretty much equal now. I would love to say that Cisco is way more advanced or whatever, but Palo Alto, they just focus solely really on firewalls. And before Cisco came out with the FTD, the ASAs would only do layer four. So that's one of the reasons why that we purchased the Palo Alto is because they would do layer seven. And when we went to the FTDs, since they do layer seven as well, we just wanted to have different layers of security with our firewalls. So we just put the Palo Altos behind the Ciscos in case that there was anything that the Ciscos didn't catch, the Palo Altos would.
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.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cisco
was not involved
Read full review
Fortinet
No changes needed to terms and conditions.
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Scalability
Cisco
you can choose up to 50 devices i think thats enough for our organization
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Fortinet
My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
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Professional Services
Cisco
was not involved
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Fortinet
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Some patching for zero day exploits have resulted in bugs causing downtime, meaning decision between vuln patching or risk of downtime needs to be discussed.
  • Peace of mind that the device will receive continued upgrades and with a quick turnaround.
  • Ability to use TAC for issues.
  • Ease of hiring candidates with experience in product line.
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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.
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